Leaves from a Soldier's Pocket Book, being Thoughts Suggested during the Looshai Campaign. A Rejected Contribution to the Journal of the United Service Institution of India

S. N. S.

Editore: G. A. Savielle, Allahabad, 1873

Riguardo questo articolo

AN EYEWITNESS CRITIC OF THE LOOSHAI CAMPAIGN; NO COPY IN COPAC. Allahabad: Printed by G. A. Savielle, at the Pioneer Press, 1873. 8vo. (1) ff, 41 pp, with numerous diagrams and tables in text. Bound in later pale green boards with printed title label on spine. A fine, clean and fresh copy. Extremely rare sole edition of this polemic prompted by the recent Looshai Campaign (1871-1872), dispatched in order to subdue the rebellious Lushei tribes of Northeast India. Written as a practical guide to the needs of officers and soldiers during a campaign, it also includes diagrams and charts for easy reference. Its unwelcome criticism of existing methods and procedures may have prompted its rejection from the Journal of the United Service Institution of India, as advertised on the title-page. Composed during the campaign itself, "at the time and on the spot", the work offers the observations and opinions of a British officer in the colony's Native Troops. It gives intimate insights into the day-to-day concerns of colonial soldiers in India, including the logistics of transporting artillery; the assembling of tents; and the best use of the local unskilled laborers known as coolies. At times, the author makes charming digressions into the more worldly needs of the troops, such as the appropriate rations of rum and tobacco. Transporting ghee (clarified butter) brings its own problems (p 14); greater rum rations are suggested to cope with the grueling climate, but the problem of rum dilution is also addressed; tobacco is deemed "a necessity". "As long as opium-eaters are to be found in the Army, this drug should also form an article of Commissariat supply, for the reason that those who have contracted the habit, when deprived of their accustomed stimulant by the exigencies of a campaign, become physically unfit for any exertion.". For the 'Coolie Corps', the author recommends Punjabis: Kashmiris being "arrant cowards", Hindustanis and Bengalis "hardly worth their salt"; and the Nepalee being merely "adequate but slow". Remarking on the need to keep a 10% reserve of fresh coolies to relieve those who break down on the march, the author notes that "it is false economy to overload or overwork beasts of burden". A curious work, likely printed without official approbation by the jobbing printer G. A. Savielle, who was also active in Calcutta. OCLC shows just one other copy worldwide, at the New York Public Library (the subject of "mass deacidifaction"); COPAC confirms no UK copies. * OCLC 36110623.

Codice articolo D0478

Dati bibliografici

• Titolo: Leaves from a Soldier's Pocket Book, being Thoughts Suggested during the Looshai Campaign. A Rejected Contribution to the Journal of the United Service Institution of India
• Editore: G. A. Savielle, Allahabad
• Data di pubblicazione: 1873
• Rilegatura: Brossura
• Cataloghi dei venditori:
  • East meets West