England, as a sporting, athletic, and game-loving nation, has of late years suffered many rebuffs. By the United States she has been taught the scientific method of riding racehorses, and also of sailing yachts; she has been defeated in polo by a Transatlantic team; her selected representative horsemen are unsuccessful in the International Military Tournaments; she cannot defeat Australia on the cricket field; a Belgian crew holds its own at Henley. If these rebuffs tend to abate the mania for watching the performances of a handsome but not particularly intelligent quadruped, and for studying the various methods of imparting motion to a Ball and to show the vanity of the passion for sports and games when indulged to excess, they will have served their purpose. The nation, disgusted at its want of success in its favourite pursuits, may perhaps turn its manhood to the noblest pursuit of all, the defence of the Fatherland; and then it will not be the betting and football news that has to be blacked out of the daily papers in the free libraries, but the bi-weekly military gazettes, the reports from the military stations and the Special Correspondents' letters from Salisbury Plain during the manoeuvres. Notes: [Footnote 2: In justice to the War Office it should be stated that this was inserted at the instance of Sir Redvers Buller, who believed that he would be able to raise in South Africa a sufficient force of mounted troops.] [Footnote 3: B. Viljoen in his "Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War" frequently complains of the insubordination, the malingering, and the cowardice of his followers, and of the incompetence of his superior officers.] [Footnote 4: "Kaffir" is an Arabic word meaning one who does not believe in the religion of Mahomet. It was introduced into South Africa by the Portuguese and subsequently applied to the tribes living on the N.E. of the Cape Colony.] [Footnote 5: Zilikat's Nek in the Magaliesberg is named after him.] [Footnote 6: In its crudest and least admirable form Patriotism may be expressed in the terms of an equation-- One Englishman=Two Aliens.] [Footnote 7: _Esprit de Corps_ in the British Army is the predilection of the individual for the unit in which he is serving. It creates a healthy rivalry which, on the whole, makes for efficiency; but its effects are sometimes unfortunate. A distinguished regiment was accused of misbehaviour in one of the battles of the advance on Bloemfontein. The charge was unfounded, but some of its hasty partisans, with the idea of removing the reproach as far as possible from Self and forgetful that the honour of the British Army is not contained in water-tight compartments, endeavoured to transfer the imputation to another regiment in the same brigade.]