SAXON SOLDIERS.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume X, Issue 294, 5 November 1875, Page 4

SAXON SOLDIERS.

- - . (Contemporary Review.) I take pleasure in repeating that Saxon soldiers are the beet in the world. They can swallow most discipline. They submit to so much stuffing with roles and regulations, great and small, tbat little of the original creature is left save organio life and uniform. They are a docile sort of Frankensteina. This ia well, so long as Ihey remain in the service; but picture tbe _ad plight of a beiog thus drained of his proper, entrails, aod inspired 'solely by the breath of Mars, when .Mars no longer, needs him! Mars re-creates men showily enough; but he lacks. the constancy of an original maker, and by and by leaves his recreatures dismally in the lurch. Even the uniform is bereft them. Let who becomes* soldier reflect that be enlists, for life ; aod whether he be killed in/ his first battle, or honorably discharged after half a dozen campaigns, his lif i still ceases with bis soldiership. I; would be edifying to contrast Baxon soldiers' with other nations, point bpoint, and so arrive at a practical com ■ prehension of their superiority. Muc t }e signified r in the fact that their caj - tains addrees them ap "children/' while we Americans, and our English friends, try to inspire our warriors by\ appeals to their oad." Men/' forsooth! Sueh is the fruit of illogical .sentiment. But persist in calling a person child, and treating him so. and ' 'presently he will share our view of the/ matter, and thus become fit for tbi camp. But my business is not eo muda with comparisons as with the incomparable Saxon soldier himself. EvFn his aniform is admirable, and, after tt_e shoppy productions worn by <jur Seventh Regiments, and still more Iby English Guards and Grenadiers, irdly , refreshing. It is mainly dark, me .darkness enhanced by narrow lines pf down; the leig and ro dad ihe throw and wrist. His headgear, though called helmet fo^lack of a better name\ is not imposing, but eminently practiX <jalj whilVas $q hia cap, it is positively \

made and worn to cover the head, and scarcely inclines more to one ear than to the other. What a pregnant subjeot for analysis, by the way, is that matter of wearing the hat asiaot instead of upright! Some seer, oae of these days, will draw a deep moral from it. Tbe bead itself is not propped fiercely up in unrelenting collar, but ; sits as easily aa the heads of ordinary men. We look in vain for the stiffkneodness, out-chestedness, squareelbowedness, high-mightiness, which we are accustomed to associate with the thought of things military. This model child of battle seems so comfortable in bis uniform, he might have been born in it. He can etoop, kneel down, ran, or vault a fence, without bursting a button. His belt is leathern — no pipeclay on his conscience. He can be very dirty without much showing it. Padding and lacing are unknown — at least to the private. His short sword seems as natural an appendage as a monkey's tail; he would look maimed without it. He walks the streets — with measured tread, indeed, for he is drilled to the marrow, hut — with an infantile self-unconsciousness subversive of all precedent. He looks of a race distinct from the civilian, it is true, but quite at home in his dis- | tinction.