BRITISH ARMY RELICS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LI, Issue 15501, 7 January 1914, Page 10

BRITISH ARMY RELICS.

Interesting- discoveries of relics of the British Army which fought in the War of Independence have been discovered lately in New York. The floor of one of the old huts was practically complete, and above the floor, and in the vicinity was a number of buttons of various regiments, amongst them the following :—loth, 14th 17th, 28th, 57th, and 77th Regiments. A silver badge from a shoulder belt was also found with initials on it which enabled the owner to lie identified. He was a subaltern in the 28th. It is interesting to think in what very varying parts of the world relics of the British Array might be brought to light by excavations. Any discovered in Europe would be at least nearly 100 years old, for, except in the Crimea, which somehow or other does not seem to be Europe, we hive not been engaged in war on the Continent since Waterloo. Looking bark no further than that time, there are very few parts of the world that have nut been scattered with the buttons and badges of British regiments. A great I deal of the ground on which British blood lias been spilt and in which traces of British troops might be buried is now part and parcel of the British Empire. In India, South Africa, and New Zealand, for instance, British soldiers havo fought hard on what was already British soil; in Africa, South, East, and West, and in Burma, they have fought for and added vast areas to the Empire, and it is not strange that Egypt should bo looked on as almost part of the Empire, considering all the fighting done there. Many relics must have been left, too. in countries not even now part of the Empirethe Crimea, Abyssinia. Persia, Afghanistan and its frontier, China. No nation in the world has its relics strewn over the face of the earth as the relics of the British Army are. In Europe, France might claim a wider field of distribution, but nowhere else can any army approach on record.. i