by a Dragoon on Furlough.
Originally published in Saint Pauls (Virtue and Co.) vol.2 #7 (Apr 1868).
"General Peel's coppers," as the increment to the soldier's pay bestowed at the instance of the late Secretary for War is somewhat irreverently designated in the ranks, have borne wondrous fruits. It would be strange if they had not. The General himself has no doubt plenty of experience of the raw material out of which soldiers are made, and, questionless, he and Charles Street took sweet counsel together regarding the merits of the scheme. The twopenny increase has been conceived in the true recruiting-sergeant spirit. When the candidate for the Queen's uniform is nibbling at the shilling, the recruiting department knows right well how the hook ought to be baited. Recounted advantages in the shape of gratuitous clothing, diminished barrack damages, increased rations, and shortened drill-hours, would fall unheeded on the ear of a fellow who knows no more about the internal economy of a barrack life than he does of the inner life of the House of Commons. The way to tickle him is to give the recruiting-sergeant the power to make a bigger mouthful of the daily pay which will accrue to him if he bites. In these degenerate days, ribbons and glory, and the chance of dying a field-marshal, no longer are cogent arguments. "What is the pay?" is the cardinal question with the wide-awake young England recruit of 1868. It was certainly a profound knowledge of the idiosyncrasy of the intending recruit which dictated this addition to the soldier's pay, as the means of filling up the terrible gaps in the ranks which existed some eighteen months ago. The scheme has prospered mightily. Between it and the bad times the army is now nearly full. Several regiments are above their strength. Only two cavalry regiments are at present, I believe, open to recruits, and many infantry regiments are also closed.
This being the case, I was very much surprised, coming on furlough to London the other day, when I happened to fall across a manifesto put forth by the Horse Guards, professing to recount the great and manifold advantages enjoyed by "young men who serve her Majesty as soldiers." With an army very close on its full strength now, and with recruits being turned away from Charles Street every day, I wondered, and I wonder now, what purpose this document was designed to subserve. It cannot be intended for circulation throughout our barrack-rooms with the view of producing profound contentment with their lot among those who are already soldiers. The real facts of the case are too well known there; and besides, it is a waste of time to angle for caught fish. If it be addressed to men who may have an idea of joining the service, it is, under present circumstances, an obvious superfluity, apart altogether from the question of the fidelity of its representations. If, again, it be meant for the public eye, with the intent of setting the minds of thinking men at rest on the condition of the private soldier, it must be characterised as an attempt to earn credit under pretences many of which, on examination, will be found to be fallacious. Not that for a moment I would be understood as charging the writer of the document with deliberate bad faith. There is a studied tone of moderation pervading it which impresses one with the belief that the writer is anxious to be within the mark, and to state the case fairly; and, in this view, I am not without hope that the comments hereafter made in the interest of the private soldier, and written from the stand-point of the private soldier, may assist the officer in question to a new view on some of the articles of his circular.
In quoting it verbatim, prior to noticing the separate assertions it contains, I would premise that it is impossible entirely to avoid technicalities, and that I must necessarily enter into details which may be caviare to the civilian reader; but the interest of the subject will, with all honest men, stand as my excuse. The manifesto in question ran as follows:—
"The Advantages given to Young Men who serve her Majesty as Soldiers.
"1. A soldier, from his first joining the army, receives, besides his lodgings, food, and clothing, a weekly sum, quite at his own disposal, of two shillings and sixpence, or more.
"2. After three years' service, if his conduct be good, he further increases that sum by sevenpence a week, and again in every successive five years.
"3. If the soldier should qualify himself, he will be before long promoted, and thereby receive further remuneration.
"4, When sick, he has good medical advice, with every comfort.
"5. After twelve years he can leave the service.
"6. After the first eight years' service, should he feel inclined, he may give notice of his wish to remain twenty-one years as a soldier; and if permitted by his commanding officer to enter into such further engagement, he will from that date receive an additional penny a day.
