truth about the bands has disappeared, but the method by which they have to be paid for occupies the identical place it always did. Our reformers omit the reason for the necessity of a band as inconvenient to their argument, but retain the clause which orders the officers to pay for it.

An attempt, which has failed, was recently made to order officers to appear in uniform in all places; and many officers would have been pleased enough to comply, were it not for the increased expense. Their present uniform is far more costly, and requires more frequent renewal, than do "plain clothes," to say nothing of its discomfort. And yet the order was put forth with much flourish as another aid to the officer living upon his pay.

This question of dress in the Army is one that cries aloud for reform. We have seen what a multiplicity of costumes the officer has to carry about, with the variations of riding apparel, and much extra lace for extra occasions; and yet no sooner is he ordered abroad to Egypt or Zululand, to do what he is paid for, than he must leave the whole paraphernalia behind him, and purchase an entirely new "kit," to find the things he has left behind him on his return moth-eaten or out of date. Surely it is common-sense to dress our officers in a working-dress, and not parade them before "blank - cartridge" in scarlet and gold lace.

And indeed, the absurdity of this constant parading in fine clothes has struck somebody at last, for Lord Hartington told us, in his speech introducing the Army estimates, that a Committee had reported on the advantage of giving officers a working-dress of serge dyed mud-colour, as worn in India, and that our soldiers, already nearly invisible, will become entirely

so. Here again reform is red-hot. It was granted that soldiers needed a working-dress; and so off trots a Committee of War Office spectacles to Plumstead Marshes to have a dozen squares of coloured cloth waved before them, and the thing is done: mud-colour wins the day, and the Committee return to Pall Mall to receive the congratulations of their friends, and to publish just one more circular.

Napoleon once expressed an opinion that in war the moral is to the physical as is three to one. But War Office Committees think their own concentrated: wisdom as good or better than his; and so, in place of the "thin red line which, before it had been reformed away, did at least stand up and show the enemy that it meant fighting, our soldiers are to sneak upon the foe like rabbits through a furze - bush. Will it be much wonder if, when they have imitated its habits successfully so far, they continue to follow the inclinations of the timid animal?

Officers have been before now caught by suchlike plausible statements, and fear greatly that the proposed "working-dress" will be but just one more suit of military millinery added to their wardrobes, with the inevitable tailor's bill six months afterwards. And when once fixed on, cannot the dress be left alone. The continual changes which are made in our officers' uniforms are a serious drain on their purses, and do not assist the professional ones to live on their pay. Within the last two years they have had to find the money for two sweeping changes: the reconstruction of their regimental finery into that of the "territorial battalion ; and the "fad" of sticking a man's rank on his shoulder instead of on his collar.

Among other illegitimate measures which our reformers have in

troduced to insure a legitimate flow of promotion is one which must end in destroying the edifice it was meant to construct. This is the clause limiting the age up to which officers can continue to serve. Every officer now joining knows that he has a certain number of years to put in: those past, and he must go, and the profession he has adopted will be his no more. His pension will be the same whether he has done well or ill. Worse than all, if he has been lucky in his promotion, and as a young man obtains the command of his regiment, he must quit it for good after four years at the utmost.

What professional man would serve on such terms? Where is the incentive to master the details of a profession when, just as by experience and incessant application he has got it by heart, he knows that he must be turned adrift? his own years do it for him; every birthday is a fresh nail in his coffin; circumstances over which he has no control tell him to go, and he obeys, and withdraws to the town in which he knows the greatest number of friends or relations, and endeavours to eke out a scanty retiring pension by becoming the agent for the sale of bottled beer, and being a terror to his friends and acquaintances in consequence.

And if the younger men feel this, the older ones feel it a great deal more. They feel that they are not wanted; that they are out of place in the new régime-they have been told so in so many words; the sooner they get out of it and take their pensions the better. It is not a wise way to educate the rising generation, to see the men who have already climbed the tree they too are climbing, pushed off the topmost branches, and told to think themselves lucky if they "fall soft" and only break a leg or two.

argument, that our army has done what was required of it and become professional; and we have shown. how officers are being assisted in their endeavours to fall in with our reformers' wishes; and we trust the argument will bear fruit.

