BOOKS.
LAING'S OBSERVATIONS ON DEN/LARK AND THE
DUCHIES.* Mn LATNG'S account of a visit to Holstein, Sleswick, and Denmark, in 1851, is little more than a basis for dissertations on various topics, directly, and sometimes remotely, suggested by what he saw. It contains some clear and distinct descriptions of the external world, a good deal of information on practical affairs, and some social sketches ; but the larger part of the volume consists of disquisi- tion on upwards of thirty topics connected with the existing state of the Continent and this country, with an occasional reference to Ame- rica. The characteristics of Denmark and its people and the present political condition of Germany, serve as themes to discuss theEnglish relationship to Denmark, and the state of enterprise and commerce among the ancient Scandinavians, as well as to show that in Ger- many there is no nationality—that the " Vaterland " is a phrase and a humbug—and that the Germans are, and from natural eircum- stances most probably will remain, such as Tacitus described them, separate tribes. The war in Sleswick-Holstein, the mixed races of these Duchies, and the German system of education give rise to long dissertations on the origin of the war, on the two classes with two languages into which Germany is divided, and on the swaggering, unpractical, unprincipled, place-hunting race, which is the product of the French and German systems of society
and education. A race, Mr. Laing declares, which has succeeded to the intellectual power of Rome during the middle ages, and would have used their power more unscrupulously than the Church, but that the victories of the Danes over the Taterlanders, the military power of Austria, and the coup d'etat of the French President, have gone far to destroy it.
"In France, the President Louis Napoleon has swept the country clear of the influence of the educational and literary corps, and of the individuals who wielded it. The means have been unprincipled, and their application tyrannical, but the end attained has been good. A power has been crushed Which could neither govern nor allow any other to govern. It is one of the most instructive facts in the history of the last half century, that the two countries, France and Germany, and particularly Prussia, which have taken the lead in national education, have established schools, licensed teachers, compulsory attendance, educational boards, superintendents, and a minister of state for public instruction, with a vast and efficient machinery, and which have succeeded in diffusing reading, writing, a taste for music, a taste for fine arts, and have spread many accomplishments among the people, have failed entirely in getting together, out of their educated populations, three or four hundred men of common sense and ordinary capacity for business, to be an efficient parliament."
The theme and its cognates indicated in this extract form the most elaborately treated topics of the volume but there are nu- merous others, from the influence of race on the spirit of govern- ment irrespective of forms, to the boulders of Denmark. They are all distinguished by Mr. Laing's wonted shrewdness and prac- tical intelligence ; they abound in facts, and contain keen argu- ments as well as useful suggestions. The habit of dissertation, however, is pushed to an extreme and even those who might have been prepared by Mr. Laing's later works for disquisition in lieu of travelling observation, will be disappointed by its extent and the frequent recurrence to the same topic in different places. Neither are his conclusions always new—as in the arguments on the theoretical and practical systems of education in Germany and England; perhaps not always sound or entire—as in the remarks on the slop system. "To the middle and lower classes with us, this cheapness of clothing ma- terial is of unspeakable benefit. The physical benefit—the keeping the body warm and comfortably clothed—is but trifling compared to the moral benefit, the effect on mind and character, the self-respect, the habits of cleanliness and right conduct, produced on the uneducated common man by the posses- sion of a suit of clothes in which he can appear at church or meeting, in street or market, on a footing with those he considers most respectable in society. The cheap clothing shops in London, with all their sweating of the wretched operative tailors in their employment, have produced great social good. They have raised the mechanic, the operative class, above the distinction of dress between class and class, and have given to the million the feelings of self-respect and of respectable appearance which influence conduct. Moses and Co. have raised a great moral power from their shop in the Minories."
We suspect the power of Moses and Co. of the Minories over the outward man is limited to the production of the genus " gent "; that "the moral power" of the whole tribe of slopsellers, and pro- ducers of cheap, flashy, pretentious articles, is more likely to form characters like their goods than to raise the pretender to the posi- tion he externally aspires to. The peasant or the artisan, whose costume proclaims his condition, has probably more self-respect and is a more respectable man than the smart cheap-snit personage turned out from an advertising emporium. 7Neither is the cheap- ness real : the dear old-fashioned articles would wear out two or three " garments " of the new school.
