BALLOONS FOR THE CAPE.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIV, Issue 118, 19 May 1879, Page 4

BALLOONS FOR THE CAPE.

The following letter from Mr Chap. Reade on tbe art of war is published in the Daily Telegraph : — "&ir' — It is not nesceßsary to be outwitted by Zulus. People that go tj war should immediately rub up theiiwits. If they hav9 to encounter eavages superior in numbers and knowledge of the ground, and armed no longer with stoae arrows an.l bone spears, but guns and riflea, the very first question they should ask themselves is this— Does all our superiour science furnish us with no engioa of war to tura the scale? Now, we do possess an engine of modern warfare that ought to have been in the unlucky camp, since no German or French army would have i&vaded oven a strange and woodeJ country without it— l mean a balloon— a lacorde. A very small one woui.J have raised a man 1000 feet, and shown him in a tnomeut the shallow secrets ■■ of Zulu r s'rategy. Literal Binbuscadeß, though in a jungle^ are no ambuscades lo a scout looking down vertically with a binocular, and sweeping 30 miles at a glance. The nation, therefore, will feel obliged lo the War Office if they will send out, not a great many- more soldiers to-be knocked on the head, but a few more soldiers, more ammunition, more balloons, more gasometers, more biuoculars — more brains. Paris, lor her amusement/ raised 25 people in a balloon 2400 feet several times daily Cannot England raise one drummer boy or one gullant little officer 1200 feet to protect her chivalry f rom B in y slaughter ? No doubt it j 8 aru C h-harder to generate gas in a camp than in a city, but it has bean done in camps and therefore it can he done again, and ought to bs done, though a jory of inventors have to be convoked. When civilised nations meet in battle,, glory^ may be gained though life is lost ; but those who send our heroes to fight with savages should attack defensively and cudgel their biains a bit, grudging so base an enemy the life of a, single British soldier, and the tears of those who mourn for him. — I am &c, Chirleit Keadb." • -•*-■■ -r-ir- 1 '