The story of the old Colonel who declared that nothing,
spoilt a regiment so utterly as active service is well known. It has a counterpart in a remark made in the Pall Mall Gazette of Wednesday in a description of the review by the King of the 2nd Batn. of the Scots Guards, just returned from South Africa. Under the cross-heading of "War Slackness," the writer in the Pall Mall Gazette tells us that though the men of this veteran regiment looked extremely fit and well-set-up it was remarked that, "as appears to be the inevitable rule, the purely ceremonial parade movements which were per- formed before the King were not so sharply carried out as they usually are by units that have been at home for some time. The circumstance is noted in no spirit of captious criticism ; indeed, merely as that which can always be observed in troops that have been accustomed for some time to the looser movements and formations that are peculiar to campaigns conducted under modern conditions of warfare."
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