completed, he, with his staff, moved on to Handsworth, which was centrally situated.
In the command were to be found roughly twenty-three battalions of Militia and forty-eight of Volunteers; but owing to the supineness and neglect of the Government the former regiments now found themselves, at the moment when wanted, greatly denuded of officers, and, owing to any lack of encouragement to enlist, largely depleted in men. As regards the Volunteers, matters were even worse. During the past five years as much cold water as possible had been thrown upon all voluntary and patriotic military endeavour by the "antimilitant" Cabinets which had so long met at No. 10 Downing Street. The Volunteers, as a body, were sick to death of the slights and slurs cast upon their well-meaning efforts. Their "paper" organisation, like many other things, remained intact, but for a long time wholesale resignations of officers and men had been taking place. Instead, therefore, of a muster of about twenty-five thousand auxiliaries being available in this command, as the country would have anticipated, if the official tabulated statements had been any guide, it was found that only about fifteen thousand had responded to the call to arms. And upon these heroic men, utterly insufficient in point of numbers, Sheffield had to rely for its defence.
It might reasonably have been anticipated that in the majority of Volunteer regiments furnished by big manufacturing towns, a battalion would have consisted of at least five hundred efficient soldiers; but owing to the causes alluded to, in many cases it was found that from one hundred to two hundred only could "pass the doctor," after having trained themselves to the use of arms. The catchword phrase, "Peace, retrenchment, and reform," so long dinned into the ears of the electorate by the pro-German Party and by every socialistic demagogue, had sunk deeply into the minds of the people. Patriotism had been jeered at, and solemn warnings laughed to scorn, even when uttered by responsible
