[7]. The ‘Times,’ June 10, 1848. “The example of the employment of this corps,” said Mr. Chadwick, “on beneficial public works, qualifying them for civil employment, was worthy of public note, for in their case, the discharge from the military service was not, as he had in Poor Law administration too frequent occasion to observe, the creation of paupers, or mendicants, or worse. There was no class of persons who so soon got into productive civil service.”—Ibid.
[8]. ‘Illustrated London News,’ June 24, 1848.
[9]. Ibid.
[10]. The privates here named have died under rather singular circumstances; Porteous suddenly, in September, 1853, when encamped on Brandon-hill; Pemble in June, 1854, at Elvanfoot, in Lanarkshire, from exhaustion and exposure to stormy weather. The latter had been sent from the camp to build a pile for trigonometrical purposes, and next evening, after a fatiguing day’s work, he was returning to the station, when he lay down to rest himself by the side of a mountain stream, and perished. Both these soldiers were the chief practical workmen in the formation of the structures for the observatories. At lofty heights, where the senses of most men would paralyze, borne up on shaking props or slender supports, they calmly carried on their dangerous operations with spirit, activity, and ingenuity.
[11]. ‘Illust. Lond. News,’ June 24, 1848; ‘Historic Times,’ January 19, 1849. In both of which are spirited cuts of the scaffolding, &c.
[12]. The ‘Times,’ November 4, 1848.
[13]. Ibid. Here, however, it should be noted, that a pole about four feet long, on being let down into the boarded screen below, struck on a moulding and went down whirling. In its descent it struck the great dome, where it received a shell-like range, and dashed off, at a sharp angle, to the North Transept, where it made a hole through the lead of the roof, similar to what a ball of the same diameter would have done if let fall from the same height. In taking down the scaffolding, an eight-feet plank fell on its flat side from the lantern to the pavement in the area of the Cathedral, and the report was like the booming of a piece of ordnance from the deck of a ship of war.
[14]. Distinguished himself by his gallantry in the storming of the Redan on the 8th September, 1855.
[15]. The ‘Times,’ November 4, 1848.
[16]. ‘Builder,’ 7th April, 1849, p. 165.