sooRs anour DRILL. * A CROP of books on drill, field
evolutions, and rifle practice, was to be expected when the Government gave the signal for the forma- tion of rifle regiments. In. the nature of the case such books were sure to be needed. The complicated system of drill and evolu- tion contained. in the neat and handy little book which Messrs. Allen have published by authority was never designed to suit vo- lunteers. Something far simpler was demanded, a drill that would eombine quickness with simplicity,. and, yet ensure regu- larity and ensemble. This appears to have been effected by Cap- tain Black, himself once an adjutant-captain of riflemen, and, his little book, confined as it is to the subject in hand, is the beat we have yet seen. Na doubt the disquisitions on the expediency of having rifle corps at all which Mr. Busk has inserted in his volume • Brill Book for Volunteer Riflemen, Step by Step, and Instructions in Rifle Practice, for Companies armed with long or short Rifles. By G. Black, Captain R.P. Published by Ridgway. Rifle Volunteers, How to Organize and Drill them. Byllans Busk. Published by Routledge. Field Exercise and Evolutions of Infantry, as Revised by her Majesty's command, 1859. rocket edition. W. II. Allen and Co.
by way of introduction will help to rouse the apathetic and con- firm the wavering ; but they detract in some degree from the practical character of the work. Captain Black, after a few pre- liminary paragraghs of sound sense, goes straight to the mark. Both works are by men of experience, and both take the regular book as a basis. Both are free from redtapery, and both are prae- tieal. What Captain Black has given us he himself describes in his preface.
" What we require is a clear abstract of practical instruction, step by step, not only in the use of the weapons put into the hands of Voluntftn, but in the most ready and expeditious mode of enabling bodies of that kind to act together in such manner as to give the greatest efficiency to their weapons. I have heard men exclaim, Out on all such trash as Books of Instruction.; all that is wanted is to teach the Volunteer Rifleman to kill his man.' Quite right in principle ; but if those wiseacres have ever seen the drawing of a fox covert, or the shooting of a pheasant preserve or the walking up of partridges in a twenty-acre turnip field, they must be aware that there is no killing unless arrangement, method, and order, are well ob- served by those who are bent on slaughter. Crude notions are entertained by some men, that every rifleman ought to go forth on his own hook' if the occasion should arise and bag Frenchmen without license ; but I fear, if there were no more 'formidable arrangement to deter the advance of . Zouaves and Chasseurs d'Afrique, John Bull might find his bravest efforts pro aria et focia, to be a miserable failure. Instruction in the perfect use of the rifle is beyond all doubt the meet important point to be attended to and encouraged ; but it is very essential that every military body should be trained to move in some degree of order to front and flank • and that light troops should be able to do so in extended order, availing themselves of every cover that can afford them protection and give check to an enemy ; being impressed, the while, with the true principles on which the success of light troops depend, viz.—celerity without confusion, dash without tu- mult, and mutual support on the part of those engaged ; sagacity and self.
reliance being taken for granted.'
Volunteer riflemen must not, indeed, rest satisfied with good shooting-. They must know enough of drill to become what they ought to be, incomparable light troops. Some military men of high authority are of opinion that good skirmishing requires more brains than good close fighting. The skirmisher should be a well-trained soldier. But the quality required, brains, is exactly what the volunteers may be- expected. to possess. They will be men who can understand what they are about, and execute what they are ordered to execute with intelligence. Theirs will not only be a willing obedience but an instructed obedience. They ought to be the best of skirmishers, because they will have the greatest amount of faculty for the thing of any body of troops ever raised. What Captain Black says on this point is perfectly true- " With the intelligence which the great mass of the Volunteers will bring to bear upon the instruction they receive, a short time will suffice to render them sufficiently acquainted with the requisite movements of field exercise, particularly if they make notes of their day's work, or read over each day what they have practically learned. Thus the greater number of the days that could be spared for training, might be altogether, or in part, devoted to the practice ground ; and I use the expression in part advisedly, having learnt from experience, that nothing more tends to dispel any weariness or ennui than a little diversity of occupation. Long continued- drill becomes wearisome, and so doealong continued target practice,' but on the contrary, a morning's shooting and an afternoon's skirmishing (or vice versa), creates an exciting and agreeable day's amusement."
Time he urges, must not be frittered away in absurdities. "No man in. his senses," adds the Captain, with great good sense, "would insist on the enforcement of fidgetting details ; as, for instance, the position of a finger, or whether a thumb should be placed between stock and barrel; but every volunteer would de- sire to have the means of knowing the correct mode of performing every part of his exercise, ansi as time goes on would feel a pride in exhibiting that knowledge." Mr. Busk boasts that the corps to which he belongs, the Vie- otoria Rifles, will always hold, with regard to other corps, the relation that the Guards do in the Line. In one respect they do, and probably will. They are a privileged body "all armigera by birth and position." Persons without arms" are not, we pre- sume, admitted. We do not in the least object to the existence of one such corps. "Noblesse oblige "; and a body of English gentlemen-soldiers will always show that for them the pride of social privilege is only an incentive to a more generous devotion to duty. But the principle which, applied in its integrity to the Victoria Rifles, will work for good, would do nothing but mis- chief if introduced partially and indefinitely into other corps. Speaking of the spirit of exclusiveness, which is not confined to the gentlemen who enjoy the patronage of Mr. Busk's little books Captain Black in a better spit says— "I ;rill i pass over class jealousies, and take it for granted, that on such an OCCithi011 there are no men so unpatriotic, so narrow-minded, and so small, as to feel an objection to stand in the same ranks with his neighbour because his income is by so many pounds a year less than his own. If there be any such men, however, let them recollect the sporting chimney- sweeper, who always hunted with the Duke of Beaufort, and if that will not do, let them withdraw ; their absence will be a gain."
Nevertheless, in spite of all drawbacks, Mr. Busk's book has the merit of being sound and practioal in that half of it which is devoted to business affecting the public. It is because Captain Black has devoted the whole of his little volume to the public, and because it is more lucidly arranged, and more practically illus- trated, that we recommend it to those of our younger readers who may be anxious to acquire that habit, neglected of late in England, the habit of bearing arms and of being able to use them with effect.
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