Encampment of Cadets.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume II, Issue 219, 8 November 1888, Page 2

Encampment of Cadets.

[from ovr own correspondent.] Melbourne, October 26. The annual encampment of the cadet force has been a topic of general interest during the week. Nearly four thousand boys from various parts of the Colony took part in the demonstration, and acquittted themselves (according to all accounts) remarkably well. I suppose the time will come when Victoria must have her standing army, but in the meantime our Mili’ia and Volunteer forces are quite enough to amuse ourselves with. So I take it this mimic show of the practical side of soldiering will do good in its way, and at all events will train our youth to habits of obedience and self-denial. Personally, I did not see anything more of the function than a cursory glimpse of the cadets marching through the streets ; but those I saw I thought remarkably fine lads, welltrained, and well-built. It amused me afterwards to see to what lengths of enthusiasm some of the papers went, “ Our future defenders,” “ Our young soldiers.” and so on, were the terms generally used in describing the lads and their doings, whilst in the same breath I read that on their arrival in camp they greatly enjoyed the bread-and-butter provided for them, and that during’the evening a field order’went round' that if they were not quiet in their tents, the supply of jam would be cut off—a threat which worked like magic. There is something very comical, I think, in the connection of soldiers and jam —a country’s defenders and bread-and butter.

The very day that these lads of the new generation marched out was the anniversary of the day on which the deaths of Burke and Wills, the unfortunate explorers, were reported in Melbourne as having taken place at Cooper's Creek. I was greatly pained to notice that only one of the papers made mention of the fact at all, and that at very short length ; for, to my mind, the day ought to be one of national mourning. It is exactly seven-and-twenty years since the occurrence took place—surely too short a time for it to have faded from the public mind'. I know many old citizens who saw the departing procession wend its way through the primitive streets of the city, and who witnessed the final start from between the two trees still standing in the R >yal Park, not far from the Zoological Gardens But eheu I fugcees labuntur mini, noset mutamur in Ulis —the years glide on, aud we change with them. A new order of things obtains. Melbourne has grown rich and selfish and forgetful. What with land booms and exhibitions, and the rush and roar of feverish city life, our memoryiof the good old day< and the good old hero.es dies within us, and even the remembrance of the martyrs Burke and Wills seems to have faded and vanished, and stirs our hearts no longer.