The Sun.
London, England, 1868-12-10 00:00:00

THE MILITIA AND VOLUNTEERS.

(From the Anglo-American Times.)
The Militia of Great Britain is its Constitutional
Force, and is purposely by the law placed in this
respect in striking contrast with the regular army.
Americans may not know that the very preamble
of the Act which legalizes a standing army declares
its maintenance to be contrary to law unless sanc-
tioned by Parliament. So jealous is the Legisla-
ture that it limits the Mutiny Act which legalizes
the regular army to one year, renewing it at the
beginning of each session. If that Act were not
passed, the whole military superstructure would fall
to the ground. A private might knock his colonel
down and be liable only before a magistrate to be
fined five shillings for assault and battery ; trial
by court-martial would become illegal, and the
Sovereign's Articles of War, which are based on
the Mutiny Act, would lose their foundation and
force. On the contrary, the Militia is a con-
stitutional army, each county having its orga-
nization, the men being liable to be raised by
conscription, and the officers appointed by the
Lord-Lieutenant of the county. There are so
many volunteer militia men that conscription is
not necessary, their services being only required as
a rule for three weeks of each year, when little
agricultural work is doing ; and the country lads
regard that spell of drill as a pleasant change to the
county capital where the muster is made. During the
time the men are called out, they are paid, clothed,
and fed as is the regular army ; the officers, who are
in the same proportion as a regular regiment, rank
with, but after the same grades of the standing
army. They dine at a mess, which, being long esta-
blished, is generally as well supplied and orna-
mented as those of their regular brethren. The
men are usually quartered in barracks, and come
under a Mutiny Act applicable to the militia, the
powers of commanding officers and courts-martial
being much the same in both services, but the
officers of the one cannot sit on the courts of the
other. After a militia regiment has been some
time at drill its appearance and composition are
so similar to those of the ordinary line regi-
ment that it requires a practised eye to tell the
difference, and frequently these regiments, being
called out for permanent service, take their places
in the barracks of Aldershot, when to all in-
tents and purposes they become ordinary march-
ing regiments. When the supplies are voted
Parliament grants the sum necessary to meet the
estimates for the current year's training, and the
only cost in the interval is the maintenance of the
permanent depots, with an adjutant at the place
where the regiment annually musters, together
with a sergeant-major, whose busine,s it is to look
after the arms, clothing, &c., to keep the rull, and
otherwise to have all maintained to meet require-
ments. This force consists almost wholly of in-
fantry, as the other branches of the service need a
training impossible to acquire in so limited a period,
but there are, more especially on the southern
coast, some excellent batteries of artillery, where
the men are exercised to handle and use heavy guns
and to man fortresses. In every county there is
a cavalry, by no means to be despised, called the
yeomanry, composed of perhaps the best material
of which soldiers can be made, small farmers, led by
the sons of the great landowners, who supply their
own horses, and form here and there well-mounted
troops and squadrons. Throughout the United
Kingdom the militia is formed from the genuine
material of the county to which it belongs, and in
this respect differs from the regular army, where
men of the three kingdoms are mixed in mostly all
regiments, even in many supposed to recruit only
in some particular spot. Thus the Highland militia
regiments are really Highlanders, which is far from
being the case in many of the most celebrated
regular Highland regiments. So, in Wales, and
perhaps in both, men often join who cannot speak
a word of English. This force is the old constitu-
tional levy of England, the offspring of feudalism,
and being admirably adapted to throw the military
defence of the kingdom into the hands of the great
landowners has been by them cherished and preserved.
Composed of their labourers, and officered by their
nominees, maintaining, too, a county character it
could not be otherwise ; and through it England has
managed to keep the liberties which great standing
armies crushed, everywhere else hi Europe. When the
feudal means of offence and defence began to change
to standing organizations, England went through
the horrors of a civil war, and Cromwell ruled by
the power given him by the finest standing army
England ever produced. Indeed, the struggle be-
tween his followers and the Crown, at least in its
latter stages, was a fight bAween a regular army,
mainly organized by him, and the militia, the levies
of influential landowers in their counties. Not only
did be totally defeat the cavaliers, but he so ruled
them that he left the memory to be handed down
as a tradition from generation to generation of aver-
sion to such a force—fortunately for England; for
had the Stuarts, on regaining their throne, been en-

