"The lance," we learn on page 267, "is the Cavalryman's most important weapon," yet the drill laid down for the lance the author declares to be worthless. "No one would fight in this manner in war; how this is to be done our men are not really taught." What a confession after all these ages, from the Crusades onwards! And if the lance is really the most important weapon, and if Sir John French really believes, as he says he believes, in the infallibility of General von Bernhardi, why has he not seen to it that all British Cavalry regiments are armed with lances? It would seem to be mad folly to permit our Hussars to go into battle destitute of their "most important weapon." But let us look a little closer into the characteristics of this terrible weapon. On page 175 we learn that "in the close turmoil of the fight it is very difficult to handle with success, besides which it easily becomes unserviceable on striking an object too heavily. Should it pierce a body at the full speed of a horse's gallop, it will generally bend on being drawn out (if, indeed, the rider in his haste extricates it at all), and then becomes unserviceable." So there must be a sword also, which is to be drawn, apparently, on the instant after the impalement of the first hostile horseman. Our own authorities take a brighter view. In their Manual the trooper is bidden to impale the foe through and through with his lance, but he is to "withdraw it with ease from the object into which it has been driven." On the other hand, the object in question is to be represented in peace by a sack filled with chopped hay or a clay dummy, neither of them objects of a texture quite adequate to the purpose (see "Cavalry Training," pp. 309-310).