OUR SAILORS AND SOLDIERS.

Bush Advocate, Volume XXI, Issue 118, 17 November 1908, Page 5

OUR SAILORS AND SOLDIERS.

The Victoria Cross was instituted on February sth, 1856. | Nelson's "Victory" was forty years [ old when she foaight at Trafalgar. The Stale dress of a, trumpeter of the Eoyal Horse Guards, "the Blues," costs over £100. Last year the Admiralty sold* a battleship, completod in. 1891, and which cost £887,000, for only £26,000. The Patriotic Volunteer Fund was started in 1889 by Lord Mayor Whitehead, who succeeded in getting about £42,000 subscribed. , The record wreck, so far as loss of life is con.cer.ned, was that of H.M.S. "Victory," on October sth,. 1774. Eleven hundred lives were lost. A scientist has gathered from statistics that the military and naval professions most quickly wear oivt the brain. Out of 100,000 soldiers and sailors 199 were confirmed lunatics. The 2lßt Lancers, who covered themselves with glory in Egypt, have the sobriquet of the "Dumpies." Of the other regiments who took part in the fight, the Grenadier Guards have the sobriquets of the " "Sandbags," "Coalheavers," "'Old Eyes," and "Bermuda Exiles." In future the wireless telegraph offices on battleships are to have their doors made of ten-pound steel plating, without windows, owing to the blast of tho heavy guns. Marconi apparatus for wireless telegraphy is to be placed in the north-west lightship in the Mersey, and also in the Bidstone lighthouse. The Egyptian Army thirty years ago consisted of sonic 6000 men, badly trained and disciplined. In 1882 Sir Evelyn Wood and his assistants took it in hand, and it has now in its ranks more than three times that number of men, and as regards discipline, training, and bravery is reckonod almost equal to British troops. Having received the necessary confirmation, the sentence has been promulgated of the court-martial recently held at Woolwich on Lieut.-Colonel Francis Vernon de Land-re Grogan de Vernon., sth (Militia) Battalion Rifle Brigade. As the result of the courtmartial the officer is deprived of his commission and all claims to pension. He also loses his medals.