Part 22

"Although," writes Sir J. Eardley Wilmot, very feelingly, "he rallied from this attack in an astonishing manner, he was no longer the same man. The erect gait was bent, and the eagle eye had lost its lustre."

The able writer of 'Silk and Scarlet' gives the following graphic and affecting description of Tom Smith the last time he appeared at the meet with his hounds:--

"The covert side knew him no more after the October of 1857, when he just cantered up to Willbury on his chestnut hack Blemish, to see his hounds draw. Carter got his orders to bring the choicest of the 1858 entry, and he and Will Bryce arrived at the usual rendezvous with five couple of bitches by the Fitzwilliam Hardwicke and Hermit. He looked at them a short time, and exclaimed, '+Well, they're as beautiful as they can be+,' bade both his men good-bye, and they saw him no more."

He returned to Tedworth as usual--

"But," writes Sir J. Eardley Wilmot, "at the annual meet on the 1st of November, 1857, the hounds met without the accustomed centre figure of their master, who slowly rode up to them without his scarlet. He remarked, quite seriously, that if he had worn his hunting gear, and his pack should observe that he could not follow them, they would show their sorrow by refusing to hunt the fox. A universal gloom pervaded the field; he looked wistfully and lovingly at his old favourites, the heroes of many a well-fought field; and as he quickly went back into the hall, shrinking almost from the outer air, while the horsemen and pack turned away slowly towards the shrubberies, every one felt with a heavy heart that the glory of the old fox-hunter had at length departed."

The state of Mrs. Smith's health having for many years caused her husband great anxiety, in 1845, in order, as he said, "to bring Madeira to England," he constructed for her at Tedworth a magnificent conservatory or crystal palace, 315 feet in length and 40 in width, in which, enjoying the temperature of a warm climate, she might take walking exercise during the winter months. A Wiltshire farmer, on first seeing this building, observed, he supposed it was for the 'Squire to hunt there whenever a frost stopped him in the field.

"It was a melancholy spectacle," writes Sir J. Eardley Wilmot, "to see Tom Smith the winter before his death, when he could no longer join his hounds, mount one of his favourite hunters--Euxine, Paul Potter, or Blemish--with the assistance of a chair, and take his exercise for an hour at a foot's pace up and down this conservatory, often with some friend at his side to cheer him up and while away the time until he re-entered the house, for he was not allowed at that period to go out of doors. Even in this feeble condition, 'quantùm mutatus ab illo Hectore,' once on horseback, he appeared to revive; and the dexterity and ease with which he managed, like a plaything, the spirited animal under him, which had scarcely left its stable for months, was most surprising."

During the last days of his existence he rested rather than took exercise on that noble animal the horse, which for seventy years he had so resolutely and yet so considerately governed. His mind, in its declining hours, had also its support. Throughout his life, without ostentation and often in secret, he had been charitable to people of various conditions. Of the two thousand workmen in his quarries, scarcely one of them had ever been taken before a magistrate for dishonesty. Never was he known, if properly requested, to refuse to give a site for a church or even for a Dissenting chapel. Both he and Mrs. Smith invariably went to church on foot, it being a rule with them never, except in case of illness, to have either carriage or horse out on Sundays.

A few weeks after he had completed his eighty-second year he had a sudden attack of the same symptoms which had shaken him so severely in 1856. In a moment of consciousness, evidently aware of his approaching end, pointing to his faithful valet, he said to his devoted wife, "Take care of that man!" and when Mrs. Smith left the room, he said to her maid, "Watch over your mistress; take care of +her+." A few hours afterwards--

"Last scene of all, That ends this strange eventful history"

on the 9th of September, 1858, while Mrs. Smith's sister was watching by his bedside, a slight change came over his countenance, but before the doctors or even his valet could be summoned,--with a gentle sigh expired Thomas Assheton Smith, bequeathing, on half a sheet of writing-paper, the whole of his vast possessions, producing from 50,000l. to 55,000l. a year, to his widow (who survived him only a few months); and moreover leaving behind him a name that will long be remembered not only by the farmers and riding men of the counties he hunted, but by all who are disposed fairly and justly to appreciate the lights and shadows which constitute the character of "The English Country Gentleman," one only of whose recreations we have endeavoured to delineate to our readers in the foregoing slight sketches of those three gallant animals--the +Horse+, the +Fox+, and last, though not least, the +Foxhunter+.

