BRITISH SOLDIERS.

Otago Witness, Volume 25, Issue 2321, 25 August 1898, Page 55

BRITISH SOLDIERS.

Some Personal Traits— " Beg Pardon, Sir" — A Little Soudanese Boy — " Do Yon Really Like That Thing?'"'— An Aid to Self Kespect. The fact thai all sorts and conditions of

men noAv enlist is noticeable at Christmas

time. Then the rooms are decorated, and one man, Avho, perhaps, Avas a scene painter in civilian life, ."hows his skill in painting regimental colours and devices. Another knows lioav to cut out the gilt and coloured letters tbat Avish the corps .and officers " Success and Prosperity." Is there a man in the 7'oom who has been a waiter or a butler? He makes himself useful in laying the dinner on Christmas Day. This day is a trying one for the man Avho enlisted because he had no Avork on account of unsteady habits. He may have been "on the dead,"

as soldiers call being a teetotaller, for 10 or 11 months but at Christmas there is so much liquor ahout that he cannot resist the temptation, and he " breaks the teapot,'' and with it the half-formed chain of good habits that Avould have drawn him to a useful, prosperous life.

Soldieis are, as a rule, very Avell-mannered You may always suspect that a man in civilian life has been a soldier Avhen he begins to address j*ou with " Beg pprdon, sii."

One day last winter I sat down at a barrack room fire to have a talk Avith the men. There wa.s a little stiffness until one of them got up, went to his kit-box, and producing a cigarette, asked me to accept it as he hr.d nothing else to offer. Some think that a parson should not smoke, even very moderately, but T Avould not like not to haA r e accepted tint cigarette of good-feiloAvship. Another very pleasant trait in soldiers is their affection for children. You .see them continually playing with the " kids," as they ahrays call them, of the married men. Indeed, the Avi"e of many an impecunious officer get "5 moro tha.i half her nursing done for liei by her husband's soldier servant.

About eight years ago I Avas ft.vtion^d at Malta Avith a battalion of the Wo'sh Regiment. They had as a sort of regimental pet a little Soudanese' boy, whom some of their members avlio were on active service in the Soudan had picked up after the battle of To.Ua. The boy atos almost starved, and was lying betAveen his father and mother, both of Avhoni hod been shot by English bullets. The mounted infantry drummer who picked up the child, aged at tho time about four years, rode a great distance to get milk for him, which the medical oflkprs faUI av.os tho only thing that Avould mako him Avell. " Jimmy Welsh " became surh a fine boy that my Roman Catholic colleague r>nd myself each' tried to gel him into our respective communions.

A corporal told me lately, with pride, that a little girl about .six years of age came up to him and caught hold of his coat. She seemed to be much frightened, and the soldier afeked her what she feared. " A dog," she replied, " that lives near here, and I have been AA r aiting for a soldier to come along." Curious, and to outsiders almost repulsive, are some of the pets that are secreted in banack rooms. I remember saying to a man around Avhose neck a horrid AA r hite rat with hail less tail Avas tAvining itself, "Do you really like that thing?" "Sir," he replied very earnestly, Avhile his eyes suffused with moisture, "I could not live without him." Cavalry soldiers and their hor&es become very foiid of each other and grieve very much Avheu separated. Sometimes, lioAVc\-er, the fdndness of soldiers for their pets takes a mistaken form. Tliis happened to a goat belonging to a Welsh regiment knoAvn to me The men used to give Billy beer at the canteen, and at last he became so fond of the beverage that he Avould butt any man Avho Avould not share his pot Avithhim. A soldier was in the habit of drinking, neglecting his work, and keeping himself very untidy; yet he was a good-natured fclloAV, and the occupants of his barrack room Avere sorry when "they saAV him getting info trouble every day with lite ofii'K-s. They determined to take him in hand and try if they could not manage to keep him straight. Accordingly, on the next payday they induced him, instead of spending his money in the canteen, to hand it over, all but one shilling, which he was to have for pocket money, to one of their number, to be deposited for him in the savings bank.

Warning. — Notice is hereby given that I intend making it Avann for all persons taking Woods's Great Peppermint Cure this winter — < so warm that it Avill not alloAV any cold to come in, and if a cold is there it Arill soon drive ib out. Coughs and colds will soon b« a, thing of the past if people keep a bottle of "Woods's Great Pnuperniinl Cure svlAvavrf in the houSffe

This soon mounted up to a respectable little sum, the man's -nerves, which used to cause him to tremble Avhen on parade, grew strongor, and in all ways the improvement of his character Avas so marked that he Avas made a lance-corporal. — An Army Chaplain in the Globe.