Punch: Punch (38.1860)

34

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

[January 28, 18G0.

i

i

i



VOLUNTEERS AND VETERANS.

fox: the hounds coursing him for the last quarter of a mile, and killing him. A
very good hunting run of forty-five minutes with a second fox : when, the afteruooc
becoming so stormy, and the rain so heavy, the hound3 were taken home."

JR,—1 say. Punch,
my boy, I wish
you’d just pilch
into the old pipe-
clay chaps a bit for
the way in which
they talk and write '
about us Riflemen. I
They seem to fancy
ail we mean is just
to play at being
soldiers, and that |
when the Avork j
comes we intend
to cut it. Their
minds are so jog-
t.rotty, they can’t j
keep pace with the
Times, and the rifle
movement, clearly
is something quite
ahead of them. I;
believe they think
the thing a sort of
amateur theatri-
cals, and imagine
that Ave drill for
the mere sake of
the dress. They’ve
a notion that Ave
like to come out
spiffy in our uni-
forms, and think
that our ball prac-
tice is just for
fancy-ball work.
And then they drop
out hints that even
if it’s proved that we’ve the mind to fight, it will certainly turn out
that we have not the muscles for it. How can your young fellows
who never have camped out, or had anything to harden them, be fit
to go a-field, and rough it like your ‘regulars?’ By JoAre, Sir!
Why they’d catch their deaths of cold in the first drizzle, and be
sent home invalided if they marched a mile, by Jove, Sir! without
their umbrellas!

“ Now I say, Punch, it isn’t fair to talk of us in this way. Even
were it true, I don’t quite see the fun of saying it; for the movement
is well meant, if it be nothing else, and it’s not the time just now to
try and throw aold water on it. But my belief is really, that there’s not j
a word of truth in wliat these old chaps say of us. I don’t believe the
‘regulars ’ are tougher men than we are, or more able to fight against
exposure or fatigue. I believe our constitutions are just as good as
theirs: if anything, indeed, I’d rather back them to be better. As
for being trained to bear hunger and privation, to my mind that’s all
gammon, and against all human nature. You oould no more train a
soldier to put up with half rations than you could train a horse to work
without your feeding him, and to live on miser’s diet of a straw and
half jper diem. If you wan’t a long day’s hunting, it won’t quite pay
to give short commons in your stable; and the more you practise men
or horses to bear hunger, the more you will reduce their power to put
up with it.

“ But when old fogies say that we know nothing of exposure, and
that half-an-hour’s rain would be enough to make us mizzle, they seem
quite to forget, that we have, most of us, a pretty fair acquaintance with
field sports, which, in the way of standing weather, give us pretty fair
field practice. We volunteers of England, who sit at home at ease,
and (they say) daren’t venture out if it should rain, or blow, or freeze,
get with tolerable frequency wet jackets in our sports, and yet no
amount of drenching one atom damps our ardour for them. Who can
say that we can’t rough it, and are untrained to bear foul weather,
when he sees in black and white a sporting bit like this. I cut it from
the Illustrated News the other day, and it just serves to show people
that raining cats and dogs won’t save the life of foxes:—

“ The sport with the Quorn lias been remarkably good. A correspondent writes
ns as follows :—Thursday, Dec. 29. The first day’s hunting after the frost; raining !
in torrents : we had a capital day’s sport. The meet, Switheland Stone Pits ; fifty- i
four minutes and scarcely a check with our first fox. killing him in the open :
twenty minutes to ground in a drain without a check with the second : and forty
minutes as hard as hounds could race with our third fox. . . Friday, Dec. 30. j

Found a good fox at Thorpe Trussells in the afternoon, and had a capital thirty-
live minutes, running him to ground close to Prestwold House, in one of the most
tremendous hurricanes and thunderstorms ever known at this time of year in the I
county. The lightning was most vivid. . . Tuesday, Jan. 3. Staunton Harold. !

Had one of the fastest eighteen minutes ever known in the country, with the fust

“ Well—if Ave are not experienced as yet in standing fire, we have
had some training anyhow of late in standing water. And, mind you,
all these duckings were incurred for sport’s sake merely. There "was
no compulsion or need to have the nuisance of them. It was in pur-
suit of pleasure that the risk of them was run, and they who ran it, I
dare wager, were not a whit the worse for it. Rheumatism is less rife
with us than with the ‘regulars; ’ yet who shall say we haven’t just
as good a chance of catching it ?

