SHEEP AND GOATS
Life in the new Army teaches a man to look after himself. This is especially true of the larger camps, and the rule appears to be that “they shall take who have the power and they shall keep who can.”
A story illustrative of this is told of one of the Yorkshire regiments now in training. The cold weather had led some of the men to forage for extra blankets one night, and when next morning they were warned that the colonel was coming round for kit inspection they were too busy cleaning and preparing to put matters right again. The result was that when the men paraded some of them had three or four blankets while others had no blanket at all.
The colonel noticed this in his inspection, but said no word until he had been wholly round. Then, drawing himself up in front of the men, he thundered:—
“Ahem, major, one-half the regiment are simple fools, and the other half are bloomin’ thieves.”