The Sun.
London, England, 1861-04-02 00:00:00

THE ARM 1.

Lieut.- Col. Cormick and the officers of the Ist
battalion, 20th Regiment, serving in India, have re-
mitted a considerable sum of money to the officer
commanding the depot at Chatham, for the purpose
of presenting a gold watch and chain to Sergeant
Legge for his integrity and services as mess ser-
geant, which presentation was made to the sergeant
on Saturday at Chatham.
The examination by the Vice-President and mem-
bers of the Council of Military Education of candi-
dates for direct commissions commenced yesterday
'with the medical examination at the Royal Hospi-
tal, Chelsea. Gen. Knollys, the successor of Major-
Gen. Rumley, now Inspector-General of Infantry,
assumed his duties as Vice-President. Major• Gen.
Portlock and Col. Elwyn were the members of the
council present. Close upon 100 were candidates
on this occasion.

THE VOLUNTEERS.

THE REVIEW AT BRIGHTON.

The long-projected Volunteer Review and sham
light at Brighton, which has during the last three
weeks or so given rise to so much discussion among
the various metropolitan rifle corps, and especially
between thoir commanders, came off yesterday.
Everything which could add to the effect of a bril-
liant display was in favour of the Riflemen.. Unlike
the weather in the metropolis, the day was all that
could be wished at Brighton—clear, mild, and
genial, sufficiently hot to make the sea breeze wel-
come, with not enough of the breeze to make the
bleak downs cool. There was an immense concourse
of spectators from all parts of the country. The
day was kept a general holiday at Brighton, and,
in short, no accessory was wanting which could add
eclat to the whole demonstration. Nevertheless,
in spite of all these unlooked-for aids, the display,
we are sorry to say, was a comparative failure. It
was a failure in point of the numbers of Volun-
teers that attended; it was a failure in a still more
important point of view—in the disappointment
inflicted on thousands of spectators who had come
from all parts to see the sham fight, and who, from
the manner in which the troops were kept behind
the most distant hills, saw no more of what was
going forward than if they had remained in Lon-
don.

When the demonstration was first contemplated
at Brighton the great reason always put forward
in defence of such a distant rendezvous was that
by such a choice the chance of a great crowd from
the metropolis was done away with. In the face
of this excuse the feeling of the promoters of the
Brighton scheme against those who decided on
Wimbledon always appeared to us rather unreason-
able, as nothing could have better answered their
views than the Wimbledon Review if they were
.
really sincere in their desire to avoid a large con-
course of sightseers at their own more distant dis-
play. But those who contended so strongly for the
comparative retirement of the downs quite over-
looked the fact that Brighton is not a village, and
that the spectators from that town alone, with the
numbers sure to be added to them from the sur-
rounding districts, would be certain to make as
large an assemblage as any likely to be brought
together near the metropolis. Yet the noble and
gallant officers in charge of the arrangements refused
to see this obvious fact up to the last, and then ap-
parently only tried to remedy it by fixing the spot
for the manoeuvres in a valley beneath a hill at least
two miles distant from where the people were as-
sembled. Had they taken place in a plain, good
glasses might have done something even at
that distance, but the huge chalk hill was, of

