London at the End of the Century:A Book of Gossip
a Beckett, Arthur William
1900
LONDON GUNNERS AT SHOEBURYNESS.
ONCE a year the artillery Volunteers hold their annual meeting at Shoeburyness. The newspapers at the time have entered the and find room to record the doings of the gunners, and it is instructive to note how much less space is devoted to Shoeburyness than is reserved for Bisley. And yet of the two meetings I should say (and I believe that most professional soldiers would agree with me) that the competition on the Essex coast is the more important. But there is no doubt about it, the infantry arm of the Volunteer service is popular branch. Not only with civilians, but with our citizen soldiers themselves. This is easily proved by statistics. I have not the figures at hand, but I believe that out of the whole number of our enrolled volunteers only about a fifth are gunners. This is not surprising, as the | |
192 | infantry have more chances of showing themselves in public than their comrades. The policy of the authorities is nowadays to keep the artillery to their field-pieces or guns of position. Thus marching out and battalion drill, the delight of the are discountenanced in favour of service at the batteries and work at |
