SAXON SOLDIERS.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4559, 30 October 1875, Page 2 (Supplement)

SAXON SOLDIERS.

(From the Contemporary Review.) I take pleasure in repeating that Saxon soldiers are the best in the world. They can swallow most discipline. They submit to so much stuffing with rules and regulations, great and small, that little of the original creature is left save organic life and uniform. They are a docile sort of Fraukensteins. This is well, so long as they remain in the serrice; but picture the sad plight of a being thus drained of his proper entrails, and inspired solely by the breath of Mars, when Mars no longer needs him! Mara re-creates men showily enough; but ho lacks the constancy of on orignal maker, and by and by leaves his re-creatures dismally in the lurch. Even the uniform is bereft them. Let who becomes a soldier reflect that he enlists for life ; and whether he be killed in his first battle, or honorably discharged after half a dozen campaigns, his life still ceases with his soldiership. It would be edifying to contrast Saxon soldiers with other nations, point by point, and so arrive at a practical comprehension of their superiority. Much is signified in the fact that their captains address them as “ children,” while we Americans, and our English friends, try to inspire our warriors by appeals to their “manhood.” Men, forsooth ! Such is the fruit of illogical sentiment. But persist in calling.a person child, and treating him so, and presently ho will share our view of the matter, and thus become fit for the camp. But my business is not so much with comparisons as with the incomparable Saxon soldier himself. Even his uniform is admirable, and, after the shoppy productions worn by our Seventh Regiments, and still more by English Guards and Grenadiers, truly refreshing. It is mainly dark, the darkness enhanced by narrow lines of red adown the leg and round throat and wrist. His headgear, though called helmet for lack of a better name, is not imposing, but eminently practical ; while as to his 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 subject for analysis, by the way, is that matter of wearing the hat aslant instead of upright 1 Some seer, one of these days, will draw a deep moral from it. The head itself is not propped fiercely up in unrelenting collar, but sits as easily as the heads of ordinary men. We look in vain for

the stiff-kneedness, out-chestedness, squareelbowedness, high-mightiness which wo are accustomed to associate with the thought ot things military. This model child of battle seems so comfortable in Ms uniform, he mig i have been born in it. He can stoop, j nee down, run, or vault a fence, without bursting a button. His belt is leathern— no pipeclay on bis 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 ; be would look maimed without it He ■ walks the streets —-with measiuecl tread, indeed, for he is drilled to the marrow, but 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 bis distinction.