In the admirable letter of "AN OLD SOLDIER" in your paper this
week, there are a few unimportant errors due, no doubt, to your
Correspondent's age, and the shortness of memory consequent upon it
that mar, in a measure, the trenchant force of his criticism. I feel
sure he will pardon my reminding him that the Coldstream Guards do
_not_ wear varnished or patent-leather boots with a tunic, except
in "_Levée_ dress;" that Mr. CHARLES WARNER did not play a private
soldier in "the same distinguished regiment," but in the Grenadiers;
that a Captain could never, by any possibility be "on guard" at the
Tower; that the officer on duty at the Tower is called the "Picquet,"
and not the "Orderly" officer, and is never a Captain; that no
Guardsman has ever, in the memory of man, worn a "scarf" in uniform;
and that no soldier, worthy of the name, considers the mess of his own
Battalion "an odd sort of place to dine at," even "in the height of
the Season."
I may add that my mother tells me she has often had her Court-dress
altered on the very morning of the "Drawing-Room." With these few
trifling exceptions, "AN OLD SOLDIER's" letter is most accurate and
just.