Note 181 — 1855. 20th April-15th May. SIEGE OF SEBASTOPOL.

This suggests the mention of a brief conversation which occurred one day between Colonel Shadforth and lance-corporal Jenkins. “How is it,” asked the Colonel, “that so few sappers die?” “They hav’nt time,” replied the corporal; “there’s too much work for them to do in the trenches!” A stiff glass of grog from the officer’s canteen was the result of Jenkins’s rejoinder, which would have been strictly true, had the question been asked with respect to the primitive state of the sapper camp.