“With the view of avoiding the heavy expenses incurred by the hire of Butt Markers, the duties to be undertaken by members of the Corps; three non-commissioned officers and three privates being previously detailed on each occasion.
“Should any member so detailed refuse or neglect to attend, he would be disqualified from competing for Regimental Prizes.”
However necessary these rules may have been at the time, it need scarcely be observed that before long they were found to be irksome. Rumour reports that on the occasion of a squad, on its return from the ranges in the dark, being marched into a ditch, open mutiny broke out with regard to the obnoxious rules, and that Captain Taylor was thereupon constrained to relax his discipline until he could find more tractable material to work upon than the “gentlemen of the Civil Service.”
Two events of the year 1860 must not be omitted. One was the first grand Volunteer Review before the Queen, in Hyde Park, when the Civil Service, under Lord Bury, formed part of a brigade under Lord Ranelagh.
In reference to this event Lord Bury states, “The behaviour of all ranks on the ground was steady and soldierlike, and the general appearance presented by the Regiment was all that could be desired.”
Another was the celebration of the Prince of Wales’ birthday by an inspection at Somerset House, followed by a Regimental Dinner.
Looking back from the sober routine of the volunteering of to-day, to this strange period when every one was a recruit, it is only natural that eccentricities should be apparent on all sides. The enthusiasm that pervaded all ranks was, of course, immense, and the amount of drilling done, especially by the Officers and Non-Commissioned Officers was enormous. A golden age was this for the Army Drill-Instructors. Elderly recruits of a nervous temperament hesitated to exhibit themselves in the ranks until they had been privately coached in the initial mysteries of drill, in the seclusion of their own apartments. Uniform was worn on every possible occasion, at drill or on the range. It is said that after one occasion when Lord Bury had appeared at the range in plain clothes, he received a letter from an indignant private, expressing a hope that such a slight would not again be cast upon members of the regiment.