Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 May 1891 — Our Standing Army. [ARTICLE]

Our Standing Army.

“I see you speak in this afternoon’s Telegraph of the hardships our soldiers had to stand on the plains,” said i H. T. Carrington, of Chicago, at the | I’ark Avenue Hotel, “and while I adi mit that your informant is right in i nearly all that he says, yet service in I the army is a delight to what it was i before the war. There is not a post throughout the country that I know of that is not accessible by railroad, and which does not have a daily mail. The quarters to which the private soldier is now| assigned are simply palatial a 3 compared with the old-time affairs. Take Fort Biley, for example.- The men’s barracks are splendidly arranged and handsomely furnished. Each company quarters is furnished with a library, billiard room, gymnasium and marble tub bath-rooms, while the squad i rooms or dormitories are nicely fitted | with iron bedsteads and the walls are ! hung with pictures of army life. The i mess hall at Fort Riley seats 1,200 men i at each meal, and the chef de cuisine is a | salaried civilian at $l5O a month. | “Life in,a paost is in itself very monotonous, and a man is apt to fall into bad habits during his time off just from the fact of having nothing to do. Then again in every regiment, or in fact every company, there is sure to be some scoundrel who tries his best to make his associates as vile as himself, and who does more harm than the officers can do good. The officers take personal interest in the men, and do all they can to raise the standard of the private. Not only do they try teaching, but. better still, actual experience, which, after all, far excels the other.” —New York Telegram.