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REVIEW OF REVIEWS. 



April 1, 1913 



British subject as that which fell to 

 the lot of Lord Wolseley. In this 

 he is a type of the army to which he 

 belonged. The British soldier is one 

 of the shuttles of the Empire in the 

 loom of time. He is constantly speed- 

 ing to and fro, backwards and for- 

 wards, weaving into one homogeneous, 

 cosmopolitan whole the nations and 

 peoples and tongues of this planet. 

 The colonist goes forth to make a 

 home, and plant firm root in the new 

 Britains that he founds beyond the sea 

 The sailor dwells upon the ocean, and 

 his visit to the outermost fringe of the 

 continents whose products he carries to 

 and fro are but as the momentary 

 alighting of a seagull upon a rock, from 

 which, after a brief rest, it will again 

 take its flight. But between the too- 

 stationary colonist and the too-migra- 

 tory sailor, comes the soldier, who never 

 stays long enough to take root any- 

 wh'^re, but whose journeyings hither 

 and thither are not so rapid as to pre- 

 clude the formation of those human ties 

 of sympathy and good- fellow-ship 

 which, like the rootlets of grass on the 

 sand-dunes of Holland, are stronger 

 than cement in the consolidation of 

 Empire. Nor is that their only service. 

 The whole world of our dominion is 

 studded with the graves of our warriors, 

 by whose death we live. 



A FAMOUS RECORD. 



Look for a moment at the cycle de- 

 scribed by Lord Wolseley between 1852, 

 when he left his Irish home, a raw en- 

 sign, and 1895, when he became Com- 

 mander-in-Chief of the British forces. 

 The mere list of his appointments is 

 more eloquent than any rhetoric : — 



1852. Second Burmese War — Ensign. 



1854. Siege of Sebastopol — Lieut., 

 Captain. 



1857. Ordered to China. Wrecked 

 near Singapore. 



1857. India. Suppression of Mutiny 

 Lieut-Col., V.C. 



i860. Chinese War. Mission to Nan- 

 kin. 



1 861 Canada. First Assistant, then 

 Deputy, Quartermaster-Gene- 

 ral. 



1870. Red River Expedition — 



K.C.M.G. 



1 87 1. Assistant-Adjutant-General at 



War Office. 

 1873-4. Ashantee War — Major-Gene- 

 ral, K.C.B. 



1874. Inspector - General Auxiliary 



Forces. 



1875. Governor of Natal. 



1878. Governor of Cyprus. 



1879. Zulu War — Commander-in- 



Chief and High Commis- 

 sioner, South Africa. 

 1882. Egyptian Campaign. Tel-el- 

 Kebir. Peerage. 



1884. The War in the Soudan. 



1885. Adjutant-General at War 



Ofhce. 

 1890. Commander-in-Chief of the 

 Forces in Ireland. 



1894. Created Field-Marshal. 



1895. Commander-in-Chief of the 



British Army. 

 1900. Retired. 



What a record ! With the exception 

 of Australia, Lord Wolseley had served 

 in every continent, and faced almost 

 every description of human and natural 

 obstacle. Yet in all this Lord Wolse- 

 ley was but a type of the British sol- 

 dier. He was at the top ; Tommy At- 

 kins is at the bottom. But they share 

 the same lot, in having the whole wide 

 world as their parade ground, and all 

 mankind as their next-door neighbours. 



LUCK AND ILL-LUCK. 



To write a biography of Lord Wol- 

 seley would be to write the history of 

 the British Empire for the last half of 

 the nineteenth century. As a comman- 

 der he was singularly fortunate. His 

 record was unstained by a single reverse 

 in the held. Wherever he went fortune 

 smiled on his flag, and promotion fol- 

 lowed as a matter of course. One great 

 misfortune alone darkens the brilliance 

 of his record — a misfortune for which 

 he was not responsible, and which he 

 did all that lay in mortal power to 

 avert. He was too late to save Gordon. 

 The blame m not starting in time was 

 not his, but that of those who, month 

 after month, turned a deaf ear to the 

 urgent representations which reached 

 them from the War Office and from 



