The soldiers of the United Kingdom possess in general certain fine qualities of character and conduct which may be ascribed to the traditions and training of the British Army. But when we come to consider them racially we find that their points of difference are more striking even than their points of similarity. Each nationality evolves its own type of soldier, and every type has its distinctly marked attributes. As troops, taken in the mass, are the counterpart of the nations from which they spring, and, indeed, cannot be anything else, so they must, for one thing, reveal in fighting the particular sort of martial spirit possessed by their race. Though I am an Irishman, I would not be so boastful as to say that the Irish soldiers have a superior kind of courage to which neither the English, the Scottish nor the Welsh can lay claim. They are all equally brave, but the manifestation of their bravery is undoubtedly different--that is, different not so much in degree as in kind. In a word, courage, like humour, is not racial or geographical, but, like humour also, it takes on a racial or geographical flavour. General Sir Ian Hamilton has written: "When, once upon a time, a Queen of Spain saw the Grenadier Guards she remarked they were strapping fellows; as the 92nd Highlanders went by she said, 'The battalion marches well'; but, at the aspect of the Royal Irish, the words 'Bloody War!' were wrung from her reluctant lips." After a good deal of reading on the subject, and some thought, I venture to suggest the following generalisations as to the qualities which distinguish the English, Scottish, Welsh and Irish, in valour, one from another. English--the courage of an exalted sense of honour and devotion to duty, and of the national standard of conduct which requires them to show, at all costs, that they are better men than their opponents, whoever they may be. Scottish--the courage of mental as well as physical tenacity, coolly set upon achieving the purpose in view. Welsh--the courage of perfervid emotion, religious in its intensity. Irish--the courage of dare-devilry, and the rapture of battle.