The Arkansas banner., 1843-12-09

soon publish, at length, and in book form, hls own clear statement of his own masterly views on this subject, in opposition to those oi Leibig and, then, the public will have the means of judging. fairly, by 'hearing both l sides"
 February 17h, Is4s
 TIE RUSSIAN IMPERIAL GUARDS.
 A recent article in the United Service Journal, of .England, contains very inter esting account of the force and condition of the Russian army, the different bodies of troops, and the peculiar treatment to which l they are subjected together with numerous strictures on the despotic character of the imperial family. The following extract re- fers to the Imperial G4ard, which, says the writer of the article, ewhen seen for the first time at a-review, strike the beholders almost with awe, who, though he may have seen many finer regiments can have witnessed nowhere in the world so Mrge q body of fine looking troops together.n
 The Imperial Guard, which has always been the hobby of the Russian sovereigns. and is peculiarly so of the present Emperor, Nicholas, and of his brother Michael, con sists of forty-one thousand infantry and artil- 1 lely, and of about eleven thousand cavalry, and, with tho addition of the Regiments 1 of the Young Guard, does not fall short of 95,000 men. This force is stationed ill the Government ol St. Petersburg principally, in and about the capital, and is under the com mand of the Grand Duke Michael The Guards, the picked men from the whole re- my, are all either , feet l l inches in height, as ny ftt,r fIanfe ef,t.. observer IS struck to find them all dark, and bearing to each other as remarkable simili- tude as the sheep of flock When his eye Wanders over thousands of faces, he cannot readily point out one who might not pass for the brother of the one most dissimilar to him; and they seem as if Nature had moulded them all by ukase, according to a given pattern; and the precision and uniformity of their attitude and equipment make one man look the reflection of the one beside him. Fms slmllltude of personal appearance he ai- forwards finds to be much owing to their ge- neral dusky and sallow complexions, {prob- ably produced by the excessive warmth of the artificial atmosphere in which they live, and the abuse of the steambath,) as well as to the black moustaehe, of exactly the same cut and trim; and which, whatever its origi- nal color, receives the same dark gloss, by being annointed and plastered by an unctious compound-something similar to our English cart grease. This is applied by order. A 'sukase" also fixes the length of soldiers or an officers hair at fingers width, and determines on which side 1t must be brushed, and how=low the whiskers may be allowed to invade the cheek. These orders are the same for the General as for the drummer As long as we see these soldiers of the guards embodied, they are very imposing High of slature-of martial, though rigidly stiff cara rlage-they are clad in tasteful uniforms, of which the materials, though coarse, have | been fashioned with all the skill of art, and fitted to each man individually; they are worthy of having come from the hands of the late King of Prussia, of whom the Elm peror Alexander said that fortune had spoiled an admirable master tailor in giving him q crown.
 There IS one effect, however, strikinoly ludlcrous ln the attempt to improve the fig ures of both soldiers and officers their trou. sers are frightened so much by band at the waist; that the stomach protrudes most un- gracefully, particularly in the soldier who eats enormous quantities of his black bread. and whose human intestnes are swollen lare- CT than an English race-horse's. When we come to examine the soldier after the review. without his ''making up," we are surprised to find how miserable creature he is, how meagre, narrow-chested, ill-shapen; what a a want of muscle, sinew, and elasticity to an- innate that great body, which reminds one of an over-grown school boy. How different from the healthy cheek, the athletic form, and symmetrical figure of our own Life Guardsman. There is scarcely in these regi- ments (which are considered as the pride of the imperial army one man in ten whose shape IS not glaringly defective; but this ob- servation does not apply to the regiments of the line, which are composed of men of much inferior stature; and we must, therefore, con- cllde that these tall men, collected from a people of sixty millions, are rather its mon strosities iii point of size than it's flower
 In point of fact, the Russians are not a tall race; but the Emperor has been determined to have guards as tall as those of nations whose stature averages several inches more :; and though there has been no difficulty in procuring the number required from the pop ulatlon of his empire, they are overgrown, deformed, or weedy, and such as our picked men would be in England if the standard were raised to 6 feet B.
 In the Polish war, the Guards are said to have proved very inferior to the line, which we cannot but attribute to the same cause-a cause which equally affects the cavalry of the Guards, whose efficiency is still dimin-