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Show ARMY HOMESICKNESS. LLM With scare head-lines and hldious pictures tho New York Herald prints an interesting letter H from Manila, the theme being, "The mania for suicide among the officers and men of the Ameri- can army in the Philippines." He ascribes the BH causes as the whiskey of America, the sam-shoo of the Chinese and the vino of the Tagals (native drinks surcharged with vegetable poison) and lonliness. It is a pitiable showing, but the same H phenomenon is seen in greater or less degree in all armies. Very many men when they enlist in H a standing army do so as a last resort. Thiough H crime or misfortune their hopes have died and H they join the army to try to get rid of their own H thoughts. But we suspect the chiefest cause of H suicide in our army in the Philippines is home- B sickness. It is a disease in all armies. Men B afflicted with it will desert knowing perfectly well B that they will almost certainly be arrested and, H if arrested, shot. They cannot desert in the B Philippines and so kill themselves. This home- B sickness is one of the most trying things that B confront army officers. In time or war desertion B is punishable by death. It is necessarily so. WM Without it an army might be utterly demoralized mwM In the face of the enemy. But they are often Mw called upon to order the execution of men whom mwM ' they know to be brave and faithful soldiers, their mm only crime being an insatiable longing for a sight M of home and loved faces until it final- "1 ly becomes a desire so irresistible thai H not even the imminent prospect of a H dishonorable death could restrain them. This MM can be partially neutralized In time of peace by; H supplying innocent amusements and congenial H studies for the men, but In active war there is H no chance for this and so the sombre work goes H on, and officers can no more cone with it or find H for it a remedy, than they could in the days of B Caesar or when old Cambyses wasted his army B in the deserls of Egypt. B Nothing so establishes the fact that civilization B rests more on the presence and influence of pure B women than the condition of men when that in- B fluence is for a little while withdrawn. It is al- B ways noticeable on the wild frontier from which B women are excluded; it was most strikingly dls- B played when two hundred thousand young men M rushed almost in a body to California and lived In "mm isolated mining camps for a year or two. It is MwM always seen in an army, especially when the WMM army is in detachments stationed at isolated parts 11 on the fringe of the frontier. ymM Science Is baffled at the problem presented and B at present all that can be done is to nurse the MM hope that arjnles will soon be reduced under the MM reign of a: new peace, that the thirst for gold MM will grow less and less, that there will be fewer M and fewer excitements to draw men away and JMm that the truth will be bettor realized that about H all that can be relied upon to insure the calm and M the peace that men covet is the sanctity of the M home fireside. M J |