abled to command the services of such an army as
that controlled by Cromwell, the whole political, ma-
terial, and religious aspect of England might at this
day be totally different. Hence the striking con-
trast in the preambles of the Naval and Military
Acts. In :the former, Parliament commences by
asserting that the fleets are essential to the honour,
glory, and security of England, and declaring the
national pride in this darling service ; whereas,
with the army, as we have before observed, it
begins by stating its maintenance b be illegal, and
only to be endured by the necessity of preserving
the balance of power, and adding to security
against a foreign invasion. Throughout, the same
spirit may be observed, a jealous guarding against
the improper employment of the force. Indeed
some of the sections are a curiosity in this way,
and have reference to a danger long since passed and
gone. That year by year Parliament should have
repeated this. Act, shows the lasting impression made
by Cromwell's Ironsides, as well as James ll.'s
attempt to organize a force independent of Par-
liament, for England has experienced no army mu-
tinies, though the same cannot be said for the
Fleet. Perhaps more numerous, and of a totally
different class, is the Volunteer organintion which
has recently risen into what we believe to be
permanent importance. After Waterloo, the Bri-
tish Army gradually dwindled into insignificance,
and came to be regarded as an obsolete and useless
machine, naturally assuming under such circum-
stances that character. Invasion panic, followed
invasion panic, and the reform in arms, organiza-
tion, and equipment of the regulars was not the
only result, for by some sudden national movement
the Volunteers sprang into existence. Although
eight years have elapsed, that force continues to flou-
rish, many of the regiments being composed of good
material fairly trained. Generally, the men are from
cities, where alone they could be found in sufficient
numbers, living so near each other as easily andquickly
to muster on the training ground and sufficiently well
off to afford the time. Parliament sanctioned the
organization, ordering an issue of arms to every
battalion, and a stipulated sum in proportion to the
numbers drilled in each regiment in aid of its main-
tenance. Military rank was given to the officers,
whom soldiers of the line are ordered to salute.
Young men in counting houses, and clerks •of all
sorts from shops, joined the regiments of their re-
spective localities—the universities furnished their
quota, as also did the professions. One of the
finest regiments has been nick-named " The Devil's
Own," being composed wholly of lawyers. There
is a striking difference between them and line regi-
ments. Wanting in the precision—in the solid,
massive, wall-like aspect, the machine-like move-
ments of the highly-trained regulars, the Volunteers
present a more easy, jaunty, springy gait, greater
quickness and • intelligence. They dress gene-

rally in grey or green, either copying the Rifle
corps or adopting something new in dress. By
those who strangely overlook the service for which
they would be required, the objection to them is
that they have no cohesion, no departments by
which armies are held together. But what is the

use of a commissariat, of transport, of hospitals, to
those who, if they fight at all, must fight in Eng-
land, where railways lead everywhere, where food
is abundant, where housing is ample, and surgeons
and all medical appliances are scattered throughout

the land. The fact is overlooked, that in case of an
invasion the whole resources of the country are not
asked for, but taken by the Government, and
Britain becomes the camp, the battle-Held, the
hospital of the armies. Au invader is compelled to
be the attacking side. The moment the enemy
ceases to move onward he is lost. The defenders
must be attacked where posted and beaten, or the
invasion fails; hence the Volunteers will not be
required to mauceuvre, fur there is but one line of
advance and one objective point. Iu position, these
troops would be found difficult to dislodge and
destructive to an attacking party, being well armed,
and for the most part skilful shots. Tue organiza-
tion then required for the defence of their native
country is very different from that necessary for
carrying on war in another, even if that other be
the land of an ally. For the purposes then that
the Volunteers of England are wanted they are
well fitted, and the tendency is greatly to rely on
them, for the policy of the Government is to steer
clear of foreign complications, and to use a military
organization almost wholly as a means of defence.
The militia is the makings of England's best force,
and a Parliament of the people could through the
machinery it supplies turn the country into a for-
midable military power. Custom, tradition, and
laws long ago enacted would compel Englishmen
to bear such a levee if they believed it to be neces-
sary, and the Government would possess in it did
that necessity arise, a weapon more mighty than
other nations believe possible. Indeed the idea on
the Continent of Europe is that England could not
be strong as a military empire, but this error would
be rudely dispelled if the people were aroused. The
regular army is a mere toy, but behind it lies a
formidable force, and one which may yet astonish
the world.

