Who says a soldier's a thing ready made Of a suit of grey and a service-spade?-- That there's pluck in picking a 'vantage ground, Then digging a hole and heaping a mound? The notion's preposterous, laughable, quizzible! By Jove, Sir, a soldier--he ought to be visible! Con. I grant you all that; but when Six-foot Guards Like ninepins go down at a thousand yards, 'Tis time to note that, if work's to be done, A field to be saved, a day to be won, It won't be by speeches as firework as fizzible, But by getting well home with movement invisible. Pro. Pooh! Stuff, Sir! What served us at Waterloo? Your neutral tint, or your washed-out blue? Digging and dodging?--I rather opine A rush with a cheer of a "thin red line," In the midst of a hailstorm of all things whizzible! Don't talk, Sir, to me of a coat that's not visible! Con. No use, my good friend; for though you may bless The days that departed with Old Brown Bess, If you make that "red line," that never will yield, A target for every shot in the field, Of your foemen you'll stir the faculties risible-- For neither your troops nor your brains will be visible! [Sidenote: _Heroes, Charlatans and Criminals_] Nor did _Punch_ in his zeal for the soldier on active service forget the claims to grateful recognition of the ex-service man. In 1890 we find an indignant appeal for the survivors of the Balaklava Charge, showing how they had been forgotten--except in music-hall recitations. To reinforce the appeal, _Punch_ printed a picture contrasting a Balaklava survivor, dying in a garret, with the well-remunerated professional "fasting man," one of whom was much in the public eye just then. An even more lurid contrast in modern hero-worship is exhibited in the sardonic description of the fêting and glorifying of criminals. The verses "I'd be a criminal" show how fashion, pseudo-science, sensational journalism, and sentimental folly conspired to apotheosize the murderer. THE STATUS OF WOMEN [Sidenote: _Undomestic Daughters_]