BISMARCK'S STORY OF THE SENTRY.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIV, Issue 43, 19 February 1879, Page 4

BISMARCK'S STORY OF THE SENTRY.

All (he world has been laughing at Prince Bismarck's story about the Russian sentry standing in the middle of a lawn. He did not know why he was sent there, tbe officer who seat him did not know, uor was the Czar when questioned, a whit more capable of giving the raison detre of that stolid seDtioe!. It turned out that the Empress Catherine, just a hundred years ago, wishing to preserve a snowdrop from being plucked, set a eentry to watch it. The snowdrop faded, summer come, and yet the sentry remained, > and there he remained for a century. The atory is an apt illustration of the mechanical nature of the official mind and of Russian militarism. But we fear it is all but apocryphal, for a simiiar tale is told in half a-dczen countries. For " Greville's Memoirs " it is related that a sentry used to stand in one of the coridors of the Foreign Office. His only business was to request all comers to •• keep .0 the left/' or why he was sent to tell them to do so, nobody knew. Finally it was discovered thai many years before, the walla being painted, a soldier was temporarily posted there to ware people off the wet paint. He had remained —or rather a succession of soldiers had— ever since. But a tale told by General ii linger, one of Goethe's early friends, is exactly the same as Bismarek's, only 10 Klinger'a anecdote it was a mossrose which had been guarded for a century, and the lawn was one in front of a German palace instead of a Russian one. But these variorium readings of tbe Bame story do not end there. The Empresj Catherine' found her son Paul charged with many thousand bottles of brandy. As the Prince never touched that liquor, she caused an enquiry to be made, and found that ■ when a child, he had on one occasion, required a glass" of brandy as a lotion for an excoriation on his leg. From that time a bottle of brandy bad been either sent to him or charged to him Hence the liquor bill. Finally, not to multiply these tales, not many years ago some inquisitive person noticed that year after year the sum of £40 was charged in the eatimates as the* salary of a British non-commissioned 1 officer in the Low Couutries. He found, moreover, that it had been charged for a great number of years— indeed, no one remembered when it waa not charged in the English Army Estimates. This led to enquiry, whei u was discovered that after the battle of Malplaquet, fought in 1709, the Duke of MarJboroagh left a seageant to take charge of some stores. The sergeant was in time forgotten, but liking his post, took care not to remind his superiors of his existence, and so continued drawing hie salary to the end of his life, and his children and grandchildren, and great grand-children did so after him. We are afraid, however, ihat all these good stories must be bracketed as myths.