The Sun.
London, England, 1861-07-15 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, MONDAY EVENING, JULY 15, 1861.

the ground the 3d Hants Artillery Volunteers, and
the 4th, sth, and 6th Hants Rifle Volunteers. The
regular troops present comprised 12 field officers,
36 captains, 69 subalterns—in all 3,323 non-com-
missioned officers and men, with six 12-pounder
Armstrong guns and 102 horses. Line was formed
from north to south across the common, with the
mounted Artillery on the extreme right and the di-
vision of Marine Artillery, with the Artillery and
Rifle Volunteers, on the left. Major-General Lord
W. Paulet, C. 8., Lieutenant-Governor of the garri-
son, and commanding the South-West district, was
in command. His lordship was attended by Colonel
Somerset, C. 8., Deputy-Quartermaster-General ;
Colonel Thackwell, Deputy-Adjutant-General ; Col.
Gordon, Royal Engineers ; Colonel Dunlop, C.B. ;
Royal Engineers ; Colonel Anderson, Royal Marine
Light Infantry; Captain Milligan, Aide-de-camp;
Captain Breton, Town Major, &c. At noon the
guns of her Majesty's ship Victory, and the
ships of war in Portsmouth Harbour, together
with the guns of the saluting battery of the
town works, fired each a royal salute of 21
guns. At the close the mounted batteries took
up the fire with seven guns, which was followed
by a feu de joie along the line of troops.
This, twice repeated, completed the firing, when
three deafening cheers were given for the Queen,
Lord Paulet acting as fugleman. The spectacle was
over by 1.30 p.m.
The Queen's birthday was celebrated at Wool-
wich-common by a review in which an amalgama-

tion of the Volunteers with the regular army was
effected on a large scale. The troops began to fall
in about 11 a.m., and in about half an hour an un-
broken line, two deep, was stretched, east and west,
from one extremity of the review ground to the
other, comprising 3,000 men, flanked at each end
by an Artillery battery of Armstrong guns. Gen.
Sir R. Dacres and staff rode up at 12 o'clock, when
the batteries commenced firing a royal salute, and,
after being inspected front and rear, the General
retired to the flag-staff, when a feu de joie passed
through the line three times with admirable
preci-
sion; after which " hats off!" was ordered, and

three boisterous cheers resounded throughout the
lines. The Volunteers present consisted of the
Gravesend, Faversham, Blackheath, and Plumstead
Volunteer Artillery, above 400 strong, in command
of Lieut.-Col. Gladdish ; a portion of the Dockyard
Artillery, about 200, in command of Major Thorn-
ton, commandant; the Royal Arsenal Volunteer
Artillery, above 400, in command of Lieut.-Colonel
Ellis; and a portion of the Ist and 2d Battalions,
Royal Arsenal Rifles, about 600 strong, in command
of Lieut.-Col. Parkyn. From the extreme fineness
of the weather, and the peculiar and unusual dis-
play, a very large concourse of persons of all grades
had assembled to witness the bearing of the Volun-
teers in so important a position, which all admitted
they sustained with undoubted satisfaction. The
united bands of the Royal Artillery and Marines
performed during the marching past, and the bands
of the respective corps played in succession during
the inspection.
Her Majesty's birthday was duly honoured at
Plymouth. The troops, including the Volunteers,
were reviewed at Devonport. _

On the Queen's birthday a detachment of the
Tower Hamlets Artillery, under the command of
Capt. Smith and Lieut. Marsh, met at their battery,
Blackwall, and fired a Royal salute of 21 guns.

as many of them were too modest to come for their
prizes, which had in consequence to be taken back
to store. A " dark gray man," who had come all
the way from under " the Southern Cross," to luxu-
riate in the showers of Wimbledon, attracted the
quick eye of his Royal Highness. This was Mr.
M'Farlane, an Australian competitor, clad in the
monotonous and peculiar uniform of his colony,
who had won an engraving. His Royal High-
ness warmly complimented the Australian on his
zeal and enthusiasm, and hoped that his good
example would be generally followed by his bro-
ther colonists. Mr. Boss, the veteran deer-stalker,
had also gracious notice; and Ensign Halliday,
who won the iron safe, was offered every facility
for carrying off his exceedingly portable prize in
triumph. Considerable amusement was caused by
this presentation, but it subsequently transpired
that Mr. Halliday haul solved the difficulty by ex-
changing it for two silver cups. The lion of the
day was of course M. Jopling, whose success the
Duke good-humouredly exulted in, as redounding
so much to the credit of the civil branch of his own
department.
After the presentation came the rain, and what
was more agreeable, the luncheon, at which the
British volunteers filly sustained the honour of
their country. The majority rushed to Mr.
M'Donald's refreshment booths, where they were
fully satisfied with their treatment; but some corps,
wise in their genera:ion, had brought their own
commissariat m aggots, in which were stored the
stout ale and warden pies immortalised in the
Robin Hood ballads. Unhappily, they could not
discuss them "under the greenwood tree," seeing
that the Common is entirely innocent of arboricul-
tural furniture; but they enjoyed them nearly as
much under capacious umbrellas, which were spread
out in such numbers as to give quite a new character
to the vast and desolate prairie. For a considerable
interval no sounds were heard in the volunteer
camp but those of jollity and temperate carousal,
during which the mel snapped their fingers at the
weather, and girt themselves up for the military
manoeuvres of the evening.

