3-077-912 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Easter Volunteer Manoeuvres: quartered with the rats, 1890. 'Here is a valuable military force prepared to aid in the defence of the country...Our Artist's Sketches, though of a gently humorous and playful character, illustrate the ordinary personal experiences of Volunteers in a marching column which is two or three days on the road from London to the south coast...The night's lodgings may be in a barn, or in a stable-loft, with plenty of clean straw; "how sleep the brave! those men are blest, who with the brave can take their rest" - unless they be disturbed by wakeful rats. Such are the adventurous incidents of a campaigning life in the Easter week'. From "Illustrated London News", 1890.