"7. After the soldier has completed twenty-one years' service he is discharged with a pension for life.
"8. During the time of his service he has the advantage of school instruction, reading and recreation rooms, and outdoor games.
"9. The usual periods of service abroad are so arranged that the soldier has an intermediate period of home service, and these changes enable him to see something of the world, and give him an interest in his profession.
"10. In short, the soldier has the advantage, if he conduct himself well, of being well cared for, sufficiently paid, and at the end of his time provided with a subsistence; besides receiving a distinguishing medal, showing his sovereign's approbation of his having done his duty well and faithfully to his country.
"No labouring man, and very few workmen, can feel sure of greater advantages than these now held out to the good soldier, especially as regards the three important items of lodging, food, and clothing.
"(Signed) W. Paulet, A.G.
"Horse Guards,
"24th October, 1867."
The statement in Article 1, as regards the soldier's pay, is a very moderate one. The infantry man, whose pay is the lowest in the service, has three shillings and sixpence per week after he has paid for his rations; and thus the circular-writer gives off a shilling per week to cover kit charges, barrack damages, and all other deductions, a sum which, in the experience of every reasonably careful soldier, is abundance and to spare. The fact that the two-and-sixpence, put down as the weekly minimum clearance, is really below that minimum, bears out the belief that the writer has desired to state his case as fairly as possible. Nevertheless, this offhand way of putting it gets rid in a very summary style of a variety of aggravating questions as to deductions from full pay for under-clothing, the insufficiency of the present ration, the badness of barrack accommodation, and others. The private soldier never can tell to-day what his to-morrow's pay will be. A heedless captain at a kit inspection may order him a new article of under-clothing when the old one is still very decent; a dull morning may impair the brightness of his jacket, and down goes his name for a new one beyond the power of remonstrance. On the subject of rations, the mischief has always been that the question as regards sufliciency or the reverse has invariably been addressed to old soldiers. Their reply is always in the affirmative, for the double reason that they hanker after more money rather than more food, with a shrewd eye to beer; and that the existing ration has really, through custom, become enough for them. If the recruit were questioned, he would give another answer. Where does the greater part of his pay go for the first year after he joins? To the canteen, to buy bread and cheese and other substantials. In process of time, however, probably under able tuition, he finds out that a penny spent in beer satisfies the appetite very nearly as well as twopence invested in bread and cheese; and by-and-by he comes to invest all his spare pence in beer, when the ration becomes quite sufficient for him. Then, as regards the item of "lodgings," there is great scope for the barrack-room being made more comfortable. It is almost always overcrowded; except in new barracks, the ventilation is uniformly bad; where there is no gas, the lighting is wretched in the extreme; the allowance of fuel is far from liberal; and it might be a question whether the barrack department might not accord a suitable supply of crockery ware, instead of leaving the troops to the casual offerings of the old women who collect the scraps and potato-peelings for pig-feeding purposes. These questions, however, and others, are blinked with no little skill by the offhand statement in the article referred to.
"2, After three years' service, if his conduct be good, he further increases that sum by sevenpence a week, and again in every successive five years."
This is perfectly true, but the good-conduct pay is plaguily precarious. Any punishment over seven days' pack-drill forfeits it, and in the absence of any penal code, a commanding officer can impose any punishment he pleases for any offence the most trivial. I have known a man lose his "ring" for three hours' absence, and also for that curious crime, "dumb insolence." Another man, whose sergeant-major puts in a good word for him, gets off with a reprimand or a trivial punishment for a like offence. In the Guards, I believe, there is a sort of bye-law, the operation of which is, that a man is sentenced to an hour's pack-drill for every hour he is absent. This is a step at least toward the establishment of a penal code; but in line regiments the punishments for offences not thought deserving of a court-martial are entirely arbitrary, and the commanding officer has practically an unlimited discretionary power. It is hardly safe for the soldier to reckon on his good-conduct pay in calculating his income.