to attack and drive off a body of the enemy, sup-
posed to be in position, in great force, beyond the
butts. As the preliminary to this step, the advanced
body threw out skirmishing companies, consisting
of the City Rifles and the Inns of Court. The rain
had fallen heavily before the commencement of the
proceedings, and the ground was very wet, but one
half of the gallant sharpshooters took no heed of
this trifling discomfort, and threw themselves down
with the most perfect abandon, and with thorough
regard to the orders that they were to form a re-
serve body. The advanced firing party pushed on
over the uneven ground on which the butts and
brushwood are situated, and soon the little puffs of
white smoke and the sharp crack of the rifle told
that they were carefully feeling the way for the
main body to follow. The second line of skirmishers
rose, evidently by no means unwillingly, from the
soft and muddy position in which they had lain,
pushed forward, and were followed by the main
body. From this point the evolutions had for the
spectators all the enchantment which the poet tells
us is lent by distance to the view. The volunteers,
with real ardour, followed their imaginary enemy
into the distant furze, and the continued fusillade
indicated the sharpness of the struggle, and the
valour with which every inch of ground
was contested. Now and then a boom from
the great guns told how serious matters
were getting, and a terrible rumour reached the
Grand Stand that the advancing line of the volun-
teers had been broken through the ardour of the
men, and that the latter were becoming dangerously
" clubbed" in the distant furze. Then we herird the
attack had failed, and had therefore, according to
the Austrian manner, been changed into a recon-
naissance, and that the volunteer army, having
found the enemy too strongly posted, were in full
retreat upon the Grand Stand. A series of black
lines, some of rather irregular formation, emerging
from the smoke, soon confirmed our worst appre-
hensions. Then squares were formed and cavalry
resisted ; much powder was expended, but in a dis-
cursive manner, until at last the whole body ap-
proached the stand in one long, waving, uncertain
line. This was to be a grand charge along the whole
line, a beautiful manoeuvre when performed by
regular troops ; but the ardour of the volunteers
was too great for the restraints of discipline, and
one corps to the right of the line broke up into a
perfect mob, rushing forward with frantic shouts,
and causing terrible anguish to volunteer officers
and military aides, who gallopped across the front
of the wild crowd, and waved them back into line
with frantic gestures. It is in these ambitious ma-
noeuvres that our volunteers stand most in need of
practice, and—we must add—of better and more
attentive officers. The general observation made
by military men on Saturday was that the men
were wonderfully perfect, but that the officers, with
a few exceptions, were wholly unable properly to
handle them. In the firing by sections the greatest
difference was perceptible. In some cases the volley
came, as it ought to do, in only one report, whilst
in others it rattled in the most irregular and un-
professional manner. The public were not slow to
' perceive the difference, marking the good firing
with loud applause and laughing cruelly at the
less fortunate attempts.
As usual, the day finished with the " march
past," which the General Commanding in Chief
watched with a most patient and scrutinising
eye : to some he nodded his head approvingly,
others made him slightly scratch his ear,
with a dubious air, and in one or two cases
his Royal Highness was quite audible in his com-
mendation. One slight manoeuvre, that of advanc-
ing arms, as each corps approached the flagstaff,
was performed in the right place and at the right
time by only one corps, the London Scottish, and
this did not escape the quick eye of the Comman-
der-in-Chief, who by nods and a slight clap of the
hands recognised the proficiency in drill of the
Gaelic host. Bat all the corps were received with
equal ovation by the public, which by this time
densely fringed the whole common, and could not
amount to less than 50,000 persons. The throng
of private carriages was enormous, and their fair
occupants clapped their hands or waved their hand-
kerchiefs, as various appropriate airs played by the
band indicated the approach of the Devil's Own, or
the London Irish or Scottish, or some other popular
corps. None received more hearty cheering than
the workmen's corps of the City of London, and the
marching of this manly looking and well-disciplined
body elicited the marked notice of the Commander-
in-Chief. The South Middlesex had special
honours, in consequence of the success of Mr.
Jopling, and, like Macduff's army, bore green
boughs on their arms, to represent the laurel wreath
of victory. The cheering of the spectators was
hearty and encouraging throughout for every corps,
and the marching such as fully to justify the com-
pliment. The hest was probably the London Rifles
and the Artillery Company ; but it was all far above
the average, and was pronounced by all the military
authorities to be a great advance on previous dis-
plays. When the last corps had passed his Royal.
Highness gallopped off the ground, and the volun-
teer army made the best of its way to the railway
station, a task of no little difficulty, as every road
leading from the common was nearly blOcked up by
private carriages, of which probably so great a
number was seldom seen at any spectacle in the
neighbourhood of London.
The ground was kept by the 46th Middlesex,
commanded by Sir John Shelley, M.P., the 3d
company of London (Working Men), and 6th
Tower Hamlets. Two casualties occurred during
the advance of the first line. Mr. Steadman,
of Leighton, Essex, member of the sth Essex
corps, had two of the middle fingers of his left hand
shot off by the accidental discharge of his rifle, and
a member of the City of London Brigade was
wounded by the rifle of his rear rank man.