The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1872-09-07 00:00:00

THE STOURBRIDGE OBSERVEtt.

ranee of woods and lavnw, and of gardens cnd pleasure-
grounds, without damage to a twig ore flower, and
without even the footmark of mischief or wantonness.
Such is the British Army of to-day. Its march is a
procession ; its rest as much under order as a
parade. Such is war as we have the good for.
tune to see it. It is peace in these days that
does the tumult, the uproar, the bloodshed, the
wounds, the wrecking. Under peace, and in the
presence of civil magistrates impotent to restrain them.
tuebulent factions invade and devastate one another's
quarters on the pretence of vindicating some
heavenly doctrine or respectable name. In a reign of
law and peace, the ignorant and brutal mob of a pro-
vincial city smashes windows and pillages shops to
revenge some curtailment of their midnight carouse
and Sabbath debauch.

For the present we prefer to dwell on the more agrs e- I
able side of the contrast—the soldier setting the aitizen
an example. It is important, for some people hove
to be undeceived. One objection to the Autumn
Manceuvrea ban been that peaceful distr:cts would
suddenly find themselves in the hands of a class of
pewons whom it is rather the habit of the English
mind to regard as exceptionally lawless, rapacious, and
violent. A man who leaves his village or town to enlist
is supposed to do so because he cannot endue the re-
straints of peace awl is tired of its dull way. He wishes
to be a little more his own master, and to have
companions, too, more to his liking. When he revisits
home, after a few years' absence, his old associates are
surprised to find that he is a better behaved man than
they used to know him; that he has acquired a good
deal of education, and that he has striiiter notions of
propriety perhaps than they have themselves. But
the st idler of old English superstition is a man not to
be trusted with anything he may have a fancy for. It
is, then, with no little surprise that the Donsetehire
villagers see the invaders come and go touching and
taking nothing hut what they pay f,r, and very much
occupied with the ample pleasure of seeing and being
seen. It must be remembered that till, on the very eve
of the Russian war, it suddenly struck some people that
drill was not enough to make either armies or generals,
there had not been seen in this country for many years
a larger body of so diem than the annual rnuste :on the
Parade in St. James's Park. In rural districte the
thing was unknown, and we had to go back to hi it ,ry
for anything like an army in England. The Manieuvres
of this Autumn, going out of what may be called the
military district round Aldershott, and extending to
parts which a have never seen so much as a regiment
since the Prince of Orange came that way near two
centuries ago, will much enlighten the rural an I
provincial public, and it might be well if somebody
found in every village to put the picture well
before the rustic mind.

Were

But there is another moral from the picture drawn
by Lord Shaftesbury worthy of some attention. What
a soldier always wants is something to do. He frets
under unvaried routine, one day just like another, and
endless trifles of which he can never see the import-
ance. A campaign, even through the Downs, aud
lanes, and villages of his own couatry, with no enemies
to deal with except those imagined or improvised out of
friends, still has its fatigues, and its hardships, and its
difficulties. A march of a dozen miles is real work ;
the end is a sufficient object. The soldier sees a good
deal; he has the feeling of being engaged in a great
operation, and he knows that this is the nearest ap-
proach to that actual war he has heard so much of. If
he suffers some inconvenience, if the commissariat is
behindhand or astray, that serves to give reality to the
illusion. The smaller plagues of life have a tendency t
quicken the vitality. Men love the life they have to fight
for, and seek that which they have felt the want of.
Cannot there be more of this autumnal work, and in
other descriptions of country? There are obvious facili-
ties in confining it to our more open c iuntry, our sandy
heaths and our chalk Downs; but if actual war off ,uld
ever come, it may perhaps take its course through thick
hedgerows and deep lanes. If only for the instruction
of the British public, the scene ought to be changed
every Autumn.