"3. If the soldier should qualify himself, he will be before long promoted, and thereby receive further remuneration."
The chief point is, What constitutes the qualification? Without question a great many men are deservedly promoted from the ranks. But there are some men who will never gain a grade, no matter how they try. A man may be barely ugly enough to be rejected by the recruiting officer, and yet may be too ugly ever to be anything beyond a private, no matter how deserving a soldier he may be. A good figure is, perhaps rightly so, an indispensable passport to the stripes. But no one acquainted with the matter will maintain for a moment that personal qualifications, either bodily or mental, constitute the sole basis upon which our system of promotion is founded. Tho colour-sergeant of an infantry company or the sergeant-major of a cavalry troop has necessarily, and no doubt properly, immense influence with their respective captains; and the captain's good word, again, is paramount with the colonel as regards promotion from the ranks. Now in every company and troop there are fellows who strive to recommend themselves to their non-commissioned superior by a sedulous system of abject toadyism. They fetch and carry for him; they act as his spies and talebearers; they curry favour with him in an endless variety of ways. It they are scholars, they write up his books. If physical efforts are their forte, they empty pails and ash-buckets and fetch water and coals for his wife. As a result, when the captain asks him to point out a good man for promotion, what is more natural than that he should be ready with the name of his toady? And so many a man gets promotion who would never wear the stripes if it were not for back-stairs influence. What soldier does not know the meaning of the term, "an adjutant's corporal?" The adjutant in most regiments has risen from the ranks. Many are thoroughly conscientious and sterling men; but many too are within the reach of certain influences. A box or two of game or country produce from a soldier's friend to an accessible adjutant will often work extraordinary miracles in the way of smoothing the road to non-commissioned rank. Premising that I am ready, if guaranteed against the results of a court-martial for the heinous crime of writing for the press, to give real names and clear proof in every case I particularise, I may allude to a case of this nature which, among others, came under my own observation. The illegitimate son of a gentle man of position in the black country joined a cavalry regiment. His father was anxious to see him promoted, and sent frequent presents to the adjutant of the corps. The lad was a very poor soldier, and was so self-willed that he was frequently in collision with the non-commissioned officers of his troop. These were strong arguments against according him the desired promotion. At length the adjutant received an invitation to visit the father. He went for a week, and a few days after he returned the lad was read out corporal. His after-career was not flattering to the adjutant's discretion, for he was summarily discharged not long after to avoid the slander of a trial for disgraceful conduct. A young Irishman joined a dragoon regiment in Dublin. He was a mere lad, and a very silly one to boot; but his father, a considerable landed proprietor, had excellent shooting on his estate. The captain of the troop for which the young fellow was drawn, by some curious coincidence, became very intimate with the senior, and his gun did considerable execution among the Irish squire's covers and lea-lands. Strange to say, the son was made corporal in the middle of the shooting-season, and at seventeen he was in command of men who had as many years' service. There are very few soldiers who cannot recount cases of a like nature.
Reverting to the example of the Guards once more, I am given to understand that in them there exists a certain system of competitive examination for non-commissioned rank, for which any man whose character is good may enter. It would be invidious, as well as subversive of the oligarchical power and responsibility on which the discipline of a regiment is mainly based, were the discretionary power to promote, within certain defined limits, to be withheld from its commanding officer. Yet some modification of the plan in vogue in the Guards would be productive of the happiest results, both as a stimulus to men to qualify for proving themselves deserving of promotion through the medium of an examination, and also in the way of keeping down the monopoly of arbitrary recommendation vested in subordinate officers.
But supposing that a man wears the stripes after having legitimately earned them, he is not always the most enviable of soldiers. There is a period of probation for him, in which he only enjoys "lance" rank. While he is in this position he does full non-commissioned officer's duty, but receives not a fraction of additional pay. He incurs many necessary expenses, which he has to defray out of private's pay if he be a "lance" corporal, and out of corporal's pay if he be a "lance" sergeant. In the latter case he is really to be pitied, for he has to join the sergeants' mess, and when he has paid his contribution to it he is poorer than the poorest private. The patriarch served a long time for his wife, but then Laban was a rogue; the British nation has surely no wish to be included in the same category, and might well give "lance" non-commissioned officers something at least to cover their expenses out of pocket.
