SIR JOHN BURGOYNE. (FROM THE "TIMES.")

Daily Southern Cross, Volume XXIV, Issue 3354, 16 April 1868, Page 4

SIR JOHN BURGOYNE. (FROM THE "TIMES.")

After a period of service unexampled, we should think, in military history, Sir John Burgoyne propones at length to retire from active duty, and few would deny that the rank of Field-Marshal, to which he has just been elevated, has been well and fairly earned. The length of his career, indeed, appears almost incredible. It commenced in the last century, and if at the time when he entered the Army there were any officers in it as old as he is now, their recollections might have gone back to the daya of Marlborough. "When the young soldier received his Erst commission, the Duke of Wellington was only in the eleventh year of his service, and Bonaparte was but a Republican General. Since that time 70 years have elapsed, and Sir John Burgoyne still survives, not only hale and vigorous, but actually on duty as before. It is, indeed, not the least surprising feature in this unparalleled service that it should have been performed without a break, and there is probably no other army in the world which could produce a soldier who had been on full pay ever since 1798. Nor will the fact lose any of its singularity if we remember the nature of the service. For nearly twenty years it was a service of the greatest difficulty and peril. Sir John Burgoyne belonged to the lioyal Engineers, and the demands upon this corps in the Peninsular war were heavy in the extreme. The war was in some aense a war of sieges, and yet sieges were operations of which our armies had not the least experience. The history of those days can hardly even now be read without emotion. Our troops sat dbwn before some of the strongest fortresses in Europe without any adequate means of attack. Lord Wellington was ill-provided with guns and stores, and the engineers of his army were few and imperfectly organised. In fact, the whole department had, as it were, to be created for the occasion. So great was the demand, and so short the supply of officers in this branch of the service, that the War-office freely offered commissions to any young men who could produce evidence of a mathematical education. As to the rank and file of the corps, it was represented mainly by men draughted from the line with such hasty training as the officers could give them. What ensued might have been easily anticipated. Our troops did take towns, just as they won battles, but at a dreadful sacrifice of life. Yet through all these days Sir John Burgoyne served and lived, and the Engineer officer who commenced his career with the siege of Malta survived to conduct, about half a century later, the siege of Sebastopol. That name brings us to times with which the present generation is familiar, and to events which are still fresh in public memory. We read of Badajoz and San Sebastian as we read of Magdeburg and Stralsund, but Sebastopol is a name of yesterday still. What that campaign really meant Sir John Burgoyne explained to us, He told his countrymen afterwards that the term "siege" as applied to the operations of the British army before Sebastopol was a misnomer. The Russians, defended by formidable works, were confronted by the Allies, and one army attacked the other army, sometimes with success, sometimes defeated, till at last the position of the enemy was forced, and we remained victorious. Once more, however, even at his advanced age, Sir John Burgoyne survived a campaign which, for its duration, was more deadly and destructive than any on record, and returned home to pursue a career which no peace ever interrupted. It is the peculiarly of the Engineer service that its duties are unintermitteot, and the retrospect of Sir John Burgoyne in this particular must be without any counterpart in such experience. The contrast between guns and forts as they are now and as they were in 1798, or even in 1818, could hardly be described. In no other respecc has the art of war been so completely revolutionised. Upon the whole we may say, perhaps, that an inpreased value is placed upon fortifications, and a greater importance attached to the service of which Sir John is the head. We are even introducing, for the first time since the days of the Romans, elaborate systems of fortification into this island. We are constructing works of which a single redoubt would absorb and consume all the engineers' means at the disposal oi an army in Sir John's early days. A single gun oi our own time would throw a projectile as heavy as all the shot of a Peninsular battering train. Peninsular veterans are becoming rnre, but Sii John Burgoyne was a soldier of experience before these veterans began. The war in Spain only came as it were in the middle of his active service. He had been to Sicily and to Alexandria before he went to Portugal, and could, indeed, from his own personal recollections, have compared the landing in the Crimea with the descent upon Egypt. If there are others surviving whose memories could go as fai back, there are none who could claim not only te have served then but to have served ever since. Sii John Burgoyne, however, first fought through th( wars of the Revolution, then pursued the duties of his profession through the forty years peace, then went again upon more active service, and only now, more than ten years after the lasi service was concluded, bethinks himself of retirement and repose. It is a most surprising retrospect, bul if length of years and weight of work ever entitled i man to distinction, it must be allowed that such re compense is the righteous due of the soldier whose career we have been reviewing.

Successful and Cheap Well-sinking. — A few weeks ago we inserted an extract describing a cheap method of well-sinking by means of an iron pipe driven into the earth in the same manner as a pile. We learn from the Maitland Mercury that it has been successfully tried in Maitland. We are glad (says that journal) to find that the novel mode of well-sinking, without digging, attempted by Mr. J. Scanlon, at his premises in the Horseshoe Send, has proved a complete success. We saw and tasted yesterday water of excellent quality, clear as crystal, and most gratefully cool, being pumped up with perfect ease in quantities that would be sufficient for the use of any family in the district. The mode of operation is very simple :— An iron pipe is prepared, an inch and a half in diameter. The bottom of this is fitted with a miniature " shoe," or iron spike, such as is placed on the end of piles intended to be driven into the earth. The pipe, for some eighteen inches above this, is pierced with hole«, to allow the water to flow in. The pipe is then treated exactly as a wooden pile would be, and driven into the earth, to a depth, in this instance, of thirty-four feet. At this depth, on Mr. Scanlon's premises, the soil is a clean but coarse black sand, saturated with water, which, no doubt, niters in from the river. A pump is then fitted upon the top of the pipe, and all that is now requisite is to move the handle, when the pure element gushes forth in any quantity that may be desired. At first, for a little while, some sand is pumped up along with the water, but, after a short time, all the loose material being pumped up, a space is formed around the bottom of the pipe, answering in fact as a reservoir, which, being constantly filhd with water, allows the refreshing fluid to be drawn from the pump as may be desired. Not the least recommendation of this very simple system is its economy ; the whole apparatus, including the pipe, pump, and cost of driving, is said not to exceed £6, or about the price of merely digging an ordinary well, without brickwork, pump, or any of the items neceisary.