PEN AND INK SKETCHES OF MILITARY SUBJECTS. I. REGIMENTAL COLOURS. THERE are few institutions on which the realistic tendency of the times in which we live is setting its mark more plainly than on the army. Little by little the pomp, pride, and circumstance of glorious war are being stripped off, and their place usurped by careful preparation and hard practical work. Nor is this to be wondered at. When the very existence of a nation may at any moment depend on the readiness of its army in all its minutest details, not merely to take the field, but to carry out at once the single campaign which may possibly prove decisive for good or evil, there is a natural tendency to discard much which may be agreeable or September 22, 1877. |