THE BRITISH DRAGOON.
THE British nation prides itself upon being equestrian. Britons have a natural aptitude for the saddle. Everybody rides from his youth up, if he can get a horse. Your Briton becomes a fearless and dexterous rider, ready and able to make his way anywhere, • Ladies Vim/era—The Marchioness of Salisbury, Lady Colchester, Lady Stan- ley of Alderley, The Honourable Mrs. Adderley, The Honourable Mrs. MacLeod, Mrs. Harry Chester, Mrs. Henry Cole, Mrs. Thomas Longman. Prommonal Committee ofifanagement.—Reverend Emilius Bayley. Rector of St. George's Bloomsbury; Reverend John Back, Rector of St. George the Martyr ; If. A. Bowler, Esq., Inspector for Art, South Kensington; W. H. Carpenter, Esq.. Keeper of the Prints, British Museum ; Reverend Canon Dale, Vicar of St. Pan- cras; C. Wentworth Dilke, Esq. ; Professor Donaldson, Bolton Gardens, Russell Square; Sir Charles L. Eastlake, P.R.A., 7, Fitzroy Square; Amos Gann, Esq., 17. Brunswick Square ; Reverend Dr. Hamilton, 8, Euston Square; John Henderson. Esq., P.S.A., 3, Montague Street, Russell Square; Holdship, Esq., 11. 11OPer Bedford Place, Russell Square : A. D. Nash, Esq., 22, Bedford Row, Bloomsbury. Richard Redgrave, B.A., Art Superintendent, South Kensington ; Reverend An- 'Mon?' W. Thorold, Rector of St. Giles-in-the-Fields; G. It. Waterhouse, Esq., I British Museum; J. Watson, Esq., 6, Southampton Street, Bloomsbury Square W. Donaldson, Esq., 18, Southampton Street, Moomsbury Square.
and almost over or through anything. "Here are line materials for the best light cavalry in the world," is what we read and hear on all sides. In fact, fine material for any sort of cavalry. And the horses available are equal to the men. Nevertheless, it is a most lamentable fact that, the moment we pass from the raw ma- terial to the manufactured article, praises cease and complaints begin. We seem no more able to make the best cavalry in the world out of the best material, than we are able to make the finest public buildings or national monuments out of material and skill provided, almost, "regardless of expense." In spite of the oceans of ink expended, and the reams of paper spoiled, in spite of ridi- cule, declamation, and sober argument, nay, in spite of facts and figures, those potent elements to which, as practical Englishmen, we bow down, the British Dragoon is still pretty much what he was before the Crimean war—a fine fellow, bravely clad, badly armed, and half-instructed ; mounted on a good horse so heavily weighted as to destroy the two qualities demanded of him, en- durance in campaigning, and speed in battle.
Why is this ? Some eminent persons believe that the day of cavalry is over, and that the record of the last brilliant and decisive deeds of that arm is written on the roll of military his- tory. But so long as swords are sharp, and horses are swift of foot ; so long as an army in the field requires quick ears and far- seeing eyes to keep watch and ward ; so long as generals make mistakes and expose their troops at a disadvantage depend upon it the horseman, with his keen sabre and eagle speed, will remain one of the essential elements of a really effective army. We wish we could believe that the neglect of the British dragoon springs from a cause so respectable as an honest conviction that his day is gone by. But that is impossible, because such a conviction should lead to the abolition of the mounted soldier altogether. The bare fact that he is still retained is evidence of supposed utility. Let it be granted, for the moment, that he is henceforth only useful as a messenger, outlooker' a watcher, outrider. Even for that service nay especially for that it service, he not more efficient now than he was in 1853. Admit that he is to be no- thing more henceforth than an eye and ear, and occasionally an arm, when he cannot help it. Then, surely, it follows that his power of speed should be greater, his fire-arms should be more far-ranging and deadly, and his weapons for close fighting sharper and more easily handled than ever. Yet it is notorious that little, if anything, has been done to fit him for this limited sphere of duty, and he is what he was, magnificent on parade, sublime in a charge—from the heart of his camping ground, but compara- tively a poor creature in every other respect. The worst of it is that this is no fault of the material ; the fault lies with the manu- facturers.
