Dr. Stiggins:
schools, we hate and dread the very mention of conscription, and by our ridicule of the "Rifle Club" and similar schemes we do our very best to render our country defenceless in the event of invasion. Military habits—the smartness, the rigid carriage of the body, the prompt obedience to a superior—all these we consistently look down upon and deride, for they are at once provocative and contrary to the principles of democracy. Nay, as I have said, we have found it our duty in almost every case in which a dispute has arisen between Englishmen and those of another nation to declare our own people absolutely in the wrong, to paint them as a race of savage, sordid, and barbarian robbers. When Englishmen have won victories we allude to them as "brutal massacres of unarmed men," when Englishmen have been defeated we point out that our own race is effete, rotten, cowardly, and contemptible in every respect, and that the leaders of our armies are too imbecile to fight successfully against men, whatever their prowess may
168