The Mechanic's Magazine says that a great dis-
covery in connection with gun cotton has been made by
Professor Abel and Mr. Brown, of the Royal Arsenal,
Woolwich. As we have regularly described the progress
of discovery with this important explosive, we need
only recall the last stages—the preservation from de-
composition by the use of a weak alkali, and the em-
ployment of compressed charges. Used in the last-
mentioned form, we have said that gun cotton, lighted
by the ordinary fuse, has about six times the destruc-
tive force of an equal weight of gunpowder. Messrs. Abel
and Brown, however, after experimenting with gun cot-
ton saturated with nitro-glycerine, igniting it necessarily
with the detonating fuse, tried the experiment of igniting
gun cotton alone in the same way. The results showed that
cotton exploded in this way has, perhaps, greater destruc-
tive force than nitro-glycerine. This is a great and va-
luable discovery, for we have here the comparative safety
of the gun cotton the tremendously destructive powers of
nitro-glycerine. For mining and quarrying purposes it re-
moves the only source of danger froM the use of gun
cotton, for no hard tamping is necessary. It is .sufficient
to fill up the bore with sand. Gun cotton, as we have
recently shown, may be carried and stored with perfect
safety from explosion. The detonating fuse can be inserted
in the charge when it is required for use. As with nitro-
glycerine, the explosion of one charge provokes the ex-
plosion of another. Thus, if it were required to destroy
a stockade, it is only necessary to place the charges at
distances round the enclosure, and explode one. The
explosion of all follows with instantaneous rapidity.
The New York Nation tells the following story,
as within its own knowledge, illustrating the tale of cor-
ruption which is said to be driving vast numbers of the
inhabitants of New York to New Jersey, and the neces•
sity of working for a reform independently of all party
motives. "Two years ago the corruption on the judiciat
bench of the city was nearly, but not quite, as bad as it is
now. It was certainly less bold and. unblushing, but it
was gathering strength. A bill was introduced and
hurried through both branches of the Legislature,
putting the whole chamber business of the Supreme
Court into the hands of ono judge, leaving the
governor to select the judge, and it was well
known to those who watched the bill that its promoters
intended that the judge selected should be the very one
who is now accused of complicity in the late election
frauds, and whose character was at that time every whit
as well known to the bar and the newspaper world as it
is now. The effect of the bill—which was, however,
not apparent on its face, and which escaped the Go-
vernor's notice—would have been to place about
twenty million dollars worth of property and the per-
sonal liberty of everybody iu the district at the judicial
disposal of one man, without appeal—an amount of
power such as has never, we venture to say, been con-
fided to a single officer under any system of jurisprudence
in any civilized country. In fact, it was a gigantic scheme
of plunder of the worst kind. But this was not the worst
of it. It was supported iu an indirect way by the leading
Republican paper in this city ; and a large number of
wealthy and prominent men—Republicans, too— signed
a paper urging the governor tosappoint the judge afore-
mentioned to the place thus created, believing, with that
silly confidence in other things than character, which is
ono of the curses of the time, that, owing to his having
recently quarrelled with the "Ring," ho might be depended
on to use his newly-acquired and enormous power against
it, and it only. The governor was happily made ac-
quainted in time with the real character of the measure,
and never signed it, but while it was lying waiting his de-
cision, with this scandalous pressure in its favour weigh-
ing on him, the matter was brought before the Union
League Club by the executive committee, and resolutions
were introduced denouncing it in strong terms. They
were tabled almost without debate. Ono speech—showing
that the measure had Republican friends, that the judge
had Republican friends, and that the subject was not a lit
one for the club to entertain, and that the resolutions, if
pressed, might divide the club—killed them.