To face page 195.]

+On Military Horse-Power.+

As the momentum or force of a shot is said to be its weight multiplied by its velocity, so the strength of an army may not unjustly be estimated by multiplying its physical powers by the rate at which (if necessary) it can be made to travel: in short, activity is to an army what velocity is to a shot, or what the rigging of a vessel is to its hull. But, although we refuse to increase the weight of a shot unless we can proportionately preserve our power to propel it, yet, in European warfare, this principle, as regards the "matériel" of an army, has not always been kept in mind. Inventions have very easily been admitted, which afterwards have not been so easy to carry. It is true, they have added to the powers of the army, but they have so diminished its speed, that, encumbered by its implements and accoutrements, a European, like an East Indian army, has often felt that it requires less science to fight than to march; and thus, when Bonaparte, in his retreat from Moscow, was surrounded by Cossacks, which his troops were unable to crush only because they could not get at them, his well-known confession proves that when the field is vast, and its resources feeble, the distance between regular and irregular warfare "is but a step,"--the reason being, that the superior strength of the former is worn out by the superior activity of the latter, or, as Marshal Saxe expressed it, "its arms are of less value than its legs."

Now, it is undeniable that this want of activity proceeds partly from the weight of the "matériel," but principally from the following very remarkable imperfection in the military equipment of Europe.

It is well known that not only every soldier, but every human being following an army, is subject to military discipline, and that his labour may, at any time, and for any purpose, be required of him; but, although the rational being is thus called upon to work with cheerful obedience for the grand objects of the army, the physical powers of the brute beast have never yet been developed; and accordingly for the various, sudden, and momentary emergencies for which horse-power has often and urgently in vain been required, horse-power (the cavalry) to an enormous extent has existed upon the spot, a military element which it has hitherto been considered so impracticable to control, that the guns, ammunition, treasure, &c., which European cavalry have oftentimes bravely won, their horses have been supposed totally incapable to carry away; and the laurel which was positively in their hands they have thus been obliged to abandon. Again, for sieges in countries which have been drained by the artillery and cavalry, not only of horses, but of sustenance to maintain them, it has often been absolutely necessary to bring forward, by bullocks and other inefficient means, the battering train, ammunition, entrenching tools, materials, &c., amounting in weight, even for the attack of a second-rate fortress, to several thousand tons. In moments of such distress the infantry working in the trenches have often severely suffered from the delay occasioned by the want of horse-power, while their comrades, the cavalry, have been deemed incapable of sharing the honour and fatigue of the day, from the anomalous conclusion that, although it is easy to extract from men manual labour, it is impossible to extract from horses horse-power; and yet there exists no reason why, in moments of emergency, cavalry horses should not be required to work (most particularly at drag-ropes) as well as infantry soldiers; for although the patient endurance of hardships and privations is one of the noblest features in military life, yet absolutely to suffer from the want of what one positively possesses is, even in common life, a discreditable misfortune, indicating not bodily weakness, but mental imbecility.

Even in that noble department, the Horse Artillery itself, there existed throughout the Peninsular War a striking example of latent power which had never been exerted. To each gun there were attached twelve horses trained to draught. Of these, only eight possessed the means of drawing: the gun might therefore, in mechanical calculation, be said to be propelled by an engine of eight horse-power; and if a morass, or any other obstacle, over-balanced this power, the gun was either deserted, or (as was customary) the infantry were harnessed to it, by drag-ropes, in the immediate presence of four draught-horses, whose powers (besides officers' horses) it was conceived that we were unable to command.

