["It is not going too far to say that thousands of men best fitted, physically and morally, to serve as officers or in the ranks, hold aloof from the Volunteers, because they are keenly alive to inefficiency of the average Volunteer. In vulgar parlance they look upon Volunteering as 'bad form.'"—The Times.]
There is a sound that must terribly jar
On the ears of the West in our finical day;
'Tisn't a sound of battle and war,
But of something much worse in its "vulgar" way.
Storm's warm about Volunteer "form,"
Ready, be ready against that storm!
"Form!" "Form!" Riflemen, "Form!"
Be not deaf to the sound that warns!
What? "Bad form!"—that's a prig's last plea.