PUNCH v. BURGOYNE.

(IN THE MATTER OF “LINE v. VOLUNTEERS.”)

“Nothing like leather,” quoth the currier in the old story.

“Nothing like Regulars,” says Sir John Burgoyne, in his paper in the Cornhill Magazine, apropos of our Rifle Volunteers. One of Sir John’s principal reasons for his rating any possible force of Volunteers low in comparison with the regular, well-packed Linesman of Guardsman, is the way in which (according to Sir John) the former would suffer under the hardships of campaigning, the fatigue of the march, the miseries of the wet bivouac, the short rations, and other creature discomforts that real soldiering brings with it. Sir John has in his head a certain ideal “Regular Soldier,” who can march farther,- stand more wet and cold,- put up more cheerfully with a thin blanket, or occasionally a wet ditch and no blanket at all,- digest tougher beef, or go without beef altogether more cheerfully and with less harm to himself,- than the Rifle Volunteer.

But where does Sir John hind his ideal Regular?

In what was does the life of the Regular Soldier fit him to brave hardship and stand wear and tear better than the Volunteer?

Are we to look for this soldierly ideal among the ill-lodged, public-house-haunting, nursemaid-courting ranks of the Guards?

Gallant fellows Mr. Punch knows them to be (witness Alma, Inkermann, and a thousand other well-fought fields); but strong-bodied fellows, tough fellows, wind-and-weather-and-hardship-defying fellows, they certainly are not. Or is our ideal soldier to be sought rather in the Line?

Mr. Punch’s answer to that question may be gathered from a number of other questions he ventures to put.

From what class is the Line recruited?

What are the habits of the average private in the Line?

How is the Linesman lodged at home? how aboard? How is he fed? How is he clad? What is the effect of his barrack duties,- of his night-guards,- of his accessibility to the temptations of the canteen, the barrack-neighbouring trull-house, and beer-shop, with its singing and dancing rooms, its atmosphere of drink and tobacco, and its low excess? Are these the influence likely to harden bodies, any more than to improve souls? Do they particularly fit a man to face heavy work, long marches, a wet back, and an empty belly? What is the fact, as indicated by the figures collected by the commission which reported on the sanitary condition of the Army in 1858? Why, this-that, comparing the death-rate of different classes at ages between twenty and forty, seventeen Linesmen and twenty Guardsmen die annually to eight agricultural labourers and out-door workmen in towns, to nine printers, eight policemen, and ten miners. But our Volunteers are not agricultural labourers at ten shillings a week; nor printers, shut up for long hours in the close atmosphere of the composing-room; nor policemen, liable to long spells of night and day duty without shelter in all weathers; nor miners, subject to impure air and explosive gases in the pit, and to foul skins and dirty clothes, and too often filthy habitations out of it. Our Volunteers are the very thews and sinews of the population – the pick and flower of the middle class, the young farmers and squires of our rural districts,- the tradesmen, and merchants, and gentry, and clerks, of our cities.

If the average of life among these Volunteers could be calculated, it would be found to give as a result, against the seventeen deaths to one thousand of the Line, and the twenty to one thousand of the Guards-not the eight deaths of the labourer and policeman, the nine of the printer, and the ten of the miner,- but something like three or four, if not even fewer.

Mr. Punch respectfully submits to Sir John Burgoyne, that for all purposes requiring endurance of fatigue and exposure, the stamina of the Volunteer is likely, caeteris paribus, to be to that of the regular soldier of the Line as seventeen to four, and to that of the Guardsman as twenty to four: in other words, more than four times as tough and durable. It is quite true – as the Times has pointed out – that if you take any army, winnowed of its weak elements by campaigning, you will get an uncommonly stout residuum, capable if resisting almost any amount of wear and tear; but Sir John Burgoyne’s comparison is not one between Volunteers and veterans, but between Volunteers and Regulars. While these are elements of comparison, Mr. Pinch must still be permitted to trust in his own corps of Volunteers (in all of them, he should say, being effective member of half-a-dozen and upwards) as far better, instead of worse, fitted to bear any amount of hard work, without breaking down, than an equal force of Regulars – be they Linesmen or be they Guardsmen.

Back to A CHANT FOR CHRISTMAS. <<< — >>> Next to A NEW FAMILY PAPER.