For, in truth, talk as we may, we have not got a professional army; nor are we one jot nearer that end than we were a dozen years ago. What we have got, to leave the men out of the question, is a body of young officers, educated up to the same level as they always have been: they enter the "service," and begin to run the gauntlet of innumerable examinations; they must get through them, they know, or their promotion will be stopped, and they do get through them, somehow or anyhow, certainly not in the way those who instituted them had anticipated, and they emerge from the ordeal with a smattering of many military subjects; but in the name of all that practical education has taught us in this nineteenth century, how much better is the boy who, on a sudden, is called upon to make a bit of a fort to cover his men, and who remembers that the garrison-instructor told him that the "superior slope" should be 1 over 6, or that the width of a "banquette" was 4 feet 6 inches, than another who under the same circumstances builds his fort according to his own common-sense?

Educate our officers by all means, but don't try to make them "Jacks of all trades and masters of none." A system such as our reformers have given us is seen through by the people experimented on, and is apt to beget a feeling which finds vent in the expression "don't care." Now "don't care is a fatal disease,-one which will destroy any constitution, unless taken in hand

Our reformers will point to Telel-Kebir for the proof of their pudding-a victory admitted on all sides, and by Lord Wolseley himself, to have been due to the gallant way in which the officers led the men. But he went out of his way when he sang the praises of the system of which he is the part proprietor, putting down the victory to the ability for fighting displayed by "short service." We have since learnt that the men who stormed the parapets of Telel-Kebir averaged something like twenty-five years in age, and had over four years' service. The mention of this fact brings us to the end of our paper.

We have given our opinion about Mr Cardwell and Mr Childers but in fairness to those officials we cannot let all the measure of our censure rest on their shoulders. They took up a complicated machine of which they were entirely ignorant, and did with it what seemed to their unprofessional minds the best both for it and for the people who had need of it. As was natural, they had to rely very much on those about them, and were soon surrounded by clever men, who, being dressed as soldiers, would know something about their own trade and have its interests at heart. And it is on the shoulders of these professional advisers that the blame rests. What War Minister would have pursued his theoretical reforms unless he had been backed up by the people he was reforming? What War Minister would think himself out of the right track when such a practical soldier as Lord Wolseley was at his side, content to fall in with all the pet schemes of his civilian friend, and to stamp each reform with approval, while keeping his own opinions in the background? Ask any soldier outside Pall Mall, and he will tell you that the

man he blames for all this disintegration which has come over our army is the soldier Lord Wolseley. Lord Wolseley not long ago took occasion to disclaim the imputation which had fastened on him that he was a political soldier, who owed his success in life to his Liberal tendencies; but the public have got rather tired of its "only general's disavowals of late, and put up this last one with the rest, in which they believed not.

No one denies Lord Wolseley's talents as a soldier; while every one is sorry to see that so much genius is not content to follow that straight path which is the aim of every true soldier, but is pleased to branch off into the devious short-cuts which political bias offers in its haste to gain the goal. Lord Wolseley has gained the goal, and speedily; but at the price of those feelings of love and devotion which soldiers hold towards their successful Generals. A letter from a Highland soldier which was published lately puts the matter in words so unmistakable, that a few of them are worth taking to heart. He says, "After all the fuss that was made about the war in Egypt, it makes our blood run cold to read of the treatment of the sick and wounded. There was no such mismanagement in the Cabul-Candahar campaign; everything was perfect, because the General had the confidence of every officer and man. The whole of us would lay down our lives willingly for Sir F. Roberts, because we know how unselfish he is."

When a plain "common soldier" writes like that of Lord Wolseley, it will be a bigger feather in his cap than is Tel-el-Kebir, and will make victory a much greater certainty in his next war, than will any number of reforms fired up to red-heat to please the fancy of his political admirers.

DR WILKINS had not a large practice, for the health of the youthful foreign community was extraordinarily good; but the few patients he had could boast that they were well taken care of, and received numerous and regular visits from their medical adviser. Since Jervis had been taken ill, the Doctor had seen him at least once a day.