Now, to awaken, at no expense, the important, natural, yet dormant powers, not only of cavalry but of all other horses, and, consequently, to afford the means of accelerating (when required) the movements, grand or small, of an army, would surely be more beneficial than even to suggest an improvement in its arms; for it may justly be said that our present weapons are destructive enough--that even if we could succeed in making them more so, still our enemies would retort them upon us--that the advantage, or rather the disadvantage, would then be mutual--and that, eventually, war would only be made still more destructive; but by giving activity and mobility to European armies, the science of war is promoted; and even if the benefit to the civilized nations of Europe should be equal (but this, from the superior size and strength of English horses, would evidently be in our favour), yet it would at least shield the profession from the disgrace of being again persecuted, in any country, by an uncivilized army; and if the navy of England, laden with its immense weight of metal, is endeavouring, by science and reflection, to accelerate its rate of sailing, so that it can not only stand against the largest fleet, but can chase and run down the smallest pirate, surely the British army, already distinguished by its heart and its arm, should never rest satisfied until it can sufficiently develop its locomotive powers to be able to overtake and punish the insults of irregular troops.

Having now endeavoured to prove, 1st, That in European warfare there positively does exist a serious imperfection; and 2ndly, That it is for the interest, and due to the character, of the profession, that this imperfection should be corrected, we will proceed to explain the reasons which have lately induced the Duke of Cambridge by the following order to direct the attention of the British cavalry to the practice of lasso draught, (which for more than two years, by order of the Inspector-General of Fortifications, General Sir John Burgoyne, has been most successfully and scientifically adopted, by Captain Siborne, R.E., commanding the Royal Engineer Train, under the intelligent superintendence of Colonel Henry Sandham, Director of the Royal Engineers' Establishment at Chatham.)

Extract from the Queen's Regulations, page 126.

"In order that the cavalry may, upon emergencies, be available for the purposes of draught, such as assisting artillery, &c., through deep roads, and in surmounting other impediments and obstacles which the carriages of the army have frequently to encounter in the course of active service, ten men per troop are to be equipped with the tackle of the lasso."

In Europe, Asia, Africa, North America, and a considerable portion of South America, for every purpose of drawing, a horse is confined between two traces; and accordingly, whenever for the first time in his life he is placed in this predicament, so soon as one of them touches or tickles him on one side, he flies from it to the other trace, which suddenly arrests him, and, usually blind-folded by blinkers, being ignorant of, as well as alarmed at, the unknown objects that are restraining him, he occasionally endeavours to disperse them by kicking; and even if he submits, it requires some little experience to tranquillize his fears. For these reasons, throughout the regions enumerated, a horse that has never been in harness, however valuable he may be, is totally useless in a moment of emergency for the purposes of draught.

Now throughout that region of South America which extends in 35° south latitude from Buenos Ayres on the Atlantic, to Santiago and to Valparaiso on the Pacific Ocean, harness is composed of nothing but a surcingle and a single trace, by which the horse draws as a man would drag a garden-roller, by one hand instead of by two.

By this simple mode all the merchandise, and all the travellers that have ever traversed on wheels those immense plains that separate the two great oceans of the world, have been transported.

For military purposes its efficiency has been thus substantiated by General Miller in his history of 'The War for Independence':--

"Our corps consisted of ten six-pounders and one howitzer. Each gun was drawn by four horses, and each horse ridden by a gunner, there being no corps of drivers in the service. A non-commissioned officer and seven drivers were, besides the four already mentioned, attached to each piece of artillery. Buckles, collars, cruppers, and breast-plates were not in use; the horses simply drew from the saddle, and with this equipment our guns have travelled nearly 100 miles in a day."

But besides its efficiency for all the requirements of either peace or war, the singular advantage of this simple harness is that any description of horse, tame or wild, uses it without noticing it; for if the single trace which passes immediately beneath his hip bone happens (which it ought not) to press against his side, by shrinking from it only an inch it instantly ceases to touch him; and as there then remains nothing to confine, tickle, or alarm him, he refrains from kicking, simply because there is nothing to kick at, and from quarrelling because he can see nothing in the world to quarrel with.

With this equipment, if a party of native riders, hunting ostriches in South America, are requested to help the horses of a carriage across a river, and up a steep bank, similar, for instance, to that of the Alma, in a moment they affix their lassos, conquer the difficulty, attain the summit, and then, with tobacco smoke steaming from their mouths, gallop away to follow their sport.