6o HORSE, FOOT, AND DRAGOONS. 



My friends stationed at the camp receive me with the frank, 

 generous hospitality of the British officer, and their kind and 

 friendly treatment soon makes me feel thoroughly at home 

 among them, free to come and go as I please, and to make my 

 acquaintance with Tommy Atkins at my leisure. Just when 

 and where he received his name seems to be a matter of doubt, 

 judging from the reply of a gentleman who, in response to my 

 inquiry regarding the origin of Tommy's cognomen, answered 

 that it must have been derived from some joke in Punch; while 

 according to others, Thomas Atkins is a fictitious personage, 

 whose name is made use of in military forms very much in the 

 same manner as those of the John Does and Richard Roes of 

 legal documents. Be that as it may, " Tommy Atkins " is the 

 name by which the British soldier is known all over the United 

 Kingdom ; and, take him for all in all, a right good, sturdy, 

 broad-shouldered, well-fed, well -clad fellow he is. Perhaps 

 nowhere in all the various garrisons and stations of the British 

 army can his life in time of peace, and the generous manner 

 in which his comfort and well-being, physically and mentally, 

 are looked after, and his wants provided for, be seen to greater 

 advantage than at Aldershot, the school at which thousands 

 of those brave fellows are trained who by their courage and 

 devotion uphold the honor of the nation in all quarters of the 

 globe. All branches of the service are represented here — engi- 

 neers, artillery, " horse, foot, and dragoons," and all the varied 

 types of character in the army are to be met with, from the little 

 drummer-boy born in the service to the hardened non-commis- 

 sioned officer of a dozen campaigns. Magnificent types of the 

 soldier these latter, as they pass through the streets with ring- 

 ing strides, straight as arrows, neat as soap and water, pipe-clay 

 and brush can make them, proud of their position and of their 

 profession, and often exercising fully as much authority over 



