The New York herald., 1874-09-27
Our Olympisn Games.

ing with hungry eyes Tor an opportunity to
avenge Waterloo, and was beloved to be
arming his legions for descent upon Eng
land, Tennyson. as Poet Laureate, sounded
the alarm, calling upon the riflemen to form,
and ''ever be ready to meet the storm" 1t
was about this time, if our mCmory serves
when the English mind turned its attention
towards rifle shooting and field practice, to
reorgan nization of its militia and the forming
Of large reserved volunteer army. When
Sadowa postponed, for q generation at
least, any projects of Waterloo ven
geance and Sedan virtually destroyed them,
the dread of France changed into fear of
Germany. Tha placid English mind heard
with alarm that in the German military schools
students were planning how best to transport
and land an army on English coasts. This
gave new impulse 70 the volunteer move
ment, and accordingly there is no amusement
and no outdoor occupation more popular in
the United Kingdom to-day than military
movements and reviews and contests with the
rife
We could understand how natural this
would be in country where people cherish
all manner of outdoor sports. The Saxon, and
for that matter the Celtic, nature in even
higher degree, seems to yearn for the earth,
the air, the sunshine and the sea. To chase
dirty worthless fox over miles of country,
to follow timid hare over field and
valley. to ride in full chase after
bounding stag, these are royal joys. We
never tire OF them. We associate them with
the manifest nature. When our noveists de-
scribe an English gentleman, they tell us how
well he rides to hounds. Young noblemen
and the heirs to large estates grow weary of
the limitations of the moor and fen, the
highlands and the forests and seek fresh
conquests in Albania and Bohemia. W. find
them in India, hunting the tiger and the ele-
phant, on our broad plains pursuing the ante
lope and the buffalo, in the Sierra Nevada
challenging the terrible prowess OF the grizzly
bear. Nor can this be called vulgar,
craven yearning for mere butchery and
the taking Of life. The hunt summons
forth the best qualities of the man-the keen
eye the iron nerve endurance, courage,
patience. We see these qualities in the high
est degree in Livingstone's lonely venture
into Africa, in the wonderful tramp of Major
Butler through the ''wild lone land" of British
America, in SANKEY'S search ter Livingstone,
in MacGahan's ride across the steppes of Cen
tral Asia, in the voyages of Hayes into the
Arctic zone, in OKelly's marvellous adven-
lures in the Mambi land and in o hundred |
other ways. Modern history tells story after
story of these achievements. They culminate
in Waterloos and Gettysburgs. The Duke of
looking some Eton boys at play: ''This is
where we learned TO beat Bonaparte." He
might have said, had be lived to see the voun- |
teers march past on their review day: This is
why we need not fear Moltke.'
Our people at home have no French or Ger
man emulation to deeds Of skill or daring in
the open field But the interest which attends
the meeting at Creedmoor shows how strong
the instinct is in our American nature. We
have not made as much show in the way of
rifle shooting and scientific sports as the
English. There has been no lowering French
eagle screaming Waterloo no ravenous Ger
man eagle still unsatisfed with Sedan, to bid
our rifenen to form. But we have had for |
all the generations Of our national growth the
pioneers necessity of conqucring nature with
axe and gun. Our frontier has been TOR
more than two centuries the school for
all soldierly qualities. Accordingly there has
never been a time since Miles Standish went
out with his gun to defend the worshipping
Puritans from the Indians when we have not
had large body of ready made soldiers and
soldiers in the process of perfection. Our
home legends those that have been so
quantity told by Cooper, dwell upon the con-
tests of the pioneers with the Indians, and |
our fiction has produced no character that |
vies with Leatherstocking. He is to America |
what Robin Hood and all his successors |
have been to En- gland. We see him in the early |
French wars, when the valor OF our colonial
ancestors won for Great Britain her Canadian
Empire. We see him in the Revolutionary war, !
when the raw levies from New England and |
Virginia compelled the surrender of Bur
goyne's trained soldiery. We see him at New !
Orleans, when a general of militia, who had |
fought Indians all his life, destroyed an army
which had come from the Napoleonic wars to
meet its fate at the hands of Andrew Jackson
and his sharpshooters. The value of this
pioneer training was seen in our late war,
more especially in the early successes of the
Southern forces, in whose ranks this element
was largely to be found.
Whatever encourages and develops this dis
cipline is an advantage to our people and con-
tributes to the welfare of the nation. There
cannot be too much manliness in our amuse-
ments. Let us encourage those meetings on
turf and stream, those splendid trials of speed
that we read of in the days of Eclipse and
Lexington, the boat races between our college
youths, the contests like those seen at Creed |
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