stantly kept in view. In the interest of army reform, we protest against such men as the writer of "Army Misrule" being considered its representatives. We would reject them from our counsels as strenuously as we would reject the mere horse-guards clerk and the inveterate red-tapist. Men like the writer of these whining letters are our worst enemies. They are themselves exceptional cases; and, to listen to them, is to be unjust to the majority; a majority which is composed of men who, though unable to expound their griefs, would, we sincerely hope, scoff at the false sentiment which considers as such, the having to salute their officers, and roll grass-plots, and such like twaddle, vamped up by this "Common Soldier." Men of this bad kind are indeed increasing in the ranks of the army. There are not wanting those who attribute this increase to the defective system of army education. We should be unwilling to believe it is as injurious as is sometimes represented; but it is impossible to resist the conclusion, that a system which takes men from the plough and the loom, and neglects to preserve the really valuable acquaintance with some trade or handicraft which they often possess, or to supply it where they have it not, but confines its efforts to imparting intellectual acquirement, much of which is utterly beside the mark, has something seriously defective in it. Our "Common Soldier" wants more "refinement" in the army; and says, perhaps truly, that the present system of education is calculated to impart what he means by that word. But the question for the nation to answer is, can we afford more of so expensive a luxury as our author means (and too many agree with him) when he asks for "refinement"? True refinement is compatible with any honest position, and any honest occupation. But is the "refinement" worth much which considers rolling a cricket-ground, or even cleaning a midden, a "horror"? Is it not worth a great deal to get rid of it? Can those to whom it is imparted themselves support the expense of it? We say, that if the present system of army education does tend to produce this sort of refinement, and to arm a crop of discontented scribblers with means for displaying their capacity

for alarming fustian, army schools ought to be the first mark for the arrows of the really honest reformer.

Earnest, zealous efforts to raise the army may very easily be misdirected. Contemplate the British soldier, able to work equations, familiar with the situation and productions of remote cities, and the characters of all the Kings of England, and, moreover, a sufficiently fluent writer to be up to a smart letter in the papers when he is angry; and at the same time perfectly unable to take the most ordinary care of himself-quite above manual labour, and probably almost incapacitated for it; so that, whenever he finds himself away from his ordinary aids and dry-nurses, his kitchens, bazars, hospitals, and their officers, he is a perfect baby, and will, in all probability, perish from sheer ignorance. Army Misrule" will at least show that tyranny in the army, as popularly understood, is reduced to a minimum. Humanitarianism is in the ascendant, and a dangerous reaction has set in against the brutal discipline of former times. Cruelty still exists. It always will exist, in one form or other, let optimists say what they may; it is inherent in any exercise of power by human beings. But it is now scarcely possible in the army, by its commissioned officers. Martinets are dwindling into brighteners of buttons. Their claws are clipped, perhaps too closely. Part of their once formidable power has been taken from them by those above, part deputed to those below, them. Colonels of regiments, whose powers and responsibilities should be commensurate, and who should therefore be selected with the greatest care, quite irrespective of traditions of seniority, now find themselves mere clerks for carrying out a gigantic system of regulations, which almost entirely supersedes the functions of their will, and renders useless the influence of their character. Restricted here, checked there, and bothered everywhere, by multitudes of, perhaps, inapplicable rules, they find their duty chiefly to consist in signing innumerable official letters and returns. A real military genius, with the rare and inestimable gift of knowledge of men, and the power to turn them as a helmsman, is undistinguishable from

the poor pipeclay dummy, who, with his pockets stuffed with papers, and his head with codes, is for ever blundering, with the best intentions, and acting with unconscious but tyrannous cruelty, strictly in accordance with the books. The consequence is inevitable-officers cease to take that close personal interest in their men which is the back-bone of discipline. The petty officers exercise the power, and exercise it badly. It is not difficult for Sir Hugh Rose to say that officers must and ought to be intimately acquainted with all that is passing among their men. They ought. But they never will, till they have. both the power and the responsibility of which the multiplication of rules has deprived them. Some will tyrannise. But will their tyranny be so bad as that which now results, on the one hand from the petty persecution of petty officers, and on the other from the unconsidering and mechanical working of an over-grown system,-in a word, from the giant demon of the modern history of England-Centralisation. This is the secret of that deluge of rules which have crushed individuality, destroyed responsibility, and substituted a dead system for living men. This has lessened the interest taken by officers in their soldiers, and this, therefore, is to blame for the deputing power in a regiment to the hands of petty officers, whose position enables them to exercise it in the most irritating manner, while it affords them frequent personal reasons for exercising it badly. Officers

