MEN OF THE DAY. No. 209.

BRIGADIER-GENERAL SIR EVELYN WOOD, K.C.B., V.C.

THOUGH still a young man, Sir Evelyn Wood is old in achievements and accomplishments. He is so dashing a leader that he has been thrice recommended for the Victoria Cross; he is a prudent Commander, a Staff College man, a barrister-at-law, a thorough sportsman, and a good orator. As a midshipman of seventeen, his deeds of daring were numerous and brilliant enough to win special mention from Lord Raglan, public thanks from Sir William Peel, and a five-ounce ball in the arm. In India he passed in Hindustani, raised a troop of horse, acquired great influence with the natives, and did great slaughter on the rebels. In Ashantee his gallantry and energy were again displayed, and he there first became known as a General, Sir Garnet Wolseley leaving the initiative attack of Essoman in his hands, and giving him due credit for his success. Great devotion to him has always been exhibited by those who serve under him. The wild Bonny men in Ashantee would own no other leader, and gallant young English officers have freely risked their lives in defence of his. In politics he may be termed a Whig, but he was liberal enough to advocate some years ago, at a debating club at Sandhurst, the advisability of admitting newspaper correspondents to the front in time of war, and was consistent enough to carry out his theory by his practice in Zululand—where there were no sentries over his tent. In South Africa his energy and tact were said by Lord Chelmsford to have mainly contributed to the termination of the Gaeka War, while from the northernmost part of Zululand he with his Flying Column worked over and defended some eighty miles of frontier; took six thousand head of cattle; surprised and defeated the Zulus in one engagement; broke their power in the memorable hard-fought four-and-a-half hours of Kambula; and finally, by one of the greatest convoy feats ever before attempted by a British force, succeeded (forty-eight hours sooner than had been allowed him by the most sanguine calculation) in provisioning the whole of the troops and securing the advance on Ulundi. For these and other reasons, whatever additional honours may be attained by Sir Evelyn Wood, his name will always be inseparably connected with that of his Flying Column.