To Hit A Speck With A Rifle Bullet At
800 Yards Distance Was An Englishman's First Duty.
The proper use
for a young man's leisure hours was the practice of drilling.
All
this had come upon us with very quick steps since the beginning of
the Russian war. But if fighting must needs be done, one did not
feel special grief at fighting a Russian. That the Indian mutiny
should be put down was a matter of course. That those Chinese
rascals should be forced into the harness of civilization was a
good thing. That England should be as strong as France - or,
perhaps, if possible a little stronger - recommended itself to an
Englishman's mind as a State necessity. But a war with the States
of America! In thinking of it I began to believe that the world
was going backward. Over sixty millions sterling of stock - railway
stock and such like - are held in America by Englishmen, and the
chances would be that before such a war could be finished the whole
of that would be confiscated. Family connections between the
States and the British isles are almost as close as between one of
those islands and another. The commercial intercourse between the
two countries has given bread to millions of Englishmen, and a
break in it would rob millions of their bread. These people speak
our language, use our prayers, read our books, are ruled by our
laws, dress themselves in our image, are warm with our blood.
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