Allowing leave to be absent from camp was always a difficulty. Tommy Vol is pretty nearly as bad at shirking parade and exceeding leave as Tommy Atkins. Getting up at cockcrow and doing extensive motions, or drilling without arms under the adjutant, is not to his taste, and if he can have a sick parent or a fair excuse for asking that his attendance in camp may be excused for a day, he quickly avails himself of it.
To show the difficulty the following is given. The captain, with orderly-sergeant and colour-sergeant, very busy over company books and registers, as the morrow is to be the inspection of the battalion, and all books and returns in the adjutant's office by 10 a.m. Private Smith darkens the tent doorway and, respectfully saluting, asks if he might have leave for to-morrow to go home.
"Certainly not. Couldn't think of it. Inspection to-morrow. Why do you want it?" asks the captain, and knowing the man, feels assured there must be good cause. "Please, sir, the missus writes and says as how the young heifer has calved and be mighty bad, and there beant none thereabouts as can do her any good, and so she wants me to come at once." Of course the leave must be granted and the column "absent with leave" enlarged.
Adjutants, fresh to the work, young lieut.-colonels, and probably martinet inspecting officers, watch this column with great dislike and think it unnecessarily large; but after they have served some time, and become acquainted with the officers and non-commissioned officers of companies, and learn that men whose retention of a situation, daily subsistence, and domestic calls, are often dependent on their being present, will not be so ready to condemn those giving leave for being too easily persuaded.
The weather was magnificent during the whole week, and on the 24th the battalion was inspected in camp by Colonel R. Bruce; the honorary colonel, the Marquis of Bath, being present on parade, and a very large number of onlookers from the county families and neighbourhood generally; the officers giving a handsome luncheon to some two hundred guests at the termination of the review, and having a camp fire later on.
The muster at the inspection was 532 of all ranks, and the following remarks were made by the inspecting officer: "I find you much improved in steadiness on parade, your drill has been well performed, and having a camp has improved you in every way." Colonel Bruce then added that he hoped next year to inspect them again in a regimental camp, either at Warminster or elsewhere, and that as these camps were very expensive, but most useful, he hoped that the necessary funds would be forthcoming somehow. After the inspection the hon. colonel, the Marquis of Bath, gave a dinner to the officers and men, and next day the camp broke up, and all returned to their various head quarters. This year an officers' mess and wine fund was formed, and on the 20th, 21st, and 22nd August the annual meeting of the Wilts County Rifle Association was held at Salisbury, Captain Knox, V.C., being umpire. On the 27th August the prizes were given away in the Palace Grounds at Salisbury by Miss Bathurst, daughter of Sir Fredk. Bathurst, who was president of the association for the year.
The annual returns of efficients and non-efficients of the corps comprising the battalion for the year ending November, 1868, were as follows:—
| Corps. | A | B | C | D | E |
| Staff | 16 | 15 | 1 | 16 | 15 |
| 1st Corps, Salisbury | 200 | 109 | 18 | 127 | 102 |
| 2nd Corps, Trowbridge | 159 | 127 | 2 | 129 | 108 |
| 6th Corps, Maiden Bradley | 100 | 70 | 1 | 71 | 67 |
| 8th Corps, Mere | 100 | 55 | 12 | 67 | 44 |
| 9th Corps, Bradford | 100 | 74 | 8 | 82 | 52 |
| 10th Corps, Warminster | 159 | 102 | 32 | 134 | 90 |
| 13th Corps, Westbury | 100 | 71 | 12 | 83 | 63 |
| 14th Corps, Wilton | 159 | 50 | 30 | 80 | 48 |
| Grand Total of Battalion | 1093 | 673 | 116 | 789 | 589 |
A Maximum Establishment.
B Efficients.
C Non-Efficients.
D Total Enrolled.
E Total Efficients Extra.