It has not spread to the British army yet although nobody knows to what extent mechanization will go, but it is reported that in some of the military camps in the United States the bugler has been abolished. Instead of the husky-lunged bugler performing in person the annoying duty of dragging soldiers out of bed and telling them when they may eat, gramophone records with loud-speaker attachments throughout the camp do the job much better through the mere medium of pulling a switch and keeping it on until obedience has been obtained. It is a pity because while it is a good idea and shows what science applied to ordinary affairs is able to do it does spoil a grand tradition. The bugler, in romantic fiction, is always the hero who, harassed by the foe and his lifeblood seeping out, refuses to sound the retreat and thereby s the battle In fact, he is also a hero because nobody who has to get up out of a warm bed on a cold winter morning when the sun is beginning to show itself. can imagine anybody of anything except heroic calibre who could get up even earlier merely to perform this brutal ceremony of saluting the morn. In more pacific days in China when military service had not reached the terrible trials witnessed today. one of the great complaints of foreigners travelling in the interior was against the performances of buglers who in practically every place: visited used to climb the highest point of vantage and start an hour or so's bugling just about that time in the early morning when the discomforts the bed had begun to, wear off and a little sleep was possible. As already remarked, there is mo evidence to hand that the mechanical bugler has been introduced into the British army, but in many? ships in the navy loud speakers have been in use for years to transmit commands from unseen mouths.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.