Again, it is puzzling to know on what grounds a man who is made sergeant is compelled to renounce his good-conduct pay. While he is corporal he wears the rings and draws the pence; the moment the third stripe goes on his arm he forfeits both. Thus the soldier who, after long years of faithful service in the ranks, obtains tardy promotion, is put on a level with the jackanapes who puts his foot on the ladder of promotion the moment he has done with recruit's drill.
There is yet another anomaly to be noticed in connection with the non-commissioned officers of the British army. The navvy who has been pushed into a foreman's place, if he does not like it, may resign, and take up the spade and pickaxe again without necessarily blemishing his character. I believe there is a rule against a bishop giving up his diocese, and going back to his quiet country rectory again, should he wish to do so; and the sergeant is like the bishop. The soldier who is once made a non-commissioned officer cannot resign the stripes at his mere will, and go back into the ranks. The sense of responsibility may be burdensome to him; he may feel overweighted by the duties of his new sphere; but it is not permitted to him to obtain relief by the simple process of going back whence he sprung. He is bound to his rank indissolubly, unless he chooses to get rid of it through the sentence of a court-martial. He is compelled to commit himself, and be formally reduced by court-martial, before he can escape from a position which he may feel a false one. Now a court-martial, even if it entails no further punishment than the loss of the stripes, is always a blot on a man, and it destroys his chance of obtaining a medal for meritorious conduct. Surely it is a mistake to foree a man to be guilty of an offence before he can resign a position which he may find on trial to be distasteful, or for which he may feel himself unsuited.
No allusion is made here to the remote chance which exists of the non-commissioned officer obtaining a commission. So long as the purchase system remains in force, the boon is one of a very problematical nature. The young soldier who mounts the ladder rapidly, and obtains a commission while yet in his heyday, owes his promotion, at least in peace time, almost invariably to the exertions of influential friends; and the influence which has availed to push him forward thus far is, for the most part, available still further in the shape of a suitable allowance, and the wherewithal to purchase higher grades. For him who obtains a commission as the reward of a lengthened period of non-commissioned service, the step in rank, putting him as it does in a false position, is too often the very opposite of a boon. From being, as the principal non-commissioned officer of his regiment, respected and self-respecting,—the cock, so to speak, of the regimental dunghill,—he becomes, if he would retain his integrity, a sour, pinched, poverty-bitten cornet or ensign, without the hope of rising higher save by a lucky death vacancy. If he is more accommodating to circumstances, he becomes the hungry jackal, and too often the butt of the young swells of the mess-room, willing to submit to be jeered at,—made a contemptuous convenience of for the sake of certain crumbs which fall from the table of the opulent young sprigs of quality. Many a time, doubtless, especially if he be a married man, does he wish himself out of his incongruous position, back into his sergeant-major's jacket again. Then he was somebody. Now he is nobody.
"4, When sick, he has good medical advice, with every comfort."
On this point there is room for considerable divergence of opinion. That within the last ten years there has been a marked amelioration in the sanitary arrangements, and in the nursing and diet departments of military hospitals, is happily beyond question. But it is matter for grave doubt whether the skill of the rank and file of the army medical officers has improved in the due ratio corresponding to the advance of medical science in the civilian world. It may be well to write plainly on this matter. A private soldier is hardly in a position to generalise on such a topic as this; and I shall feel surer of my ground if I write solely of what has come under my own personal observation. So far then as this extends during a lengthened period of service, my experience of army surgeons prompts me to divide them into four classes. First, able but careless men. Secondly, plodding careful men, who are obsolete and incapable. Thirdly, incapables, who unite carelessness with incapacity. Fourthly, able men, who are likewise careful and earnest;—and this last class form a minority as compared with any of the others. Perhaps the simplest way to illustrate the several peculiarities of these various classes is to detail a case or two of which I am personally cognizant, and in corroboration of which I can adduce proof.
