Hawke's Bay Herald. MONDAY, AUGUST 5, 1889. IS A SOLDIER'S LIFE WORTH LIVING?

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XXIV, Issue 8433, 5 August 1889, Page 2

Hawke's Bay Herald. MONDAY, AUGUST 5, 1889. IS A SOLDIER'S LIFE WORTH LIVING?

under the above heading General ww^ Count Wolseley contributes a pleasantly^ written article to the Fortnightly for May. He commences with some remarks upon the small value set upon their Jives by men under certain circumstances, and in illustration he relates a well authenticated story oi a Governor at one of the penal settlements, who having fixed the date when two convicts were to be hanged for stealing, suddenly remembered that he had an important social engagement for that same afternoon. He sent for the men and explained to them the difficulty " It canuot matter much to you," he said, " whether you are hanged on Tuesday or Wednesday next. It is, however, a matter of some moment to me, and you would greatly oblige me if you would consent to be hanged on Tuesday instead ot Wednesday as named in the Gazette." The men were inclined to stand on their rights, so he told them to think the matter over. They went to him the next morning and a«reed to his proposition on condition that they received so much rum and so mnch tobacco for each day previous to their execution, a stipulation which the Governor readily accepted. "The cold-bloodedness of the Governor," observes Lord Wolseley, "is no doubt as revolting as the callousness of the condemned. The educated man who could, for a matter of his own personal convenience, advise in a friendly, in almost a cordial tone, two men about to be executed to allow their stay on earth to bs shortened in return for a liberal allowance of tobacco and rum— sucli a man would nowadays have a short shrift among us." With regard to the question with which ho heads his paper Lord Wolseley says : "If I were asked, as a soldier, whether I thought a soldier's life really worth living, my answer would be decidedly ' Yes," though no other body of men have to run their race so near that undefined frontier which marks the boundary between life and death. To have lived a real fighting soldier's Ufa means that you have become well acquainted with that bleak border-land of brooding darkness, and have often elbowed the old villain with the scythe on its narrow paths, and have had many a hard tussle with him on its barren fields. But it means also that life has afforded you opportunities of adding to the renown of your nation, and therefore to its power. Your country's glory is no mere sentimental, intangible possession. It is a considerable part of its greatness and strength, and he who can add to the fighting reputation of England does her a service worth living to attempt, worth dying to accomplish. . . . After all that can be said in praise of the soldier's manly enjoyments, which so often surround his life with a halo of romance, they are, it must be admitted, mostly of a nature that can be partaken of by the mercenary who fights for pay, or because he sees in the soldier's career that is open to him so many chances of advancement. The Germans and the Irish who joined in tho Northern ranks by thousands during tho Confederate war had no sentiment in tlic matter. To them it was a matter of money. They obtained high bounties, ranging up to COO dollars, and good pay. No love of • country, no high sense of* duty to be one, influenced them in their selection

°f iah'd Yd- many' of themiblie f soltfl&rt Itfe, as a daily pastime, may i have had such strong attractions that ( no other inducements were necessary." 1 Amongst a • number of instances* of . bravery exhibited in the ranks during . ,the,Ui.meaa war Lord Wolseley mentions j the following as specially Werth noting i i — " One nighb, in that dismal winter of , 1854-55, the Russians forced their wily . into our second parallel, and having ; driven out the over-worked handful of I men on guard there) held It tor 1 soille short space of tittle. When wo, in our turn, drove them back helter-skelter to tUeir own lines, and rooccupied the parallel, wo found on. its exttoiiib toft, where it dipped down Ihfcrj Iho Woronzofi" ravine, one of bur sentries at hie post. The ettemy had not had enough lime t6 sptead out as far as his post, although they had gone very near it. He whb not, however, one of those who run before they have been actually attacked. Ho saw_ that his comrades had bolted iii a panic, and he must have fully recognised the danger he fras in of being BuHtounded and taken prisoner. When found ab his post, coolly looking over tho parapet towards the Itedan, as his orders Were, he said that ho had been posted there by his officer, and had no intention of leaving his post until he had been properly relieved. His coolness and high sense of duty made a deep impression upon my young mind at the time. JNo marshal's baton was in his knapsack ( he expected nothing ( he got nothing. It was by accident only that his gallant conduct on that dark winter's night Was even known to anyone; but he must have had the consciousness in his heart that he had done his duty. How many are the heroic deeds which are never heard of! How deep, how Sincere has been the devotion to duty of scores whose names ate unknown ! That man deserved Hie V.O. more than many who obtaiaed it by asking for it and by enlarging upon their own deeds of heroism m order to obtain it." In concluding his paper Lord Wolseley says :— "Yes, the soldier's life is worth living. All other pleasures pale belore the intense, the maddening delight of leading men into the midst of an enemy or some well • defended plaoe. That "rapturous i enjoyment takes man out df himself to the forgetfillne'ss bl all earthly consideration, He is for the time beside himself, j and, as it were, a creature of another world iicting under influences unknown before. In after years the pulse will beat quicker, every muscle and nerve will thrill with the old excitement as the remembrance of those stirring moments comes back. But above all and beyond all the pleasure which any such remembrance can afford, there are better and far higher reasons for the belief that the soldier's life is worth living. His career is more chequered than that of most men. Livina to-day in comparative luxury and ease, he is sud- - denly called upon to-morrow to endure long periods of privation, and to practise self-denial under discomforts that often amount to bodily suffering. But at his most unhappy moment of hunger, thirst, | and wretchedness, when nearly exhausted by fatigue and want of sleep, he brightens up as he remembers that it is for England he suffers. It was pride ot race and of the uniform he wore, added to the inexpressible satisfaction which the performance of duty under trying circumstances brings with it, that made the soldier ' before Sebastopol forget the wants and privations imposed upon him through the niilitary iqnoranoe of the English Ministry."