The Sun.
London, England, 1860-01-03 00:00:00

GEORGE CRUIKSHANK ON RIFLE
VOLUNTEERS.

A Popgun has just be—en fired off by that dear
old friend and delightful familiar of us all—George
Cruikshank ! It has discharged itself in the shape
of a capital little paper pellet, and has been aimed so
truly, with such a keen eye and such a steady hand,
by this rare marksman (one who, though still in
the meridian prime of his career, has now for the
best part of half a century been shooting folly as it
flies)—that the aforesaid "paper-pellet" cannot pos-
sibly fail to hit the bull's-eye, or, in other words,
to catch the eye (and the fancy too, for that mat-
ter) of Mr. BULL and a large part of his very nu-
merous Family. It is, if not apropos des bottes,
certainly, beyond a doubt of it, apropos of the
knickerbockers, the wide-awakes, and all the rest
of the. good, serviceable warlike paraphernalia of
the Rifle Volunteers. As to the sparkling letter-
precis of the pamphlet, we can certainly give a goodly
taste of that,by quotation. But as to the illustrative
woodcuts—whose pencil can possibly give any ade-
que.te notion of that Fowling Piece " Going Off! "
or of the truth of the old adage, that—

" He who fights and runs away,
May live to fight another day."
A spectacle quite of the old school, when each
particular (pigtail) stands on end"—or of sundry
other pictorial whimsicalities here pencilled by
our inimitable George Cruikshank. If any one
wants to see George himself still in all his glory as
a comic draughtsman—(as a writer in the current
number of the Dublin Universilylliagazine dubs him
quite truthfully "the prince and paragon of all
English caricaturists")—let them turn to that page
of this pamphlet of the " Popgun," in which the
artist is represented in propria persona, tweaking
delicately with a pair of tongs the nose of an of-
fending publisher.