On the day after the M'Bean banquet, where the elder Ashbourne had told the story of Hellington, Dr Wilkins paid his usual visit to Jervis about ten o'clock in the morning. After inquiring about his patient's health, he lighted a cheroot, asked for a glass of brandy-and-soda, stretched himself comfortably in one of the bamboo chairs on the cool verandah, and said with a yawn

"Well, I have done my day's work. A climate like that of this blessed country does not exist elsewhere! Nobody will be sick here. They should send life insurance agents here; physicians have nothing to do.

We were at M'Bean's

until nearly three o'clock, and on coming out early this morning I met the two Ashbournes with Gilmore, coming back from a long ride, and looking as bright and fresh as if they had had their regular seven hours' sleep."

66

Ah, until three o'clock at M'Bean's! Who won most?" "We didn't gamble."

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sitting in a bamboo chair a little behind the Doctor, so that Wilkins could only see his face by turning round.

He waited a few seconds as if he expected an invitation to repeat the Hibernian tale, but when Jervis kept silence, the talkative Doctor began of his own accord. He did not, it is true, give the story in detail like Ashbourne, but he did not, on the other hand, ›mit a single essential circumstance. Jervis did not interrupt him, and the Doctor was agreeably surprised at the patient attention of his listener.

"So you say Ashbourne kaew that man personally?" inquired Jervis in a low voice, when the doctor had ended.

"Knew him? As well as I know you; had seen him hundreds of times," replied Wilkins, turning round to look into Jervis's face.

"Hallo!" he continued, rising, "what's the matter with you?”

"Nothing at all.”

But Wilkins was determined to fulfil his duties as medical adviser, and the answer of his patient did not satisfy him. So he rose, felt Jervis's pulse and forehead, ordered him a sedative powder, and only went away when the patient expressed a wish to be left alone that he might lie down.

"Lie in this hammock," said Wilkins. "It is cool and fresh

before dinner."

When Wilkins had gone, Jervis remained motionless for a long time, his usually restless eyes

fixed upon the ground before him. Then he rose, wiped away the perspiration that was moistening his forehead, and with slow and unsteady step entered his room. There he was found by Wilkins when the latter returned towards six o'clock. Jervis now had to undergo another careful examination, and that over, Wilkins said he would send him a few powders, of which he was to take two at once, two before going to bed and two in the morning. He repeated his advice several times as if it were of great importance, to which Jervis only replied seriously and thoughtfully-" All right, Doctor; all right."

The powders were brought; but Jervis did not take them. He sat down to dinner about seven o'clock, but hardly tasted the food that was placed before him, and retired early to his room, where he remained alone. When the servant brought the lamp he ordered it to be taken away again, telling the man to keep the parlour dark, as the mosquitoes had been very troublesome of late.

Ashbourne's rooms were brightly lighted, and Jervis could distinctly see everything that was going on there. He seemed to take a great interest in this, for he had got out his opera glass, and did not remove his eyes from the house. The two brothers remained alone talking together until nearly nine o'clock, when Thomas sat down at his desk to write, while Daniel, taking his hat and followed by a servant, left the house.

"Daniel Ashbourne," he said, "is a bright cheerful fellow, and for hours and hours he entertained the company with stories from Ireland."

"And what did Thomas Ashbourne say," asked Jervis, "if another talked for such a long time?"

"Thomas had to work for his newspaper, and Dan came alone. We were all very glad to see him, and I am sure you will like him. He is anxious to make your acquaintance, for he is a thoroughbred Irishman, and would like to see the best horseman in the settle

ment. If it suits you, I will bring him with me to-morrow morning and introduce him."

Well, just as you like," replied the Doctor, adding, after a short pause "If you care to take a little walk this evening, I would be glad to call for you: I have promised Ashbourne to initiate him into the mysteries of the Yankiro. We have an appointment at nine o'clock, and as we pass your house I will call out for you."

"No, thanks, Doctor; not tonight."

When Wilkins was gone, Jervis walked up and down the verandah for a long time in deep thought. One of his servants came with a message that had been left for him; but the man was frightened at the wild expression of his master's face, and withdrew without speaking to him.

About half an hour later Jervis called his porter and sent him to Yedo to make some purchases. The servant replied that it was very late, and that he could not possibly return the same night. Jervis said it was of no consequence; he