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Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XXI, Issue 5359, 18 April 1879, Page 2

The accounts of the terrible disaster to the 24th Regiment commence by telling us that they were all boys, not a single old soldier amongst them, but winds up with a lucid and harrowing description of the unniuching manner in which they stood to be massacred t after their ammunition was expended, defending their colors with the bayonet to the last. This reminds us forcibly of one of the many anecdotes of Waterloo. Napoleon had ordered a crack French corps to carry the orchard at the point of the bayonet, and, turning his attention to that portion of the field some time afterwards, he observed|that the gallant and reiterated charges of his soldiers were as often repulsed by the scarlet defenders. After watching the conflict through his glass, he turned, and in an admiring tone said to one of his generals, "Duraont, you know the British; what troops are those in the orchard, pardieu they use the bayonet well." " The Guards, Sire." The Guards; are they not untried'troops ?" " Yes, Sire, I am informed that they are all raw recruits." " Oh," said Napoleon, "what will the veterans do ?" It appears that the British boy soldiers of to-day are not inferior to the raw recruits of 1815, and we_ believe the veterans have not deteriorated.