5thly, The acquisition of sufficient skill in the use of that deadliest
of all arms, the rifle, might be made by means of local meetings to
practise, at which heavy fines for non-attendance would not only
insure tolerable regularity, but would also provide a fund for prizes,
and for general purposes. At these meetings, which should be held
frequently, the knowledge of military evolutions, and the minutiæ of
drill might be readily communicated by the non-commissioned officers
of the pensioners' corps; and, from the circumstance of the men not
being mere clods from the plough tail, nor weavers from the loom, the
requisite amount of instruction would be conveyed in a comparatively
short time. We should suppose that, within six months from their first
organisation, if the discipline was well attended to, such corps might
be able to stand a field-day before their general officers. The cavalry
would not learn their duties so readily as the infantry, because the
men would have to teach not themselves alone, but also their horses;
and, though they would form a most effective and valuable species of
light cavalry, the combined practice of the rifle and the sabre would
demand a considerable time for the corps to be quite at home with
their duties. We would give them a year to make themselves complete.
A volunteer force of cavalry should never aim at being anything else
than a corps of light horse--they can never constitute effective heavy
cavalry. But as light horsemen possessing rifles, and able to use them
whether in the saddle or on the ground, they would become as formidable
to a European enemy as the African Arabs have been to the French, and
would be a match for any light cavalry that could be brought to act
against them. For all purposes, too, of local service they would be
admirably efficient.
6thly, The discipline of a volunteer corps is always the main
difficulty to be contended against in its practical management; but
we conceive that this difficulty would be lessened, in the present
instance, from the peculiarly good composition of the rank and file of
such a body of men. Several large classes of military offences could
not possibly prevail among them; and, for those that remained, the
ordinary articles of war would be sufficiently repressive. It should be
observed that we do not contemplate the granting leave to such corps
to disband themselves: the engagement once formed should be binding
for a certain moderate number of years, and the volunteer should
not have the faculty of releasing himself from his duties except by
becoming invalided. We imagine that the possibility of being ultimately
dismissed from such an honourable body of men, for ungentlemanlike
conduct, would constitute the most effectual check that could be
devised for the instances of breach of discipline likely to occur.
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