The Origin and Services of the 3rd (Montreal)

""""""Iii 1886 a new badge was adopted. It consisted of a gun, within a garter,surmounted by a lion on the Imperial Crown. Within the garter was the thentitle of the Battery,"The Montreal Field Battery of Artillery,"while flankingitwere two sprays of oak leaves tied underneath, the junction of the two sprays beinghidden by a scroll bearing the old motto, Always on Hand".The latter badge is practically the present badge of the Battery,the newdesignation merely being added within the garter.The Field Battery has always been a favourite corps with the people ofMontreal, as abundantly proven by the applause which has greetedit at reviewsetc., and the popularity of the corps was never greater than at present.Admiration for this efficient organizationis not confined to the fellow citizensof the smart gunners. A short time ago a letter to the editor was published in theMontreal Daily Star from a gentleman who signed himself as J.Drew Gay, LateColonel Ottoman ".Army It read as follows :I see that the critics have been making adverse comment upon the Canadianvolunteers.Allow me, as one who has seen service all over the world, to say thatten years ago, when I visited Canada for the first time, I said in the London DailyTelegraph, of which journal I was for eighteen years chief war correspondent, thatI had never seen so good a battery of volunteer artillery as that commanded byLieutenant-Colonel Stevenson of your city, and that the opinion I then expressedhas never changed. In my opinion the Canadians possess many volunteerand militia regiments which could take the field along-side of any of the lineregiments in Europe, with credit and confidence."December 2nd, 1878, Colonel Gay in his description of the reception of theMarquis of Lome and Her Royal Highness Princess Louise in Montreal publishedin the London Daily Telegraph December agth, wrote :"And such militia ! I know it is the fashion to decry and depreciate irregularforces. I am aware that to the regular the idea of militia issomething tooabsurd but I", may mention that, gathered on parade that morning, were morethan one battalion that would have done credit to any army in the world that;Stevenson s four gun battery is almost the equal of some of our own famousbatteries at Woolwich and that the Scotch;companies of the Fifth Fusilier regimentshowed as handsome a set of fellows as ever marched past the saluting point."74