s a new pin. It's well _she_ can't see me now, I'm thinking.
She'd hardly know her husband. But there, it's rougher where we're
going, I reckon, so it's no use worrying about this.' And, forgetting
the presence of ladies, he started whistling a merry tune.

It _was_ just 'a bit rough' in those days. But how could it be helped?
Aldershot Camp had nearly doubled its normal population, and some thirty
thousand troops were crowded in. And this population was continually
changing. As soon as one batch of troops was despatched, another took
its place, with consequences that, perhaps, were not always all that
could be desired, but which were nevertheless unavoidable.

And so day by day we watched the camp gradually becoming khaki colour.
At first it was khaki to-day and scarlet to-morrow, as one batch of
khaki warriors left for the front and others, still clad in their
ordinary uniform, took its place. But before very long Pimlico proved
equal to the occasion, and khaki prevailed, and in South and North Camp
one saw nothing but the sand-coloured soldiers. Then a strange, unwonted
silence fell upon us; for they had gone, and we woke up to an empty camp
and desolate streets, and realized that the greatest feat of the kind in
the history of the world had been accomplished, and 150,000 troops had
been despatched seven thousand miles across the sea.

=Christian Work at Aldershot.=

But we are anticipating. Let us first introduce you to a bit of
Christian Aldershot during these mobilisation times. The mobilisation
did not find us dozing; and the Churches and Soldiers' Homes, with their
multiplicity of organizations, did their best to give to Mr. Thomas
Atkins a home from home, and never with greater success.

There is no doubt that the _morale_ of the British soldier is steadily
advancing. 'They forget,' said a lad from Ladysmith the other day, 'that
we are not what we used to be. It used to be that the army was composed
of the scum of the nation; some folks forget that it isn't so now.' They
do, or, rather, perhaps they _did_ until the war commenced and made the
soldier popular. But the fact is that, especially during the last twenty
years, there has been a steady improvement, and we venture to assert
that to-day, so far as his moral conduct is concerned, the average
soldier is quite equal, if not superior, to the average civilian. This
is due in large measure to the officers, who take a greater interest in
the everyday life