course, opaque to the most powerful of telescopes.
We have every reason for knowing that the most
elaborate precautions were taken to keep the forces
at a distance from the spectators, but we never for
a moment supposed that these would have gone the
absurd length of taking them totally out of sight.
It may be said that the public were free to follow
the troops if they chose; but this, it will be seen
from the arrangements made, it was quite out of
their power to do. Commanders show a lamentable
ignorance of human nature in general and Volun-
teer nature in particular when they thus seek to
shut out the public. The Volunteer movement is
essentially a popular one, and the public are not a
whit more anxious to see a sham fight than the
Volunteers are that they themselves should be seen.
We do not think a great many corps will be anxious
for another private review like that of yesterday,
arid We feel morally convinced that the good people
of and round Brighton will not again be so easily
Ped by theman, programme of a sham fight. Very
of the Volunteers we.lt down to Brighton on
ounaay,t,
place had thatass by the evenl'xig that great watering.
streets were gay a most oarlike aspect, and the
all the corps eaeet
yvwith unifor ms representing nearly
d to arrive yesterday. For
some reason or
another, the authorities at the Horse
cluitar ciuite so warmly into the
fact, proposed plan, and in
,not to mince matters,
• were rumoured as beinN. e averse to the whole
Lisplay. This partiality, it was a..ileged, led them
to turn a deaf ear to the requested loan of some
pieces of artillery, and to zefuse to allow the sth
Dragoons to "keep" the , ;round,against the. Consequently
Voluateer feeling was rather roused
Horse Guards, who for som e inscrutable reason were
always spoken of in a gen( 3ral way as trying to;in.
troduce " the thin end of t. he wedge," a remark that
must ha ye concealed some e !xceedingly bitter mean,
ins, ;ince, though everybe 4 made it, it was always
in V 'olunteer circles lou lily aPProved. It Pas

the knowledge of this little feeling of soreness,
coupled with the doubts which existed as to who
was entitled to the salute in marching past—the
Lord-Lieutenant of the county or the General of
the district—which led to its being universally
reported yesterday that the Volunteers would not
and did not salute the latter. We need hardly say
that neither officers nor men ever contemplated
such a gross and absurd breach of discipline.
By eight o'clock yesterday morning Volunteer
buglep were rousing the echoes of Brighton in all
directions with the shrill notes of the " assembly."
True to the call, the men turned out into the streets
with heroic indifference to the state of the weather,
which just then was to say the least, discouraging.
In fact, it was raining in torrents—the usual keen
wind and merciless driving shower that generally
ushers in all popular holidays and out-door fetes in
England. The dejection shown on every counte-
nance at this most dreaded aspect was deep and
general. Fortunately it was not lasting. At half-
past eight there was a break in the clouds out to
sea ; by nine the downpour had ceased, the sun was
shining brightly, 'and all Brighton was wreathed
in smiles. From that hour out the weather was
propitious and cheery as a day in June.
Brighton is not, as a general rule, a hardworking
town. Yesterday, therefore, it at once took advan-
tage of the display to give itself a holiday. The
shops were almost as generally closed as if it had
been Sunday, and the streets all along the line of
route to be traversed and occupied by the volunteers
were thronged with spectators from the town itself,
and apparently from all the adjoining districts.
Some 16,000, we are told, came in by rail, and,
what with the crowds in the streets and on the
racecourse, not less than 80,000 turned out to see
and admire the riflemen. It was a pity, however,
that they had not more to see, for to all this sack
there was not a pennyworth of bread, the united
strength of all the volunteers on the ground being
short, we should say, of 7,000 men. Of these very
little more than 4,000 came from London. This
was a sad disappointment to the Brighton folks,
who had been carefully informed by some of our con-
temporaries that they might fully depend on seeing
a force more than twice as numerous as that of the
British troops at Alma, or about 54,000 men, col-
leeted on their downs. From 54,000 to 7,000 was a
sad falling off ; but everybody, nevertheless, made
the best of it, happily knowing nothing of the
greater disappointment still in store for them. The
first detachments from London began arriving a
little before 9 o'clock.