A man went one morning to a regimental hospital complaining of stricture of the urethra. The surgeon in charge admitted him. This gentleman was a proved able medical man, but he seldom spent more than twenty minutes per day in the hospital. His hobby was to hunt every day of the week with a stud consisting of two screws, and he used to run into the hospital in the morning in full hunting costume, and bustle round the wards in a hurry to get to the cover side in time. He took no steps to discover the seat of this patient's disease by means of instruments, prescribed tinct. ferri sesquichlor., and in a fortnight discharged him to his duty. The man was no better. He stuck to his work for some time, but was compelled through increasing distress again to resort to the hospital. This time the assistant surgeon of the regiment was in charge, an example of Class 4. He used instruments to advantage, and the man was on the high road to cure, when the officer went on a month's leave. A substitute then entered on the scene, a specimen of Class 8, both incapable and careless. He stigmatised the soldier as a malingerer, and peremptorily discharged him from hospital. The poor fellow returned to his duty and went on a long march to another station, but, utterly unable to continue a soldier, had to seek the hospital a third time. He was now becoming a nuisance, so without any pretence at curative efforts his name was put down on the invaliding list; and until the board should sit he was allowed to vegetate in hospital without any treatment. In course of time he went up before the invaliding board, a farce of investigating his condition was enacted, and his discharge papers were signed. In his hearing one of the three wiseacres composing the board remarked that his case was hopeless, and that he would not survive many months; while another contended that a cure was practicable through the media of caustic-tipped instruments, and quiescent recumbency for months;—a method exploded forty years ago. The discharged man came straight to a London hospital. A simple operation cured him radically in a fortnight, and he was discharged as well as ever he was in his life, with an offer on the part of the civilian surgeon to pay his expenses to visit his late regiment in order that he might exhibit himself to the gentlemen who had invalided him.
A young roughrider sprained his ankle jumping from a horse, and was carried to hospital. The swelling was great, and the surgeon who attended him,—an example of Class 2,—shook his head and waited for it to subside. Day after day, week after week, did he come and gaze helplessly on the "luxation," till at length the young fellow, who was sick of inaction, applied for a "sick furlough," and went to a civilian infirmary. The distinguished surgeons there told him they could do nothing for him. It was, he was informed, but a simple dislocation, but the socket of the joint had filled up with cartilage, and he was hopelessly lame for life. The once smart young roughrider is now a limping potboy at a Hoxton public-house.
A man went into hospital with an eruption on the head and face. For months he remained undergoing a variety of treatments, changed on an average once a week. He got no better, but rather worse. At last, in despair, he adopted a unique course. He wrote to London for a certain little book, the production of a surgeon to a West End skin-disease infirmary, which advocates the exhibition of arsenic in almost all disorders of this type. This tome he bluntly presented to the military surgeon, who took it with wonderfully good grace. Next morning the man was on liquor pot. arsenitis, and in three months he was cured. An epidemic of skin disease broke out shortly after in the regiment, which was wholly cured by this medicine; and the enterprising private who sent his half-crown to the London bookseller was reckoned a public benefactor. But for years arsenic has been an acknowledged specific in certain classes of skin disorders, and surely an ignorance of the fact did not argue much for the endeavours of the army surgeon to keep abreast of the times.
