_No doubt the letter-published in Wednesday's "North-Ching Daily News" on the preservation of the historic battlefield of Bannockburn will make a strong. appeal to the large Scots community in Shanghai, and it would certainly be strange it there were not a handsome contribution from them. Bannockburn, however, has an interest beyond that of the Scots alone, for, if certain students of mititary history are correct, it was the battle which centuries later led to the evolution of the bayonet. One has only consider the principal method employed by Bruce—one of the greatest captains of his day—to realize how he gave military leaders in subsequent years, furiously to think, 'The English archery were probably unparalleled "at that or any other time, and Bruce knew and dreaded them. If he was to have any hope of success must put them out of commission before the main action commenced, and he achieved his object.' The archery, as usual, were situated on the flank of the English force, and Bruce hurled the whole of his small but highly, trained cavalry against them, utterly disorganized them, and they exercised no further influence on the course of events. The point he realized was that archers were merely archers, and the bow and arrow was no defence against attack at close quarters. Then controversy commenced. It was seen that archers carried a spear or battle-axe they would have to reduce the amount of their ammunition, and so in a, long drawn battle they would have expended it all long before a decision had been reached. From this point followed the steps which led to the bayonet.
The first step to remedy the weakness revealed at Bannockburn was to detach a force of the pikemen—or whatever the infantry of the period were called—to defend the archery, but this meant immobilizing considerable part-of the army, and the generals were between the devil and the deep sea. And they remained so through all the successive changes which took place—from the bow to the cross-bow, and from the latter to the primitive firearms which were more dangerous to the troops using them than to the enemy. These hardy soldiers who swore horribly in Flanders and elsewhere carried their powder in a bag hung on their chest, and had a fuse wound several times over the shoulder which went on burning untill it generally exploded the powder and blew up the man. And still no means had been devised for the protection of the descendant of the archer, At length came the bayonet. At first it was hardly an_improvement on the old condition of things, for it had to be screwed into the muzzle of the fire-arm, and then, naturally, th musketeer, or whatever he was called, ceased to be a musketee: and became one of the old pikeman. There was the further: trouble that when threatened with a charge valuable minutes" were lost in screwing on' this troublesome bayonet, and there could be mo volley to encourage the attackers as they got grips, which they frequently did before bayonets could be fixed. It was after that that the present type was evolved which haa made the infantryman_as nearly,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.