236 EQUIPMENT FOR MOBILITY 



actual national training in manhood which has 

 averted the fall of the British Empire. More- 

 over, the British military training manu- 

 factures a gentleman who can be trusted by 

 the enemy with the care of his wife and 

 daughters. If it is useful in the making of his 

 manhood we should not grudge him a saddle 

 for the prevention of riding. Morally, such a 

 saddle is as good for Tommy as it is for the rich 

 folk of the hunting field. 



It is when one begins to consider mobihty 

 in the field that the pleasure saddle seems an 

 odd selection. Why not a skipping rope ? 

 Troops using the English equipment have 

 rarely averaged twenty-one miles a day. 

 Troops using the stock saddle have rarely gone 

 so slow. The old war saddle has a record of 

 nine hundred years in every kind of warfare ; 

 and has survived the extreme test of the stock 

 range in replacing the English saddle with the 

 Mounted Police, and mounted troops of Canada. 

 Only the mistaken energies of sportsmen in 

 the British Army displaced the practical 

 equipment designed by soldiers. A return to 

 the old saddle would increase the mobility of 

 all mounted troops. 



Horsemanship. ■ A hundred years ago the 

 recruit came from a farm and had been raised 



