THE GREAT CHOBHAM CAMPAIGN.
WE learn with pleasure that the gallant fellows assembled under canvas at Chobham have proved that they can not only stand fire, but they can stand water with astonishing bravery. No soldiers have ever gone so far "into the bowels of the land" as these highlowed heroes, who have stamped the imprint of their military heels on the mud of Chobham. Never were laurels so thoroughly watered as the laurels worn at Chobham, by what Cockneyism would call indiscriminately the veterans and the wetter-uns of our encamped soldiery. If any man lately under canvas has had a stain to get rid of, we may be sure that it has been thoroughly washed out by the showers with which he has been saturated. The only wonder is that the gallant fellows have not been all washed away by a mode of "hero wash-up" that would have been indeed deplorable.
THE LAST OF THE PAUPERS.
A pauper is generally imagined by foreigners to be a lantern-jawed, herring-paunched, emaciated and pallid wretch, cropped and shaven, clothed in pepper-and-salt ditto, and employed in crushing bones for manure and soup. Thanks to Free Trade and the Diggings—among second causes—this order of fellow Christians is now almost extinct. Our continental neighbours will find, on inquiry, that a wholly different appearance is for the most part presented by the remaining objects of British charity. Coats, waistcoats, and trousers—in some cases gaiters and breeches—of superfine black cloth, warm and comfortable to the feeling, sleek and glossy to the sight, envelope with liberal amplitude proportions which are plump, and perhaps corpulent. The nether extremities are encased in capacious and shiny highlows, sometimes silver-buckled. A goodly beaver hat with extensive brim shades the entire man from the rays which tend to liquefy the oleaginous part of him. This is the only badge of poverty that he bears about him; its form is suggestive of an emblem of manual labour—the Shovel.
His dietary is open to no objection in regard either to quantity or quality; except that, in both respects, it tends rather to produce plethora and engender gout. It is, in fact, discretional; for even when he enjoys an indoor maintenance, he receives a stipend in lieu of rations, and this sum is usually handsome enough to enable him to indulge in every delicacy of every season.
When he thus lives in the House—the Almshouse provided for him—he has the whole of it to himself, and is required to share it with nobody except his own family if he is blessed with one: so far, therefore, from being separated from his wife in a comfortless ward, he occupies a mansion which is the abode of domestic happiness.