The subject of pensions to men invalided while the term of their service is yet incomplete naturally occurs in this connection. These are both very small in amount, and the principle on which they are allocated seems faulty as well as ill-defined. The man whose case is mentioned above as discharged incurable from stricture received sixpence a day for six months, notwithstanding he had several years' good service, was to all appearance utterly incapacitated from earning a livelihood, and that the origin of his disorder was distinctly attributable to the horse exercise of a dragoon. The roughrider had, I believe, eightpence a day for three years. Such a case as the latter was surely deserving of a life-pension. The basis on which invaliding pensions are assigned is,—so far as I can understand it, reasoning from results, personal character, and length of service,—irrespective altogether of the nature of the origin of the disease under which the invalid is suffering. Surely this is an erroneous principle. The man whose disease is attributable to acts of his own,—as a large proportion, unfortunately, of the private soldier's are,—or which is the "act of God," to which he would have been equal!y liable in civilian life, ought not to have a claim to rank on equal terms with him whose incapacity accrues by reason of disease incurred "in and by the service;"—that is, having an origin distinctly traceable to military causes. Among the latter fall to be included not only injuries, such as kicks and falls from horses, hernia in the dragoon, and all accidents not the result of carelessness, but also angina pectoris traceable to the pressure of the knapsack, bronchial affections arising from exposure to night duties, and so on. The technical phrase, "in and by the service," ought to be the watchword of every invalid pension board, taking, of course, into consideration character and length of service. At present the two latter seem to be the governing influences, if, indeed, it can be said that any governing influence exists at all.
"5, After twelve years' service he can leave the army."
It is something irresistibly comic to find inserted in the midst of a list of the boons which make the lot of the private soldier such an enviable one, the quaint announcement that he is at liberty to forego them all, and throw up his profession in the prime of his life, as a sort of crowning advantage. Just as if one were to write a book recounting the delights of human existence, which should culminate in the words, "And the best of it is, there is no law against committing suicide." However, the veracity of the assertion is unquestionable. The mischief is, the "can" cuts two ways. The soldier may, indeed, of his free will terminate his engagement at the expiry of twelve years; but then, too, the army authorities can terminate it for him against his will. He may have spent and been spent in the service till his twelfth year is up, and then, because he is unfit for further service, he may be turned adrift without so much as thanks. If he be medically unfit at the expiry of twelve years, he goes away without the temporary pension he would have been entitled to had he become so in the third or fourth year of his service. Nay, there is frequently much ingenuity manifested in keeping a "done" man hanging on till his full time is up, rather than invalid him in his tenth or eleventh year with a temporary pension. The economy is ludicrously fallacious, for it is obvious that an inefficient drawing full pay in the service costs the country more than the value of his pension; but the plan keeps down the pension-roll, and is habitually in use. Surely, if a man is willing to "take on" again for a second term at the expiry of his first, and is debarred from doing so by medical unfitness, provided that unfitness results "in and by the service," he should be held to be entitled to something more than an empty congé.
"6. After the first eight years' service, should he feel inclined, he may give notice of his wish to remain twenty-one years as a soldier, and if permitted by his commanding officer to enter into such further engagement, he will from that date receive an additional penny a day."
Whoever invented this device knew the private soldier to the backbone. He is not prone to re-inlist on the expiry of his twelve years, if we wait till then before we ask him. He wants to go and see the world outside the barracks, and, knowing that to-morrow he will be free to do so, the blandishments of the colonel and adjutant fall unheeded on his ear. But get at him with good arguments while he has yet four years to serve. Perhaps he is on short pay, and the additional penny proffered is a strong temptation. Essentially the reverse of a prospective man, he argues thus:—"I may be dead before my four years are up, or a thousand things may happen. Four years are a long look forward, and this present penny is a tangible consideration." So he clenches the bargain. There is intense acuteness in the device, but it is quite legitimate; and the Horse Guards are to be congratulated on the marked success which has crowned their astuteness.
"7, After the soldier has completed twenty-one years' service, he is discharged with a pension for life."
