THE ARMY AND UNPROTECTED ORPHANS.

THE

'HE public are informed, by military announcement, that the subject of training for the army pauper boys, especially orphans, at many of the Union and District Schools, is now under the consideration of the authorities in the War Department, and that a committee, presided over by the Inspector-General of Recruiting, has been appointed by the Secretary of State for War, for the purpose of inquiring into and reporting upon the best system to be adopted for training lads from pauper schools as soldiers, with the view of their being drafted into the army. This process of supplying such poor lads as "food for cannon" has been going on in an increasing ratio for some time, and will speedily become a very comprehensive national system, unless the working-classes, in particular, rouse themselves in defence of the orphans of their own order. For the pauper children with parents and protectors are, in general, only "casual" or very temporary inmates of the Union establishments, and do not remain long enough for efficient "military drill" by the barrack officers regularly employed for that purpose. It is the fatherless, the deserted, the utterly friendless lads who are made the victims of the system now rapidly extending.

The spectacle may now be frequently witnessed, in these large pauper schools, of scores, or hundreds, of orphans, some of them decorated with stripes, being drilled with the promptitude and precision of veteran soldiers, marching and countermarching, forming square (with the military officers in the centre), preparing to receive cavalry and presenting arms (wooden imitations of bayonets and guns).

Whatever have military "squares' or "presenting arms to do with the requirements of civil and industrial life? And why should the drill be carried even into the devotional exercises of the children! For in some pauper schools the children not only rise from their meals at the bugle sound, but also, at the same sound, raise their little hands and shut their eyes for prayer! Another note of the bugle, and they chant their prayer or grace, after which a further note of the same instrument dismisses them to other duties.

Simple gymnastic drill is a most healthful and useful exercise for

the young, and is cultivated even in the best Quaker schools as an important adjunct of education. But the pauper orphans are drilled with a special view to the requirements of the battle-field. Hence when one listens to the melodies of the military bands now becoming so common in large pauper schools, played with accuracy and effect by the carefully-drilled orphans, the actual meaning of these at first delightful sounds gradually reveals itself to the reflective mind. What do all these drillings, manoeuvres, and musical trainings really denote? Simply a deliberate scheme to prepare these fatherless and motherless lads for the time when they shall, in similarly well-ordered ranks, be marched into battle, there to be mowed down by shot and shell. For this is the stern reality to follow, some day, the fair colours and melodious strains of the present scenes of youthful preparation.

"This plan of supplying the army and military bands is a capital one," exclaimed a Guardian; "for the orphans, once placed in the army, never come back to us." Of course they do not. For even if they join the ranks of the seven thousand annual deserters, and thus flee from the army, they would not think of showing themselves again to the Guardians, for this would ensure recapture and punishment. They are, therefore, finally got rid of and put out of hand once for all by this convenient process.

In the army, it is true, they can now obtain better pay than the former wretched pittance. But they are also exposed to peculiarly ruinous temptations there. The over-crowded cells of the military prisons prove the present wretched lot of a large proportion of the English soldiery, even under the new and short term system. This, then, is the miserable history of the pauper orphan boy, whose parents (perhaps God-fearing in their day) can no longer extend a protecting hand over him, and whose Guardians are but too ready to accept the tempting offers of the recruiting sergeant and the army bandmaster.

The proportion of lads thus disposed of is annually increasing, and in some pauper schools amounts to fifty and even eighty per cent. It is, therefore, high time that the working men and their friends should give earnest practical attention to this growing abuse, before it is too late effectually to resist the power of the military authorities. Owing to the intelligent views respecting the beguilements of

recruiting officers propounded by the chief organs of the working classes, and by Joseph Arch and other thoughtful leaders amongst them, men are becoming increasingly reluctant to enter "the spider's den." Therefore, the poor helpless orphans are the more assiduously drafted into the ranks of victims of the sword and cannon. Thirty-two years ago, the military authorities made endeavours, as at present, to obtain supplies of pauper orphans for the barracks. But in those days they had not the facilities of supply now afforded by the large District and Separate Union Schools. Then the children. were far more scattered over the country. Now they are conveniently massed in these large schools, ready to hand. And the barrack officers can march in and pick out the most likely orphans.

The introduction of "short term service" has made little difference in the dangers to the enlisted orphans, for whose capture the large pauper schools of the present day offer such special facilities. The poor boys will at best stay in the army long enough to be spoiled for any useful trade or occupation, and certainly long enough to be ruined by drunken and degraded comrades. And at any period they may have to march to the battle-field.

REPORTS ON THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE.

THE

GEOLOGY.-By B. B. WOODWARD.