Description, or the results of actual observation, bear a compa- ratively small proportion to the disquisitions in the book. What there are, however, are useful and informing. There are some nice sketches of Danish landscape ; many facts and some informa- tion about Danish dairy farms and their mode of management, as well as the nature of the tenure. The social condition of the Duchies is fully described, with remarks on society, government, and education in Denmark. These portions of the volume would form a valuable book by themselves without the dissertations. In Mr Laing's opinion, the battle of Idsted, where the Danes defeated the Germano-Prussian army, will be rated by posterity as
• Observations on the Social and Political State of Denmark and the Duchies of Sleswick and Holstein in 1851: being the Third Series of the Notes of a Traveller. By Samuel Laing, Esq., Author of a "Journal of a Residence in Norway," 80. 8r.c. Published by Longman and Co. of more importance than Waterloo ; because there the literary. professor-bureaucracy received its first blow. Of this battle and of the events of the war a clear account is presented. Mr. Laing also picked up some facts about the Prussian rifle, which favour Sir Charles Napiees preference for the musket. “I made many inquiries among officers who had served on outpost duty during the war on a subject which is at present attracting much attention, —the real value in the field of the German Sundnadel firelock, or needle- musket, with which the German, and especially the Prussian, light infantry, or Jager corps, m the 'Schleswig-Holstein' army, were provided. They all agreed in stating that they had heard of instances of men being hit at the distance, by estimation, of 1200 ells, or about half an English mile, but that these instances were very rare ; that a man at that distance subtends too small an angle to allow of any effective aim, and if in motion, as the skir- misher on an outpost always is, no aim at all can be adjusted with any cer- tainty on so small a moving object as a man at that distance. Within the ordinary range of the common musket,—and a brave light infantry man soon runs over the distance between their range and his,—the needle-musket man is under the disadvantage, that his piece requires more care and nicety in reloading, is more liable to derangement which makes it useless ; and in the rough work of advancing and retreating singly through hedges, ditches, and broken ground, the common rough musket is the weapon in which the sol- dier has most confidence. It will go off without failing him after firing all day, but the needle-gun and rifle get furred and choked, and cannot be re- loaded easily after a few discharges. The conclusive fact that the musket of long range has not, as yet, been brought to any efficiency in ordinary war- fare, is proved by the loss of men on the outpost service not having been greater on the Danish side than on the German, the first armed with the ordinary muskets with detonating locks, the other with the needle- guns. There was a great deal of outpost fighting, and occasionally great loss of men, on both sides ; but the returns of killed and wound- ed do not show that the one side had a more efficient fire-arm than the other in those skirmishes. The observation of one officer who had served as a private during the first two years of the war, and had been much on outpost duty, struck me as true to nature ; viz, that the soldier taught to confide in a long shot, and a fire-arm which must be carefully loaded and adjusted at a distance, will be as much disconcerted when an ad- versary advances within his range, as the soldier accustomed to a musket of ordinary range would be with the approach of an enemy to a much shorter distance ; and that the true formation of the soldier, even for outpost duty, is to accustom him to confide in his charged bayonet, and to advance to that steadily and rapidly."
The Whigs were too timorous to encourage the volunteer spirit that started up in England after the 2d December. The Tories more boldly discouraged or snubbed it, afraid of a popular force however respectably composed or regulated. They have reaped consequences already in the troublesome opposition to their Militia Bill : they missed the opportunity of counterbalancing in some degree the effeminating effects of modern material civilization, by rousing an oldfashioned, open-air, manly spirit among the middle classes, and bringing the different grades of society together on a genial footing. The first enthusiasm of the country has passed away—been extinguished under official apathy, Tory supercilious- ness, and the torpedo influence of Parliamentary debate. The following facts in reference to a part of the Danish system of de- fence are not without use even now, though the time seems to have been wantonly allowed to slip away for forming a real system of British national defence as an adjunct to the regular army.
"The artillery of the Danish army is said to be excellent; and ball prac- tice with artillery is even a favourite amusement on summer evenings with the citizens of Copenhagen. In the Danish dominions the inhabitants of the great towns are exempt from the conscription for the landwehr or general military service ; but they furnish battalions of local militia, which do mili- tary duty in the town as part of the garrison, and which elect their own officers, up to captains inclusive, and are clothed and equipped at the ex- pense of the corporations. They are a kind of volunteer force, but liable to serve, in the event of an invasion, like other troops, and then receive pay, subsistence, and quarters, according to their rank, like the officers and men of theregular army. The artillery of the city of Copenhagen was called out in the last war ; and the 'shoemakers' brigade,' as it was called by the soldiers, from its captain being a respectable tradesman of that craft, an amateur artillerist, was as well served and as effective in the field, during the three years of warfare, as any brigade of guns in the army. The field- piece perhaps the true weapon for a volunteer force in arm_ y. to be trained to. It is the most suitable and analogous to the work and habits of a population of artisans and manufacturers bred amidst combinations of ma- chinery. It is that for which a merely agricultural population like that of France or Germany has the least aptitude, and our population the most; and it is the arm which decides battles and the fate of empires. It is also the safest for a government to train the masses to ; who, as infantry, might be dangerous in times of tumult at home to their own fellow subjects."
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