SOLDIERS AND SAILORS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XCV, Issue 10918, 28 March 1896, Page 2

SOLDIERS AND SAILORS.

It is a remarkable thing that life in the two services will, after a certain time, change exactly similar characters. The surroundings are so completely different that they mould the temperament and alter the habits of men who are very much alike in individuality when entering the respective services. Tommy Atkins and Jack Tar have their peculiarities, hut there is one tiling that belongs to both, namely, a happy indifference to the future and a quick seizure of every opportunity to got away from the fearful monotony of a daily round of peace duties, but When the guns begin to play, as Rudyard Kipling says, both respond o the call of duty, without a flinch. The boatswain pipes his whistle and the drummer beats to quarters, or the bugler sounds the advance, and at it' these veritable tigers for fighting go, whether dressed in blue or red. But in peace, how different is the jovial, gay, light-hearted tar to the stiff bearing of the ledeoats. No one ever saw two soldiers riding on one horse; but this is one of Jack’s highest ideas of fun. Nelson, Drake and Rodney obtained for Enp-land the supremacy of the sea, without torpedo boats or ironclads. Wellington gained immortal victories without Maxim o-uns and quick-firing breechloaders that could kill at 1000 yards. So it is with other things. This old clay pipe and the cheroot are discarded as obsolete, and now Old Judge Cigarettes are, figuratively as well as literally, in everybody’s mouth.