“ Besides, haven’t we in some way been in training from our boy
hood, and exposed to roughish usage as well as rcughish weather.
Life is not all smoothness at the best of public schools ; there are sure
to be some thorns mixed among the roses. Eagging out at cricket is
tough Avork for young muscles, and a ‘shinning’ bout at football is really
no bad practice for the sharper give and take of a regular pitched
battle. At all events such exercise fits for active service, and
strengthens those who take to it, in lung as well as limb. Thanks to
boating, bathing, and to hunting in the holidays, an Eton boy grows up
as hard in sineAv as a clodhopper, and is just as much accustomed to
exposure to the weather.

“ Why he should not therefore make just as good a Rifleman, is a
problem which X leave for the old pipeclay chaps to work at, and
they’ll astonish my Aveak mind if they can bring it to a negative.
Meanwhile, thanking you for all you’ve been and gone and done to
help us,

“ Believe me, my bo-o-o-o-oy,

“ Yours everlastingly,

“ Young Nimrod.”

NIGHTINGALE’S NOTES.

It is not often that one hears a nightingale in winter-time, but a
Nightingale has lately been bringing forth her Notes for us, and in
the name of the nation. Punch thanks her for the novelty. The
Nightingale is the same whose sweet voice soothed so many a sick
ear in the war-time, and whose notes may well be listened to in time
also of peace. The theme on which she sings has less of music than ol
melancholy in it, but her notes in their sweet charity, are to our ear
most melodious. She sings of the sick room and how to lessen its sad
sufferings, and give help and comfort to those who have to bear them.
The world knows how our Nightingale has sung this song before,
and how our countrymen have blessed her shadow while she sang it.
She now repeats the theme with copious additions, but without a
variation from the tone of its kind spirit.

But it is not for this alone that Punch cries “Listen to our Night,
ingale ! ” It is not only for the sweetness which is breathed into her
Notes that Punch would bid his readers to hear them and to profit by
them. Eor the most practical of purposes her song, like herself, is
“ as good as gold.” Every note she utters has the value of a Bank
one. Ears deafened by disease may hear it, and be bettered by it:
and ears which have been sharpened by acuteness of affliction, may be
soothed and set at rest if our Nightingale be. listened to. Hear, ye
Nurses, how she speaks of needless noise in a sick room, and hold your
chattering tongues as experience bids her bid you:— |

“ Unnecessary noise is the most cruel absence of care which can be inflicted
either on sick or well. (For in all these remarks the sick are only mentioned as
suffering in a greater proportion than the well from precisely the same causes.)
Unnecessary, although slight, noise injures a sick person much more than necessary
noise of a much greater amount.”

Who, hearing this, shall say how many sick friends have been tor-
tured by their Nurses holding covert consultation with the cook, as to
the quantity of kidneys they can stuff down for their supper, and how
many goes of gin they wish to swill by way ot opiate ? Who shall say
how’ many patients have been worried by great doctors, advising this
and that 'in a loud voice on the landing, or giving their suggestions m
a trumpet-tongued stage whisper, before their creaking boots have
borne them from the room ? Who shall say how many sick ears have
been grievously tormented by friends rattling up in cabs to leave their
cards and kind inquiries, or, if they be more bosom ones, stumping
their way up-stairs to see “some oneot the family,” because they can’r,
be satisfied with “ what those servants say” ? And who shall say how
many sufferers are day-and-niglitly racked and harassed by those worst
of needless noises, noises in the street? Who shall count the head-
aches caused by cries of “sprats” and “hareskins,” “creeses” and
“ old clo’: ”—or say what days of anguish street-music lias occasioned,
and what nights of agony have been inflicted by the Waits ? Think ot
this, ye Magistrates, when next your “mercy” is appealed to m
behalf of a “poor organ-grinder.” Think how many death-beds lie
has probably embittered, and let him have that mercy which in justice
is his due. _ .

But these are not the only noises which cause suffering to the sick,
and which our thoughtful Nightingale notes down as being nuisances.