The railway arrangements were really excellent.
The trains, which were filled with men of all regi-
ments, and all cheering and waving their hats from
the windows, drew up outside the ordinary pas-
senger station at a huge outbuilding for rolling
stock, capable of containing some 5,000 men. The
instant the train stopped the men were out, and
passing through the shed, formed up at once in
the open space beyond. From this they marched
down, headed by their bands, along the Mont-
pelier-road, towards the open space called the
Level, where they were battalionised in the pre-
sence of a very admiring multitude. The Artil-
lery Corps were about the first to make their ap-
pearance in marching order. 0 wing to the refusal
of the Horse Guards to lend artillery there was at
one time a strong probability that the battle would
have to be fought without guns. Fortunately,
this important deficiency was not added to the
other shortcomings, for four field guns, belonging
to some Sussex Artillery, were borrowed for the
occasion. To the noise made by these pieces the
mass of spectators are indebted for the knowledge
that there was any sham fight at all. Massing the
regiments on the Level was about the best part of
the day's proceedings. There, at least, the people
could not only see the regiments but the individuals
composing them. Later in the day they were re-
quested to recognise in a very distant noise of
musketry an important strategical manoeuvre, and
through a telescope to appreciate the drill of Vo-
lunteers as displayed by an irregular dark line on
a hill side some two miles off, if not much mere. It
was announced that all the troops were to march
past the Grand Stand on the racecourse previous to
commencing the evolutions of the day. This, there-
fore, was the universal centre of attraction. An
admission fee of 10s. was charged to the Grand
Stand, and, as at the race on a Derby day, carriages
were also charged 10s. and ss. for coming within
the enclosure near the ropes, and when once fixed
the horses were removed forthwith. Stands of the
largest dimensions, and apparently of the frailest
proportions, were erected on every side, and people
gladly paid their money to scramble to the tops of
these, of course, under a general impression that
they would see something in return for their venture
of both purse and person. In fact, all round the
the Grand Stand, and for a considerable distance
along the course, the scene presented was just the
same as on the days when races are to be run and
won, and the mass had evidently taken their stands
and paid their money in the belief that they would
be able at least to see the sham battle, if they could
not understand it. To assist in whiling away the
time that intervened before that event there was
the usual muster of negro melodists, grinning with
more than the dental abandon peculiar to the
race ; mountebanks and tumblers, gipsies dia•
pensing unheard of . fortunes, card sharpers,
I pickpockets, performing monkeys, and precocious
children. Babes scarcely able to stand upon their
feet earned a precarious livelihood upon their
hands in wooden platters, and these, with
interludes of tumbling, boxing with the gloves,
above all " Aunt Sally," whom his Grace of Beau-
fort first brought under public notice on that very
spot, passed the time away well enough till the
Volunteers came on the ground.
The Earl of Chichester, Lord-Lieutenant of the
county, occupied a place on the Grand Stand, and
Major- Gen. Scarlett, Military-Commandant of the
district, was also present with his Staff, represent-
ing the authorities at the Horse Guards. Before
12 o'clock the Volunteers began moving out of
Brighton by different routes, and were gathered in
open columns of companies on the brow of the hill
next the sea, above the Stand. At a little after
one the marching 'cast commenced in the following
order :

ARTILLERY BRIGADE.
Colonel Estridge commanding.
Ist Battalion Brighton Artillery.
4th Battalion Cinque Ports.
2d Hants.
2d Sussex.

IST BRIGADE INFANTRY.

Liout.-Colonel Faunce commanding ; Captain Deedes,

Brigade Major.
Ist Battalion, Col. M'Leod—lst Middlesex Engineers.
12th Battalion, Major Atherley-32d Middlesex Guards.
13th Battalion, Captain Ives-2d South Middlesex; 11th
Middlesex, St. Georges's ; 36th Middlesex, Paddington.
2D BRIGADE.

Lord Radstock commanding ; Captain Chitty, Brigade
Major.

Ist Battalion-9th Middlesex, West; 2d do. Adminis-
trative Battalion.
2d Battalion, Col. Money-6th Tower Hamlets ; 4th do.
and 7th Islington.
3d Battalion—Col. Colville-39th Middlesex (Clerken-
well) ; Kent Rifles (companies) 4, 13, 17, 21, 34.

3D BRIGADE.

Colonel Moorsom commanding; Major Penton, Brigade

Major.
Ist Battalion-3d Battalion Administrative Sussex.
2d Battalion-Ist Cinque Ports.
3d Battalion-2d Battalion Administrative Sussex.