[Illustration:
GENTLEMEN OF A PARTICULARLY STAI(YE)D CHARACTER.
]
We are apt to boast that the British army has never received a good
dressing, and looking at the uniforms that have lately been put upon
them, we must confess there is some truth in it. Our officers were never
clever at cutting, and this may account for their making such bad
tailors. It is a thousand pities that the Laurel which clusters round
the brows of our Commanders, should be entwined with so much cabbage. It
is true the geese saved the Capitol of Rome, but we do not think the
Horse Guards need put itself under the wings of the British goose. If it
does, Moses, in a very short time, will be cutting out Prince Albert as
a Field Marshal. Never was the British army so surprised before, as when
that cruel shell-jacket attempted by sheer treachery to cut off the rear
from the main body of the forces. The French have a saying "_Le Riaicule
tue_," so our soldiers may be diminished, in a ridiculous manner little
expected by our political economists, if this new deadly weapon is
discharged at them; for there is many a brave fellow who can stand fire,
who falls dead before ridicule. The Horse Guards must not be a clothes
mart, or a masquerade warehouse, or else the Duke, when he puts himself
at the head of the army, will revive the old title of the Duc de Guys,
and the national cry will be, "Sauve qui peut."
[Illustration]