MILITARY SEAT 393 



use by a military man is a mere fad. I have seen many 

 more " umnilitar}'- " seats — if there still be such a thing — 

 since the introduction among soldiers of the English sad- 

 dle than before. It seems to breed a loosish seat— I by no 

 means say a bad one, but a free-and-easy method — the 

 very best in its place, but quite too slipshod for the sol- 

 dier. A man naturally leans forward in a flat saddle 

 rather than sits erect, and so long as we insist on a soldier 

 being well set-up, why not make him ride erect as well? 

 The perfect seat and method for a soldier is, I maintain, 

 the one which enables him to preserve an upright, well- 

 set-up position in the saddle, to ride with one hand, at 

 need without any, to have his sword-arm at all times free, 

 and on occasions both. I have nowhere seen so near an 

 approach to this seat and method as in the officers of 

 our own regular cavalry, and they ride McClellan or 

 AVhitman saddles. It is quite possible for the soldier to 

 have it, and yet not hang down his arm like a pump- 

 handle and stick out his thumb, as the merry caricaturist 

 will have it that he does. And as to effectiveness, the 

 proof of the pudding is in the eating, and it would puzzle 

 the best cavalry of Siuy nation to follow some of our 

 veteran squadrons across the Bad Lands in pursuit of a 

 band of bucks on the war-path, or, for the matter of that, 

 to hold head to them when caught. 



A soldier in Europe used to be a soldier, afoot or ahorse- 

 back. Now he is not unwont to be a dawdling kind of a 

 rider, and he threatens in many places to become as bad 

 a footman. Ramrod setting-up and pipe-clay may both 

 be overdone; but the new tactics may also go too far in 

 relying on individual intelligence and initiative. A good 

 setting-up, mounted or not, does a man no harm, and it 

 should be conserved for what it is really worth. Officers 

 and men both threaten to slouch too much. Because the 