What is a dragoon without a sword ? Even those who consider the day of cavalry gone by will give the modern representative of chivalry a sword. Yet what do they give him ? A capital weapon, it is admitted, but then they stick it into a steel scab- bard, as if the object were first, to take off the edge of the weapon, next to enable a dragoon on sentry, or a troop engaged in patroll- ing or reconnoitring, to make as much noise as possible while doing a duty demanding silence and secrecy. Then all the swords are alike in weight, and every hilt is of the same size. A man six feet high and a man five feet six inches high have exactly the same weapon ; the big-fisted giant and his smaller comrade must grasp the same circumference. The big man whirls his big weapon about as an Irishman whirls a shillalah, while the smaller man rocks to and fro under the weight of a tool disproportioned to his height, strength, and grasp. What could be more simple than to have swords of different sizes ? Alas, simplicity is the thing that enters last into the head of the manufacturers of cavalry! And if the sabre be bad, what shall we say of the old carbine ? It is big, clumsy, cumbersome to horse and man, and provokes more curses perhaps than any other military institution. It actually weighs seven pounds and a half, and is only not absolutely useless as a weapon. Bad as it is, the men are not taught to make the most of a bad bargain. For in- stanoe : in the Crimea a cavalry picquet, detached from a crack
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regiment, and consisting of from thirty to forty men, skirmished one day with a Cossack picket. The distance between the two parties was some eighty yards. Both bodies fired away upwards of two hundred rounds, and, the net result was the wounding of one man—a Russian—Mt by a pistol shot! And how should it be otherwise, when we hear of a regiment in which the men have in two years actually been once engaged in target practice. On that occasion, many of the men, had never loaded and fired with ball in their lives before, and to this day they have not been permitted to indulge in such an extravagant proceeding again. Their practice upon that trial was quite in keeping with their education. They may be styled most inoffensive. Out of three hundred and twenty rounds at one hundred yards, fifty-six bullets providentially struck a target six feet by two. The men fired dismounted, without hurry, and of course untroubled by the disagreeable idea that the target might return the fire! What could these men have done mounted, and. engaged with a foe in motion ? They could and would have missed him alto- gether. Why not give the men light rifled pistols or pistol car- bines, diminishing the weight carried by the poor war or rather pack horse, and enabling British dragoons to imitate &hide horsemen in destructive power ? We might excuse the retention of steel scabbards, swords all of one weight and circumference of hilt, and that stupid blunderbuss we call a carbine, because it may be plausibly argued that ex- pense would be incurred in refurnishing the cavalry with effective weapons. But the argument is cut from under our feet by the Horse Guards authorities themselves. They have shown that "expense is no object" with them in getting up at least a showy cavalry. The day of cavalry may be gone, but it seems the day of horse-trappings has come again. For that venerable nuisance, the ornamental, but worse than useless the hurtful, shabracque has been fished up once more from the military Old Curiosity Shop, to add to the cost of cavalry regiments, to increase by fon; pounds the burden borne by the already overweightad horse to injure the health of that ill-used animal, and to detract from 'tile efficiency of horse and man. So it cannot be a terror of expense that holds back the " authorities " from giving the British Dragoon a keen sabre' an effective fire-arm, and a lightly- weighted horse. These are trifles in the equipment of a soldier. So long as he wears a closely-fitting jacket, a choking stook, and hangs across a blazing shabracque, never mind about his weapons, his skill in using them, or the weight his horse sinks under.
Truly we are a long-suffering people. But surely it is high time that measures were taken to relieve the sufferings of the British Dragoon and of his horse ; to enable the former to develop his natural aptitude for mounted soldiership, and to give the latter a chance of being a war-horse, instead of a beast of burden.
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