from a most thoughtful writer* which army - system - makers, horse-guards officials, and all centralisers, should seriously lay to heart :-"Mischief begins (in governing) when, instead of calling forth the activities and powers of individuals and bodies, it substitutes its own activity for theirs; when, instead of informing, advising, and, upon occasion, denouncing, it makes them work in fetters, or bids them stand aside, and does their work instead of them. The worth of a state (or an army), in the long run, is the worth of the individuals composing it; and a state which postpones the interests of their mental expansion and elevation to a little more administrative skill, or that semblance of it which practice gives in the details of business—a state which dwarfs its men in order that they may be more docile instruments in its hands, even for beneficial purposes, will find that with small men no great thing can be really accomplished, and that the perfection of machinery to which it has sacrificed everything will, in the end, avail it nothing, for want of the vital power which, in order that the machine might work more smoothly, it has preferred to banish."

These pregnant sentences cannot be too deeply pondered, for they go to the root of one of the most prolific sources of army misrule.

THE POET'S LIFE.

The art of discipline is more difficult, and more essential, than the art of drill. Centralisation trusts nobody; and under its influence nobody grows. Every regiment, especially in this country, should be at once both a colony and an army. Self-contained, self-governed, self-respected; answerable to the higher authorities for the complete performance of certain duties, but interfered with, in internal economy, as little as possible. Considerable varieties should be cheerfully allowed, regimental as well as individual idiosyncrasy sanctioned, and the various powers of men drawn out, and given elbow-room, unfettered by centralising regulations. We cannot help quoting in this place a passage

YEAR," 1859-60.]

The gentle teaching of some child,
The kindly answer given,
May lead the wayward, human heart,
And light its path to Heaven.

May scatter blessings, raise the sick
From off the couch of pain,
And dry the mourner's bitter tear
With some familiar strain.

For many a simple, casual word,
With hope the heart may fill-
The murmur of a brawling brook,
The ripple of a rill.

The Psalm of Life of happy hearts,
The carol of a bird-

From each some sacred truth we learn,
In each some truth is heard.

Scorn not such humble teaching,
To thee in mercy given;
The songs we sing on earth below
May oft ascend to Heaven,

To mingle with the songs of those
Who sing by day and night;
To join the sweet delicious notes,
Of Angels pure and bright.

[Nine years ago I made the following note, but have never found out its author; and I conclude that the impression it made on my mind has given birth to the poem :

"The elements of music are in everything around us; they are found in every part of creation in the chirpings of the feathered choristers of nature; in the voices or calls of various animals; in the melancholy sound of the waterfall, or the wild roar of the waves; in the hum of the distant multitudes, or the concussion of various bodies; in the winds; alike when the dying cadence falls lightly on the ear as it agitates the trees of the forest, as when the hurricane sweeps around. these contain the rudiments of harmony, and may be easily supposed to have furnished the minds of intelligent creatures with such ideas as time, and the accumulated observation of succeeding ages, could not fail to improve into a system."]

A LOST LOVE.

A PROSE AND POETIC IDYLL.

[By the Author of "JUST SAVED," &c.]

"Eheu! fugaces, Posthume, Posthume,
Labuntur anni; nec pietas morum--
Rugis et instanti senectæ
Afferet, indomitaque morti."

HORACE.

All

We live in ideas, and for ever dwell on the circumstances and accidents of life-albeit they are sometimes of a painful character. Converse with men,

and you may judge of their natures by by their narrations. "Like can only be known by like," says Emerson, the American thinker, and there is much truth in the saying. "Animated chlorine knows of chlorine, and incarnate zinc of zinc." A man is known by his conversation. The Frenchman will tell you of his liasons, and his amours, of his chere amie, the little bright-eyed grisette, for whom he cultivated his moustache and trimmed his imperial in vain, and who jilted him for a per

66

fidious Englishman" a gross John

Bull. Our German cousins will recount the number of their duels, and expatiate on the colouring of their meerschaums, and withal have a word to say of the fraulein whose merry laugh and honest smile smoothed the rougher nature of the student. The soldier will talk of his battles; the sailor of the dangers of the deep; the scholar will dwell on his books; the poet on nature; the artist on art ;-and so on.

