BALLOONS FOR THE CAPE.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 2, Issue 166, 22 May 1879, Page 3

BALLOONS FOR THE CAPE.

The following letter from Mr Chas,Rcado on tho art of war is published in the Daily Telegraph:— Sir—lt is not necessary to be outwitted by Zulus. People that go to war should immediately rub up their wits. If they have to encounter savages superior in numbers and knowledge of the ground, and firmed no longer with stone arrows and bono spears, but gunx mid riilos, tho very first question they should ask tlicniselvcß is this—Does all our superior science furnish lis with no engine of war to turn the scale] Now, we do posess an engine of modern warfare that ought to have been in the unlucky camp, since no German or French anny would have invaded even a Jjtaiigo and wooded country without it mean a balloon—a la cordc. A very small one would have raised a man a 1000 feet, and shown him in a moment the shallow secrets of Zulus strategy, Lateral ambuscades to a scout looking down vertically with a binocular, and sweeping 30 miles at a glance. The nation, therefore, will feel obliged to the War Office if it will send out, not a great many more soldiers to be knocked mi the head, but a few more soldiers, more ammunition, more balloons, more gasometers, more binoculars—more brains. Paris, for her amusement, raised 23 people in a balloon 2,400 feet several times daily. Cannot England raise one drummer boy or one gallant little oflicer 1,200 foot to protect her chivalry from silly slaughter! jfo doubt it is much harder to generate gas in a camp than in a city, but it lias been dono in camps and therefore it can be dono again, and ought to be (iono, though a jury of inventors have to bo convoked. When civilised nations meet in battle, glory may be gained though life is lost; but those who send our heroes to fight with savages should attack defensively and cudgel their brains a bit, grudging so baso an enemy the life of a single British soldier, and the tears of those who mourn for him.—lam, &c., Charlesßeade."'