470 
CORRESPONDENCE. 
sioned officers ; they won’t let him ; they don’t prevent him, 
however, from holding high jinks with the soldier. He hunts 
the society of the jack rabbit on the frontier posts, or shuts him¬ 
self up within himself. He is not respected professionally by 
the enlisted man. He is familiarily known as “ Dock,” same 
as Flannigan’s off-wheel mule. He is never a member of the 
club (yon know what a club is—whiskey, newspapers, billiards 
and lies, although there are some of them who read and are 
billiard-players and liars too). He gets $12 a month in lieu of 
rent, if there are no quarters vacant, and pays $24. or J25. He 
gets choice of quarters after the regimental staff (enlisted men). 
He is not allowed to join an officers’ mess ; he can “ feed his 
face ” wherever else he may. When visiting an outside station 
his allowance for expenses stops the minute he gets off the 
train ; they assign him to a troop for grub, for which he has to 
pay ; he sleeps where he can or sits up. He is not allowed 
forage for a horse. He is not furnished with a single book ex¬ 
cept the “ Farmer’s Veterinary Adviser,” by Law—a good book 
in its place, no doubt. He borrows the “ horse medicines ” and 
“veterinary tools” from the quartermaster’s department, and 
such “ tools ” and such “ horse medicines ” ! His treatment of 
animals is frequently changed by troop commanders, who have 
become “ eccentric ” from army monotony and reading the 
“ Pilgrim’s Progress.” He generally keeps his “ head shut,” or 
“ roars,” and gets the worst of it. His farriers, no, not his, the 
farriers generally, know more than he does, and often his “ sug¬ 
gestions ” are laughed at. He is never allowed mileage, but is 
given actual transportation. He is not allowed to transport a 
library when changing station ; his allowance is 500 lbs., same 
as a sergeant of staff ; if he has a few books he goes down in his 
jeans for the freight bill; the enlisted man, a hospital stew¬ 
ard, is allowed a library ; the horse doctor, dern him, is not. His 
warrant (he gets one) says he is a sergeant-major, but the Adju¬ 
tant-General says he is nothing, simply a thing, a qtiad^ 
so to speak. He is the lineal descendant of the old army horse 
doctor of bottle-and-rag fame. His name is Dennis, without 
hope, devoid of ambition, a stick, a social outcast, and a good 
man killed by army usage. 
A few things about him in the field : 
He is not entitled to a sleeping-berth. When traveling 
with troops he sits up in the day coach with the soldiery. He 
is allowed 150 pounds of baggage in field. He is mounted on 
a government horse in the field. He is not allowed rations; he 