Each will have one subject uppermost in mind, according to the amount of interest he may have taken in it. Can a man speak to you of joy when his heart has newly felt the pangs of grief-or of sorrow when he has sipped deep of the cup of pleasure? dwell on those things that interest us most, or which exercise such a sway over us at the time as to shut out all else from our thoughts. Love at all times has a great influence over mankind. Corneille tells us :

We

the Angel Gabriel, desirous of testing this extraordinary skill, descended from heaven, and went to a village in Yunan. On arriving there, he saw some children playing about, of whom he inquired for the Elders of the village, saying he wished to put a question to them. The children at once asked what the question was. The angel at first refused to answer, but as they declared they would not give him any information till he satisfied their curiosity, he was obliged to comply with their wishes, and told them that the question he wished to put was-" Where is the Angel Gabriel ?" On hearing this, one of the children exclaimed-"Is it for such a question as this that you require the aid of the Elders? I can answer it myself." He then pondered a little, and said, "He is not in Heaven"; again, "He is on the Earth ;" and at last, turning to the disguised angel, he exclaimed, "Thou art he !"

Yunan was subsequently submerged; and whoever sails over it now, becomes imbued with a portion of the learning of the old inhabitants. Hence the skill and science of the English"!

AFLATUN, OR PLATO,

WAS, according to the orientals, a great magician. There is a legend about him, to the effect that Allah once ordered the Angel of Death to take away his life. This came to Aflatun's ears, and he accordingly made numerous images of himself, so like, that the -so like, that the angel, on his arrival, was at a loss to know which was the real Simon Pure, and so had to return to heaven, leaving the object of his mission unperformed!

THE UNEQUAL DISTRIBUTION OF
WEALTH PROPER.

IN the time of Moses, the people went to him, and begged him to pray of God that all might be rich. Moses consented, and preferred their request to God. The Creator replied, that it was best as He had made it; but, at the urgent prayers of Moses, consented to make all men wealthy.

That night Moses' house was burnt down, and he went to the bazar to get some masons and coolies to assist him in building it up again; but none would

come, as all were rich. In great distress, he turned to God, and represented his case to Him. To this, God answered-"Thou seest now, vain man, the presumption and folly of thy prayers.Nevertheless, for thy sake, I will restore the former state"-i. e., of unequal distribution of wealth.

PROVERB.

GOD has not made the five fingers alike, neither has he made all men alike.

HOW DO LADIES PASS THEIR
TIME IN INDIA?

A SOCIAL QUESTION.
By NADAR.

As I sit scribbling away official letters at my desk from 10 A. M. till 4 P. M., (I am one of Government's cheap bargains, you must know,) I often, when tired, lay down the pen, and ask myself the question, How on earth do Ladies manage to pass the day in India?—and I am invariably at a loss to conjecture what they do. And yet I ought to know, for I do occasionally peacock,it is true, never in the butterfly style, dressed in a black coat, hat, and immaculate neck-tie, with a buggy and highstepping horse, in which to rush over Camp, and taste the sweets of ladies' society in every direction. No, I am a sober, prosy bachelor, who, when he does make calls, and mine are chiefly confined to the ladies of my regiment,does it in a quiet style dressed in a red shell jacket and sword, with a battered shigram for a conveyance. I, however, remark one thing: I may call at eleven; I may call at twelve, one, two, or even three o'clock, on the collector's wife, at my commanding officer's, on the Padre's mem-sahib,-it is all the same, there sits the Indian lady on the sofa, or in an easy arm chair, doing nothing, and ever ready to join in an insipid conversation. Doing nothing, say I? Well, I am wrong. Good nature makes me believe she is absorbed in contemplation! Oh you dirty, grimy generation of sadhoos, gooroos, and ghosains! - You think you know how to contemplate, and thereby commune with Vishnu, &c.,