J. F. Campbell Collection > Address to the middle classes upon the subject of gymnastic exercises

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rate persons, who seriously recommend disbanding
the army and relying on the patriotic efforts of
volunteers for the defence of the country. The
exploded clamour against standing armies has been
most unseasonably revived. It is proposed by these
persons to discharge, or, at any rate, greatly reduce
the number of our professional soldiers, and on the
first outbreak of hostilities to train the people to
arms. I will not discuss the question, whether
these raw levies, imperfectly disciplined as they
would be, are likely to prove a very formidable an-
tagonist to an army of veterans. I will even assume
what, however, is somewhat difficult to believe, that
the train-bands, composed of our citizens, would be
as efficient, in the execution of military manoeuvres,
as a battalion of guards. But is it conceivable,
that with their present inactive habits, our middle
classes could bear the fatigue of the shortest period
of service ? It is not natural physical capability, it is
not courage, it is not zeal ; it is condition that they
want. There is not one in a thousand of them, that
is tit to undertake a campaign against the grouse,
much less a campaign against the enemy. Would
those who scarcely walk a mile in a fortnight, would
those who deem it toil to creep from Fleet Street to
the Exchange, would those, who since their child-
hood, have scarcely exerted a muscle of their limbs,
be fit to endure continuous marches of some twenty
miles a day, performed with a weight of 60 lbs.
perhaps under a burning sun, or amid torrents of
rain ? Would they bear long exposure to heat and