A hundred year's ago From the 'Spectator', 16 November, 1867—A
curious fact has come out to illustrate how what the physiologists call "reflex action" works on soldiers in their first battle. Official returns of the battle of Gettysburg, quoted by the Pall Mall Gazette, show that of the 27.000 stand of arms found on the field at least 24,000 were loaded, about 12,000 contained two loads each, and about 6,000 contained from three to ten loads each. In many-of the guns from two to six balls with only one charge of powder were found. In one Spring- field gun twenty-three loads in regular order were found. It is evident, then, that the untrained soldiers unconsciously occupy themselves in ram- ming down charge after charge in their guns. as an absent man is said once to have put on five pairs of spectacles in succession when laid by some boy in the place from which he usually took them.
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