ABSTRACT
The French hold up their hands in amazement when they see a boat-load of 25 or 30 women landing after a regiment. Poor creatures! They consider themselves, too, the fortunate ones. Those that are left at home (in a miserable plight for subsistence, it is true) are to be deemed unfortunate! They are to be accommodated with two tents per regiment; and as in some they amount to 32 (or 4 per cent.), they will have to be packed rather close in the “gig umbrellas.” How they are to follow the regiments appears a mystery, which no one has yet clearly solved. For 15 miles a stout hearty Irish lassie would last out very well; but it is a different question when the march is a forced one, ending possibly in a skirmish. Nothing but madness could countenance such a proceeding as their coming at all. They are a drag to the efficiency of a regiment. Without an idea of doing what is called in military parlance “croaking,” is it not fair to ask if the experience gained in Cabul, with reference to ladies and soldiers’ wives militant, goes for nothing? Whatever it may it be in England, it has not been forgotten in India; for during our occupation of Lahore from 1846 to 1848, and for a considerable period after the last Punjaub war, no ladies or soldiers’ wives were permitted to accompany the troops.
