12 PINK AND SCARLET 



are many more youths who race and bet, who can 

 no more ride than a sack of peas, than there are 

 who ride and keep horses themselves. The latter, 

 if keen and the right sort, eschew these things for 

 fear of losing money, and so being unable to keep 

 their horses. 



Commanding officers, do not refuse leave, or 

 make trouble about soldier grooms, and you will 

 be repaid a hundred-fold in many ways. 



To look at the reverse of the medal, think all of 

 you — fathers, mothers, guardians, and commanding 

 officers — what a pitiable and helpless object a man 

 is who cannot ride when he becomes a mounted 

 officer. It will be worse should such a one become 

 a Staff officer, and, moreover, as such he will, except 

 on an office stool, be practically useless ; more than 

 this even, for his consequent slowness and indirect- 

 ness of movement when sent with an order may be 

 actually harmful. 



Again, think how ridiculous a man placed in 

 either of the above-named positions will appear to 

 many of those to whom he has to give orders, and 

 in how many ways his want of knowledge will be 

 apparent. 



Fact always provides better illustrations than 

 fiction, and in this case it provides an example of 

 an officer who had just passed into the Staff 

 College, when going some distance to look at a 

 horse with a view to purchase, taking his own 

 saddle with him, and when the owner suggested 

 that the horse had better have on the saddle he 