As to the pamphlet itself—here is the pith or
marrow of its timely argument :
Not only did the men in 1803 form themselves into
regiments of volunteers, but the boys of that day
did so likewise, and my brother, and who was my
elder by three years, formed one of these juvenile
regiments, and appointed himself the colonel. We
had our drum and our fife, our " colours" presented
by our mammas and sisters, who also assisted in
making our accoutrements. We also procured small
" gun stocks," into which we fixed mop-sticks
for barrels, kindly polished by Betty, with a
tinge of black-lead, to make 'em look like real bar-
rels. The boys watched their fathes drill; and,
"as the old cock crows the young one learns,"
so we children followed in the steps of our papas,
and we were ready for inspection quite as soon as
our elders, and could march in good order, to have
our " field-day," from Bloomsbury Church to the
fields where Russell and Tavistock squares now
stand. This account of my " playing at soldiers.'
may appear to be rather trifling and nonsensical,
but just see what it has done for me. Why, by my
learning the manual exercise with my mop-stick
gun, when a boy, and at the same time learning
how to " march," " countermarch," and to " mark
time," to " wheel" and to " face," &c., it has made
me—aye, me, G. C.—fit and able to handle a
musket or a rifle, and to fall into the ranks of an
infantry regiment at a moment's notice. I make
this assertion with confidence, for when as a young
man I joined a rifle company, I found that I re-
quired no drilling ; the only additional knowledge
necessary was to understand the " calls" of the
bugle and the whistle, which, with the rifles, are
used instead of the " word of command" when skir-
mishing; and I can say, having previously learnt
to prime, and load, and fire, and hit a mark, that I
was a tolerable rifleman in one week after I had
entered. The fact is that learning the military
exorcise when young is like learning to dance, or
to ride, or to row, or to swim, or to fence, or to
box at an early age ; and when these very im-
portant parts of male education or training are
acquired in boyhood, they are never forgotten.
If a boy has been taught to dance he never for-
gets how to dance, and soon acquires a new step or
learns a new figure ; also, if when grown to man-
hood, although he may not have crossed a horse for
years, he never forgets how to hold his bridle, and
soon finds his "deep seat" even upon a restive horse;
and farther, that although not having swam for
years, should he by accident fall into the water, he
swims; and so the same with rowing, fencing, box-
ing, marching, or firing.
We all know that early pleasurable impressions,
as well as very' disagreeable ones, are never effaced ;
and, as "playing at soldiers" does strongly engage
the youthful mind, it is quite clear, as in my case,
that if every boy in these realms was taught the
military exercise as I was, they would, as they grew
up to manhood, require little or no training to make
them sufficiently effective for defence ; and if the
whole male population of this country capable of
bearing arms were to be in such a condition, in such
" fighting order," thei e never would be any fighting
at all, for no nation, or all the nations combined to-
gether, would never even so much as dream of in-
vading a country where they would have a difficulty
of landing hundreds of thousands of their men, who
would have to meet millions and millions of well-
trained and well-organised men to oppose them, to
say nothing of the tossing, and bumping, and scrap-
ing they would be likely to get in getting over " the
wooden walls of Old England."
If, then, our people could be thus trained, and
always prepared, and always " on guard," we might
then go on with our several occupations without
interruption, and this, in fact,' is all that John
Bull requires ; and as to his thinking of invading
any neighbour, depend upon it you will never catch
him leaving off his rugular work to undertake such
a job as that. The world must indeed be turned
upside down before we, as a people, could dream of
such an outrage. Every one will, of course, agree
in the desirability of our country being in the state
of security as I have shown to be possible ; but as
" what is everybody's business is nobody's business"
—and as London would have been destroyed by fire
over and over again had people not been compelled
by act of parliament to build party walls to protect
themselves and their neighbours—so I apprehend
in this case where it is for the common security of
all, the people must pass an act to compel them-
selves to adopt some inexpensive and comprehen-
sive plan, to place their persons and their property
beyond the reach of danger.
As these pages are put hurriedly together, I do
not now offer any defined plan to carry out this
notion of juvenile military training, but every youth
capable of bearing arms, at a given age, should be
compelled to present himself before the proper au-
thorities for enrolment. The Government would
have little to do except to organise and regulate the
machinery of the movement. The boys themselves
would be too glad to get to the military play-
grounds to " play at soldiers" for the sake of the
recreation and the healthful exercise. After a time
they would be shown how arms should be used
and handled, but not trusted in their hands until
they understood them well, and were old enough
to take care of themselves and of others. Fire-
arms are dangerous things to handle, unless people
know how to do so properly, and then there is, I
might almost say, no danger. But every one, boy
and man, ought to be most strongly impressed with
the folly and the danger of playing with fire-arms.
Many a life has been destroyed in this way, and
numbers of dreadful accidents of this sort crowd
upon my memory at this moment. I may mention
one that occurred next door to my father's house.
A gentleman (a volunteer) unfortunately left his
gun loaded in the corner of the room where his wife
was sitting, their son, a little boy, came in, and
taking up the gun, which he was hardly able to
level, said, playfully, "Mother, I'll shoot you!" and
he did shoot her, for the gun was loaded with ball,
and she fell dead upon the floor.
There should be some severe laws passed to pre-
vent, if possible, such accidents, and I think it
ought to be made a criminal act to point or present
the muzzle of a gun or pistol at any one, leaded or
unloaded. When military men or sportsmen have
not the opportunity of discharging their last charge,
then the cap should be removed, the charge with-
drawn, and the ramrod made to ring well in the
barrel—every well-trained man does this—and then
you may give the gun or the pistol to a child to
play with, in as far as that which, whilst loaded,
contained death, if unloaded , is perfectly harmless ;
and we know too well that there is hardly a shooting
season passes over without somebody accidentally
shooting himself or his friend,wahthi this is ainly be-
cause they were not taught, it
in their childhood how a real load'eamopstick gun
Ifs nun ought to
be carried, so that, in fact, many Peollao.stieelacrry their
fowling-piece as if it were but arn
It may be urged in reply to my grand scheme,
that the rifle corps now forming will, with the
standing army, be all that is required for the pur-
poses of defence at any tixie. So far this may be
allowed, as for the present (that is when they are
well trained), and for a few years hence, say 10 or
15 ; but if we may calculate for the future by what
has happened to similar associations, we may be
certain, if the fe it of invasion should entirely cease,
that these rifle regiments will fall off, and cease
also, as did the volunteer regiments of former days,
when the real danger of their day was over. For a
time all goes on with spirit, it is something new, as
well as national ; but should all appearance of dan-
ger disappear, there will be very few if any new
members join, and as the old members die off or
retire, or are dispersed by circumstances, so the
regiment dwindles into inefficiency.
The Government during the last war with France