The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1870-08-06 00:00:00

A THIRSTY ARMY

"It is known, on the auth .city of C qitain Tobin Shandy,
that the great Duke of Marlborough's army ' swore terribly in
Flandri ;' and if any other characteristic beyond that of
being her Ale .lly brave can be attached to the French force
at present massed on the North-E Latent frontier, it must he
certainly that of doing its best to drink the sea dry, or, in
deficit of the ocean, to drain the Meurthe and the Moselle,
the Saar and the Rhine, to the tact strop of their moisture.
You have heard a good deal, and have suffered s ,mewlmt at
home from the drought of 1570, but you should corn, to
Nancy or to Meta, to Strasbourg orb o Tni divine to see how
tar it is possible for the earth to become parched, and
for flowing fountains—not always of water—to be dried
up as though by ria,gle, but by human instead of solar
ligencY. f have seen a good many armies of different na-
tionalities in the field ; but a thirstier ar ny than this I never
beheld, and shall probably never behold &gala The Atom lean
soldier. is 163.4 were 'death on whisky' when they could
get it; but when the beloved stimulant could no homer he
smin•gled Into camp in tin cases disguised as Testaments,
they turned their quills and remained airy; for the Trans-
atlantic warrior was, as a rule, averse to water, either out-
wardly or inwaroly exhibited. Both the French and
the Italian armies in the canipilon of 1859 were enabled to dis-
pense with much drinking through the merciful inven-
tion of that ineffably nauseous cigar called the flavour,
which, althoueh, from its apparently component parte of
three of salt to one of eaten/sada, might prove a provocative
to thirst, makes the smoker no sick that he &es not want
to drink or local anything for a long time alterwai de, thus
realizing the Case Of the economical imin who boasted that
he cull live on six sous a week. Every Sunday he dined
with a friend who gave him go bountiful a repast that it took
hire three days to digest it. Oa 'Thursday he bought three-
pennyworth of tripe, which made him horrib:y ill until
Saturday, but enabled hint to come up to his next Sunday
banquet quite fresh and imiling."—Met. Correspondent of
Dailv Telegraph.

NO RETURN TICKET TO PARTS!

" The Emperor Napoleon did not give himself much time
for repose at Mete. Ott the morning following his arrival he
went, acc,smpmied by the Prince Imperial, Marshal Lelanut
and a considerable stall, by railway, to :A. Avoid, a rmall
town close to Sarreguemlnes and to the frontier. Going to the
Metz radway station about two in the afternoon, sod' hanging
abut 'in customary fashion for an hour or two, in hopes of
finding strain for ffitche—there are some nice subterranean
dungeons in that citulel in which, between 1003 and ISO& •
g0.,1 many hundreds of Engdah prisoners of war 0,,t a
miserable death, I was fortunate enough to see the Imperial
party alight from the train on their return from St. Avoid.
An open travelling carriage rt. to baumont, with postilions
In yellow buckskins, high jock-boots, powdered wigs,
scarlet vests, rings in their ears, sugar-loaf buttons, Suit
all the appareil of the Postilion de Longjumeau, together
with • couple of berlines with the Imperial arms on the
panel., and the Hanks, necks, and ears of the horses pro.
noted from the ties by housings of exceedingly fine net wort
—an American device, I thick—wore drawn up at th,
door of the stations, where a few garde, mobiles, within.
muskets, kept back the by 110 moats cmsiderable crowd.
I was jut in time to Bee the Imperial train, blaring in it,
green and golden embellishments, slide into the station. A
bevy of general officers first alighted, and bowing low, formed
a little lane for the grander grandees. The Emperor then
descended, slowly, and I thought with difliculty, and then,