The Times of Tuesday publishes an article on the progress
so far made in " Rowtonising " our barracks. Though as yet the cubicles have only been used at Woking and Dublin Barracks, which were not built with a view to cubicles, and the experiment has thus been partial and imperfect, they have proved a very great success. In certain cases men possessing cubicles have refused promotion to the rank of lance-corporal because the corporals have to sleep in the common dormitories,—a strong proof of the favourable feeling among the men. But after all, is it not a little ridiculous to discuss gravely whether the soldier will or will not like cubicles when we know that what the men, often of exactly the same class, most like in a Rowton House is the cubicle system P Men do not cease to be like their fellows because they engage to serve their country. We note that the writer in the Times mentions, though, we are glad to see without sympathy, the suggestion that only a favoured section of the men should have cubicles, and that the recruit should begin in a common dormitory. That is a most fatuous proposal. What will help recruiting will be the recruit's knowledge that during his first and succeeding nights in barracks he will not be exposed to what he imagines, though usually quite erroneously, is the "roughing" and " bullying " of his comrades. The promise of a cubicle after two years' service will have no attractive force. The War Office may rest assured that the upholders of the cubicle system will not be content until the experiment has been tried in a barrack in which all the men have cubicles, and not merely a percentage.
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