The representative of the Pall Mall, of course, merely notes
a fact, as was his duty, but no doubt many determinations were formed by energetic and exact officers and drill-ser- geants to drill this wanton elasticity learnt in the battle- field out of the men as soon as possible, and to repair the damage done to the sacred parade movements by the die. agreeable and useless discipline of war. Those, however, who have the bad taste to prefer the spring and elasticity—that is what "war slackness" really means—to the ramrod precision of the parade-ground will wonder whether the time spent on reinstructing the men in duties of a kind in which theatrical supers will in the end always beat them, will not be worse than wasted. Besides, if the elasticity and ease imparted by war training make men at first unable to perform parade. drill to perfection, is not the converse probably true, and does not parade stiffness at first render men too inelastic for active work in the field ? But if this is so, is there not a very obvious moral to be drawn ?
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