Under this head falls to be noticed an incidental hardship which is creating much discontent in cavalry regiments. Prior to a warrant issued on, I think, the 1st of June, 1866, the cavalry soldier's full term of service was twenty-four years, in two equal portions of twelve years. At that date the second period was shortened to nine years, making the complement twenty-one years; and all cavalry soldiers whose first term of service was then unexpired were at liberty to re-engage for the shorter period. The warrant was only prospective, and had no retrospective effect. Now, let us assume that two men, Bill Bridoon and Jack Martingale, enlisted in the month of May, 1851. Honest Bridoon soldiers along steadily, never loses a day, and completes his period of service in the month of May, 1868. He has taken on again on the old Act, and,—untouched by the operation of the new warrant,—has to complete a second period of twelve years, which will end in May, 1875. Martingale, again, is a bad lot,—deserts and is recaptured, spends months in jail, and, in fine, has lost three years and one month's service ere his first term is completed. Thus,—having to make up the lost service,—it is not finished till the month of June, 1866, when the rascal is within the scope of the new warrant, triumphantly re-enlists for the shorter period of nine years, and becomes entitled to his pension with but twenty-one years' good service on the very day honest Bridoon can claim his, after his twenty-four years' uninterrupted good conduct. Suppose, again, my first term of service expired on the 31st day of May, 1866. If I re-engaged, I must have done so for twelve more years; whereas my chum, whose first term of service did not expire till one day later, might have reengaged for the shorter period of nine years, and thus would become entitled to his life-pension three years before me. In the former of these cases a positive premium is given on bad conduct; in the latter a hardship is certainly involved. Were the terms of the warrant alluded to amended so as to have at least a modified retrospective effect, the arrangement would be hailed as a great boon in all our cavalry regiments.
There is nothing to be said upon Articles 8 and 9. Article 10 is chiefly recapitulatory, and demands little comment, although there might be a difference of opinion as to the nature of the "subsistence" derivable from one shilling and a penny per day, which is the maximum pension of the private soldier.
In the concluding remarks of the circular, "No labouring man, and very few workmen, can feel sure of greater advantages than those now held out to the good soldier, especially as regards the three important items of lodgings, food, and clothing," would lie the pith of the whole question, providing the soldier and "the labouring man and workman" were on an even keel. But are they? I put out of view in the comparison the off-chance which the soldier risks of being made a live target of. The civilian is indeed amenable to the vicissitudes of trade, and may be hard put to it when times are bad; but then he is open to all the advantages of the rebound. He can marry when he pleases, and have a home of his own, "wi' a' his bairns aboot him," as the Scotch song says. When he has earned his wages, he has no centurion perpetually saying to him, "Do this," so that he must do it. He may rise beyond the sphere he was born to; he may shift his quarters at discretion; he may emigrate if he sees a chance; he is essentially a free Briton;—and if he comes to the worst, he can still enlist. It is engrafted into the very core of the soldier's life that he shall not be for one moment a free agent. His bread may be certain and his cup secure; but they have not the sweet flavour imparted by a man's working for his own hand. Let optimists and Utopians say what they will, the private soldier, except when the joy-bells are ringing for victory, is still a social pariah in the homes of merry England. I have tried it and know it. The red-jacket, with a spark of sensitiveness, feels bitterly every day the truth of what I write. Your citizen will throw him a glass of ale, and put a few half-pitying, half-contemptuous questions to him while he drinks it; but will he dream of taking him into the bosom of his family? To be just, the fault may lie at the soldier's door; but the fact stands, and ought to go in the scale when a balance is being taken. Then, where is the soldier's privacy? Were I not on furlough now, under what circumstances should I be writing this article,—if, indeed, the undertaking were a practicable one at all? A fellow might be howling a "blue" song at my ear; a couple might be engaged in a lively wrestling match in my immediate rear; while another man would probably be cleaning a pair of spurs on the common form, and the jar would not conduce to an improvement in my caligraphy. Talk of the soldier's "home!" If he is single, it is Bedlam; if he is married, it is hell. But I put the latter hypothesis out of view altogether. The man who marries in the service, as the arrangements for married couples are now constituted, insults manhood and outrages womanhood. The comparison between the life of the soldier and that of the civilian must not be wholly based on a pounds-shillings-and-pence estimate, or even on the "three important items of lodgings, food, and clothing."