`HE list of British sedimentary deposits has been increased by the addition of two entirely new formations.* The central ridge of the rocks of St. David's Promontory, which was mapped by the Geological Survey as consisting of intrusive syenites and felstones, is now shown by Mr. Hicks to be formed of highly altered sedimentary rocks of earlier date than any of the neighbouring Cambrian beds. At the base of the latter occur conglomerates, chiefly composed of rolled fragments of these more ancient rocks. These pre-Cambrian strata are divisible into two distinct and perfectly unconformable series, the one occupying the centre, the other the flanks of the ridge. The older of the two, called the Dimetian series, is 15,000 feet thick; the newer, or Pebidian series, is apparently of consider

*Prcc. Geol. Soc., Nov. 22, 1876.

ably less thickness, and has at its base a conglomerate of pebbles from the older rock. How far they may correspond in time to the Laurentian of Canada cannot, of course, be at present determined.

The last number of the Proceedings of the Geologists' Association (vol. iv. No. 9) contains a paper by Mr. H. J. J. Lavis, "On the Geology of Lewisham,” and, to a great extent, of Charlton as well. The sections exposed at these localities exhibit all the strata between the chalk and the London clay, and have been a familiar resort of London geologists from the time when they were first described by Messrs. Conybeare and Phillips in 1822.* They have now been re-described by Mr. Lavis from independent observations, and the exposures at Loam-pit Hill, Lewisham, compared with those at Charlton, and illustrated by sections and lists of the fossils and minerals obtained there. The author maintains that the Oldhaven pebble-beds have no right to a separate existence, and should be classed as the basement bed of the London clay.

It does sometimes happen that, owing to unusually favourable circumstances, the softer and more perishable parts of some organised being are preserved in the fossil state, and a very pretty illustration of this is afforded us in the discovery by M. Ch. Brougniart of the remains of some small crustaceans, allied to the little Cypris that inhabits our fresh waters, embedded in the silex that filled the interior of a Cardiocarpus, a fossil seed-vessel, from the coal-measures of SaintEtienne. These little creatures, on whom the name of Palæocypris Edwardsii has been bestowed, exhibit not only the bivalve carapace, but the eye, legs, and antennæ, with their tufts of hairs. Considering the immense interval of time by which these ancient Cyprids are separated from their modern allies, the great similarity that exists between them is all the more striking.

In addition to an Empress, India has lately acquired a Plesiosaurus. So familiar have we become with the appearance of this queer reptile, with its long neck and small head, as portrayed in all our works on geology, that one can hardly imagine its having ever been conspicuous by its absence from any country. Such, however, was the case in India till Mr. Wynne, of the Indian Geological Survey, dis

*"Outlines of the Geology of England and Wales," 1822, pp. 48 and 49.

covered the portion of a manible of Plesiosaurus in the Umia (upper oolitic) beds of Burrooria, Kachh. As far as can be gathered from this fragment, its former possessor most nearly resembled the P. dolichodeirus of our Lias, which ranges from that period up to the lower Cretaceous. Further research will doubtless bring more and better preserved specimens to light; but in the meantime it is interesting to note the addition of this well-known saurian to the fossil fauna of India.

Quitting India, and proceeding to America, we find Professor Marsh has been adding some more new animals to his already large list from the tertiaries of that country.† The pedigree of the horse has been carried back another step by a new form (Eohippus), older than those previously described. Evidences are afforded of the former existence of a genus of porcine animals about the size of a wild boar, and associated with them are the remains of a new carnivore, of the size of a large wolf, the top of whose skull is adorned with an enormous sagittal crest. These were found in the Eocene deposits of Wyoming. New Mexico has furnished the same observer with another form of that peculiar American order Tillodontia, about the size of a tapir.

Further details are also furnished by Professor Marsh of his new order of flying lizards, the Pteranodontia, resembling the Pterodactyls, but devoid of teeth.§ They occur in the upper Cretaceous deposits of Kansas, and attain a considerable size, some specimens measuring 25 feet across the expanded wings, whilst the Pterodactyle from the Kentish chalk only measures 16 feet 6 inches from tip to tip of its wings.

Now that the ancient saurians of America are under consideration, some allusion may be made to those unwary individuals of the coal measures who appear to have found at once a pitfall and a tomb in the hollow, erect, sigillaria stems of the South Joggins coal-field, Nova Scotia. Numerous remains have already been obtained from some of these hollow trunks by Principal Dawson; but further inves

* Records of the Geol. Surv. of India, vol. ix. pt. iv. p. 154. Amer. Jour. of Science and Arts, Nov. 1876.

Vide ARGONAUT, July, 1876, p. 60.

§ Amer. Jour. of Science and Arts, Dec. 1876. See also ARGONAUT, Sept. 1876, page 184.