Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 3).djvu/458

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ILLUSTRATED INTERVIEWS.
461

having got killed. When I heard he was wounded it was a great blow to me. I was connected by telegraph from Korti to England, and I wired to Lord Hartington—'Stewart wounded, chance of living, strongly recommend him a Major-General.' Within twelve hours the Queen made him a Major-General. I believe in the sudden delivery of good news to a wounded man in battle. It held Stewart up for days, but he finally succumbed, and was buried in the desert.

"I have never smoked since I was in the desert in 1885. I once used to smoke in all actions, and in India demolished some twenty cigars a day. I thought smoking injurious to the nerves, and I wanted every iota of nerve before I went up to take Kartoum. I remember, too, I did not smoke for a week before Tel-el-Kebir was won. I used to carry a case containing six regalias. After the fight was over and I had despatched my telegram to England, I went off to find a poor aide-de-camp. I lit a cigar. By the time I found him I had smoked a couple, and finally finished the whole half-dozen, and excellent cigars they were, too."

On Lord Wolseley's return from Egypt he was elevated to the rank of Viscount.


Cetewayo's milk-pails, dish, and pillows.
From a Photo by Elliott & Fry.

In reply to a question regarding compulsory service, Lord Wolseley said: "It is a mistake to imagine that I have ever advocated universal service for England. I have on more than one occasion pointed out the great benefits which must accrue to any nation that has the patriotism to adopt such a system. I have done so by balancing the pros and cons on this particular point. The advantages are, briefly, that you supplement your ordinary schools of education in which the mind alone is taught and trained. By a service of a couple of years in the army, such as the young German soldier receives, you develop his physical power, you make a man of him in body and in strength, as the schools he had been at previously had made a man of him mentally. You teach him habits of cleanliness, tidiness, punctuality, reverence for superiors, and obedience to those above him, and you do this in a way that no other species of machinery that I have ever been acquainted with could possibly fulfil. In fact, you give him all the qualities calculated to make him a thoroughly useful and loyal citizen when he leaves the colours, and returns home to civil life. And of this I am quite certain, that the nation which has the courage and the patriotism to insist on all its sons undergoing this species of education and training for at least two or three generations, will consist of men and women far better calculated to be the fathers and mothers of healthy and vigorous children than the nation which allows its young people to grow up without any physical training, although they may cram their heads with all sorts of scientific knowledge in their national schools. In other words, the race in two or three generations will be stronger, more vigorous, and therefore braver, and more calculated to make the nation to which they belong great and powerful. Such a system must necessarily be a burden upon the people, entailing upon the present generation a considerable loss of time, and many other drawbacks, all to be endured for a great future benefit to the nation. In fact, the plan means a certain amount of self-abnegation to the individual for the sake of the future of the nation to which that individual belongs."

Harry How.