402 
A. A. HOLCOMBE. 
army, unless lie is young, careless of his opportunities for the 
future, and anxious to see things at any cost; for he is not a 
commissioned officer, but is in reality a civilian employed to care 
for Government property, and being without rank, has no asso¬ 
ciates except it be the enlisted men of his regiment, or the 
civilians at his post. He cannot expect nor does he receive any 
social consideration from the officers. Educated as the great 
majority of Veterinary Surgeons now are, this exclusion alone is 
sufficient to deter most from seeking entrance to the army, for 
the officers make the breach between themselves and the civilian 
employee almost as impassable as that between them and the men 
in the ranks. In most instances it matters not what the Veteri¬ 
nary Surgeon’s antecedents may have been ; he may be a member 
of one of the best families in the country, a graduate of Harvard 
and highly accomplished in every respect, yet he must expect to 
be unnoticed socially, and, if opportunity offers, snubbed, espe¬ 
cially by the younger officers. What matters it that they served 
in the ranks a few months ago, and married their laundress or an 
officer’s servant! They don’t know Latin from Greek, nor 
French from German; they never saw good society, nor do they 
know what it is, but they have been made a Second Lieutenant, 
and that alone entitles them to a consideration which intelligence 
and real worth cannot command. They may concede, perhaps, 
that you were a gentleman until you studied veterinary medi¬ 
cine. That was unpardonable. If you had spent half the effort 
to acquire a knowledge of human medicine, you would have 
been gladly received as a Surgeon. But you are a “ horse doc¬ 
tor !” They really don’t know what that is, only that it is some¬ 
thing “ awfully vulgar !” 
And your family fares even worse. It doesn’t count with 
them that you married the accomplished daughter of an ex-army 
officer, and that your children are the brightest at the post. 
.Neither they nor their mother are considered suitable associates 
for the ex-laundress and her offspring. And yet all officers have 
been civilians, have married civilians, and their children, in most 
instances, marry or become civilians, and as civilians they are 
valued by sensible people at their true worth, irrespective of their 
profession, providing it is honorable. 
