A MEMORABLE INCIDENT.

Wanganui Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 9939, 16 January 1900, Page 1

A MEMORABLE INCIDENT.

Reports from the battlefields of South Africa recall many thrilling incidents and deeds of daring during Britain's wars in days gone by. The legend that when the British Guards faced tho French Guards at Fontenoy, they asked their enemies to fire first, is accepted in many quarters as historic. In the Hon. J. W. Fortesque's work entitled ''A History of the British Army," it is rejected as fiction; but the author gives, instead, an interesting aocount of Hay's halfchivalrous, half-swaggering challenge. He describes how the British came closeT and closer, still with arms shouldered, always with the same measured tread, till they had, advanced to' within 50 yards of the French. Then Lord Charleß Hay, the First Guards, stepped forward, with flask in hand, and, doffing his hat, drank politely to his enemies. "I hope, gentlemen, ' he is reported to have shouted to them, "you are going to wait for ub to-day, and not swim the Scheldt, as you swam the Main at Dettingen." "Men of the King's Company," he continued, turning round to his own people, "these are the French Guards, and I hopo you are going to beat them' today." The British Guards answered with a cheer. The French officers hurried to the front, for the appearance of the British was a surprise to them, and called for a cheer in reply, but only a half-hearted murmur came from the French ranks, and it quickly died away, and gave place to a few sharp words of command, for the British were now within 30 yards. "For what we are about to receive may the Lord make us truly thankful," murmured a British Guardsman, as he looked down the barrels of tho French muskets, but before Ilia comrades around him had done laughing, the French Guards had fired, and the turn of the British had ■come at last. Tho old musket was as deadly at 30 yards as the best modern rifle at, say, 500 yards, and there must have beon a terrible strain on the men who marched up to tho muzzles of the enemy's guns. The slaughter ibat followed was awful. It is estimated that during tho battle tho loss on each side was about 7000 men. This goes to indicate that the murderous modern weapons do not necessarily mean, on the whole, heavier slaughter. Indeed, it* seems that war is becoming less deadly, as well as more immane.