leave their mark upon the national life and character, and in which we
may wholly rejoice. Amongst them none are more admirable than the
awakening to the duty we owe to our soldiers and sailors, and the
large-hearted generosity with which the whole empire is endeavouring to
discharge it.

It is necessary to go back to the days of the Crimean War and the Indian
Mutiny to find any similar awakening. It was then that the British
people began to learn the lesson of gratitude to the men they had so
long neglected, whom they had herded in dark and miserable barracks, and
regarded as more or less the outcasts of society.

The glorious courage, the patient, unmurmuring heroism, the tenacity
not allowing defeat, which were displayed during the long and dreary
months of the siege of Sebastopol, and the ultimate triumph of our arms,
aroused the nation from its indifference, and kindled for its defenders
a warm and tender sympathy.

Following swiftly on the Crimean War came the splendid deeds of the
Indian Mutiny, when handfuls of brave men saved the empire by standing
at bay like 'the last eleven at Maiwand,' or, hurrying hither and
thither, scattered the forces which were arrayed against them. The
sympathy which the Crimean War had produced was intensified by these
events, and the duty of caring for those who thus dared to endure and to
die was still more borne in upon the heart of the nation.


=Changed Estimate of our Soldiers and Sailors.=

It came to be discovered that though the British soldier and