"OUR RESERVES"—THE BATTLE OF AMESBURY
Aide-de-Camp: "Good gracious, sir! Why don't you order your men to lie down under this hill? Can't you see that Battery playing right on them?"
Colonel of Volunteers: "So I did, sir. But they won't lie down. They say they want to see the Review!"
Punch and the Volunteers
In later years, when the menace of Napoleonic "intentions" ceased to preoccupy the public, the attitude of Punch towards the volunteers became more critical and less sympathetic, but throughout 1860—allowing for a little amiable chaff of the contrast between their physique and their bellicose spirit—he lent the movement cordial support, applauding the institution of cadet corps in schools, and the provision of facilities to enable footmen and tradesmen to attend drills and be instructed in rifle-shooting. The review in Hyde Park was duly chronicled in a cartoon representing the Queen resting a rifle on Punch's head, and the poem in honour of the London Volunteers may be set against the genial satire of Keene's zealous little captain leading his men "through fire and water," or the references to the street boys' catch-word "Who shot the dog?"
The year 1860 found England with the Chinese war still on hand; it was not ended till the autumn, with the capture, destruction and looting of the Chinese Emperor's Summer Palace at Peking as an act of vengeance for the barbarous treatment of the British envoys. But India was completely pacified, and Lord Clyde returned home to receive the laurel. The Prince of Wales's visit to Canada was already decided on; Lord Lyndhurst was still clamouring for a strong fleet; the Queen's speech promised the introduction of another measure of Reform, nominally redeemed by Lord John Russell's "nice little Bill" satirized by Punch in March and overwhelmed with ridicule on its withdrawal in June:—
Amendments sore long time I bore;
Parental love was vain;
Till by degrees the House did please
To put me out of pain.