The Sun.
London, England, 1860-05-17 00:00:00

TILE VOLUNTEE.RS.

(From the Leader and Saturday dnalyist, of Itiaill2the)
The Volunteers are " a great fact." Looking
at the twelve hundred young men who were in-
spected in Hyde Park by the Duke of Cambridge
last Saturday, one could scarcely think that they
were merely clerks and warehousemen, whose
training had all been done in the hours they could
sp tabbusiness.lity f'r
thbeei
men,
c i
andenc efficiency
bpor o
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wtiht
he
stahetaintclhrheaf
ltr
they
hadadaptability
in
ot devotedber parts themselves f tto It
the the
metropolis,
owt
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aa
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ao ut
tnatorby
themselves W t al the las fopperyexcre-
scences to the movement, it has given England
an army of volunteers, -upon which she may
safely rely in the hour of danger. A year ago We
were comparatively defenceless; an enemy who
should have succeeded in landing on our shores
would have met for some time with little resistance
worth mentioning; now, more than a hundred
thousand trained and disciplined men are ready to
c)-operate with the regular army in its resistance
to any foe who may be mad enough to assail us.
Has it ever occurred to Any one to ask to what
man or body of men—to what journal or number of
journals—ive are indebted for this great result? We
:ear not. The man who originates a movement of
this kind has to fight, in the commencement, against
obstacles -Which stem almost insuperable. He is
derided or refused a hearing; pooh-poohed as an
impracticable dreamer, until something occurs
*bleb take eirerybody a convert to his views, and
then he is deliberately )gnoreti. gverybody pro-
fesses to be struck by the same idea at the same
time, and takes credit for his own genius or
patriotism in putting it zealously forward. How-
eter usual this neglect may be, it is not the less
discreditable, and we are not willing to see the man
to whom England is mainly indebted for this re-
vival of a martial spirit and provision of a sure and
cheap defence deprived of the credit to which he is
entitled,
Eight or nine years ago Mr. Alfred B. Richards,
a gentleman well known as an earnest and able
advocate of popular rights, urged upon the Govern-
ment of the day, in different organs of public
opinion, the importance of encouraging the:people to
take up arms in their own defence. The time was
not propitious. The world was then wrapped in
a dream of universal peace ; and when, two or
three years afterwards, that dream was rudely
dispelled by the Russian war, our alliance with
Vrance indisposed people to a measure which
was principally necessary as a precautions against
the ambition and hatred of that country. When,
however, thetaddresses of the French colonels, at,
the time of the Conspiracy Bill had warned Eng-
lishmen of the danger to which they were ex-
posed, Mr. Richards, who took a prominent part
in the public agitation which led to the defeat of
that measure, renewed his efforts to awaken the
people to the importance of taking up arms, and the
Government to the duty of encouraging them by
facilitating the establishment of rifle clubs. Mr.
Richards's eloquent appeals, in the columns of
the Morning Advertiser—a journal which hs .5 been
the consistent and zealous supporter of the move-
ment all along, and which gave the cause all the
benefit of its influence, whilst it was sneered.at!in other
quarters must be familiar to many of our reade rs. But
Mr, IticiArclo 414 not content lumoai with' raging