our fleets at Spithead and other places, at hearing that an invading force, known to have been long assembling, was at last at sea, with its exact whereabouts clearly indicated to them? And what would be the account given of it long before it reached our shores? Why, there are men who think, and who think justly, that the Russian navy might have attacked the allied expedition on its way from Varna. If they had a chance then, as was certainly the case, where can our risk be? We should certainly decide upon the amount of troops our population of thirty millions ought to put at the disposal of the Government; but before we can take that desirable step, we must first clearly ascertain for what purposes those troops are intended. If we have any notion, in case of another war, of invading Russia or any other continental power single-handed, our military establishments must indeed be placed on a footing very different from what they have ever been. There is an old saying, that a man should cut his coat according to his cloth. We must lay down the probable work of our army before we can say what strength it is to be, or what, in the shape of reserves, it will require.

We know that, in the late war, we were the only people able to go on if it had been required; and that fact ought to give us some encouragement under our other failures. It gives no inducement lightly to meddle with us, nor does it indicate grounds for any revolutionary policy in the constitution of our army. If we would maintain and improve the good feeling which has sprung up between the soldier and his countrymen, we must make our military establishments bear as lightly as may be on the shoulders of the tax-payer. A large army, or a permanent calling out of the militia, which would interfere with the industry of the country, and tend to disturb it in its usual arrangements, would never be endured patiently for any length of time. It is doing more harm than good to urge either the one or the other.

General Windham very properly remarks that the army, instead of being considered an excrescence, desirable to remove the moment the occasion for its employment is past, should be looked upon as part and parcel of the nation. To accomplish this he would put it in direct communication with the militia—in fact, make it spring from it. The army was in very intimate relation with the militia in the Peninsular war, and was mainly recruited from it; the result did not realize what General Windham seems to expect.

With regard to the proposal of "compulsory savings," no one much accustomed to soldiers would care to try it. It is no wonder that two such practical and experienced men as Lords Raglan and Hardinge refused to entertain it. This subject of savings out of the soldier's pay is at the best illusory. Take our best-paid soldiers-our artillerymen-the pay of the lowest class is sixteenpence-farthing a-day. Out of this his messing and washing cost him tenpence, and he has sixpence-farthing with which to keep up his kit of shirts, socks, brushes, and repairing boots and clothes. It may be presumed he smokes, or, that however good a man he may be, he sometimes treats a friend, male or female, or even takes a glass himself. If his tastes are not exclusively confined to the pot-house, he may desire now and then to

see the inside of a theatre, and perhaps to take his lady love with him. He is, in short, in one way or another like most other men, and fond of a little enjoyment. He likes a little play now and then, and does his work none the worse for it.

Where is the great margin, compulsory or otherwise, for any great amount of saving in this man's pay, the highest as it is in the British army? The infantry soldier gets but thirteen-pence a-day pay, and beer money. How he manages to do as much as he does on it, is one of those problems in political economy which has never been solved, any more than that of the Dorsetshire labourer with a large family, who lives on comparatively less. Compulsory savings on the present rate of the soldier's pay, would be condemning him to a life of entire denial of everything he considered enjoyment while serving, in order that some small sum, which would be soon dissipated in one huge debauch, might be handed to him at his discharge. There is something in the soldier's life which instinctively seems to give him an aversion to putting by, or thinking that any one else but the country will care for him in his old age if he ever reaches it. He is a thoughtless animal, let him therefore be paid in moderation, and let the feeling that he does his work, such as it often is, for moderate wages, tell in his favour for a liberal pension. If anything will rid him of his reckless habits it will be this feeling, that when he leaves the army, having served faithfully, he has something greatly beyond a mere pittance to look to.

Many of General Windham's premises are excellent, but they merge in general propositions with which they have nothing to do, and in which they are altogether lost. At the risk of making a long quotation, he says:

"For years the army has not been so popular. We often get the wildest and most unsteady young man for a recruit by bribing him at a pot-house, after which he is not only supplied with everything, and forced to pay for it, but is cared for in health and sickness, and if invalided through his own intemperance after a certain number of years' service, rather better treated than he would be otherwise. The only way by which he can show his prudence is by keeping clear of the defaulters' book, and deceiving his superiors; and I will appeal to any adjutant or sergeant-major in the service, if there be not many who exhibit great prudence on these points. A labourer has to calculate the cost of feeding and clothing his family, to think of wet days, rent, fuel, sickness, &c., and how to make both ends meet at the end of the week or year. A soldier, on the contrary, has but few of these things to think of; and as the canteen is handy, he never dreams of saving money, unless it be to purchase his discharge. The result is, he is improvident, because it is not his interest to be otherwise; but change his position, and rely on it he will change his views.

"Now to the point. How is this to be changed? I answer-1st, by a different system of recruiting; 2nd, by improved education; 3rd, by rewarding good conduct by transferring men from the ranks of the corps to situations of greater pay and emolument in others, and into civil situations, when possible, on their retirement."

The different system of recruiting is the mixed one of the ballot and the conscription. How, it is most respectfully asked, is this to make a man provident? Will a man who is compelled first to join the militia, and afterwards, by falling into the first reserve, to enrol himself in the regular army if required, be likely to be very provident, or to have a very high respect and consideration for a profession into which he is thus dragged? Will his temper and disposition as a soldier be much improved when he finds that out of his pittance of pay there is a compulsory penny or two-pence claimed every day, in order that if he was not born provident be may somehow be made so? General Windham is severe upon the existing prudence of the soldier such as it is, and he appeals to adjutants and sergeants-major to bear him out in what he says. Will he answer the appeal to himself, whether the instances he quotes of mean deception in the soldier's character are not rather less the rule than the exception-of very rare rather than of frequent occurrence? With regard to the second point of General Windham's proposal, no one will gainsay the advantages of education, and the absolute duty which attaches to affording the means of it to the soldier. It does not appear, however, how this part of the subject is to affect recruits or make them better than they are at present. The proposal to reward men of good conduct by transferring them from the ranks of one corps to situations of greater pay and emolument in others, is not the way in which many a good soldier would like to be rewarded. There are many men in the ranks who would think it no boon to part with their comrades, amongst whom they were known and respected, to be sent amongst strangers with a few pence additional pay. Bad or indifferent men will volunteer fast enough with the inducement of a bounty to leave their regiment, but good men will not do so under ordinary circumstances. If it were otherwise, what is to become of a regiment the good men of which are to be continually drafted into other corps? The cream of the service will be in the well-paid non-combatant corps ; the milk and the dregs will form the mass of it. Surely this is not the way to improve our army.

Speaking of voluntary enlistment, the General says it would not interfere with his scheme if the country preferred it, provided, as he adds, recruits could be obtained by it, which he doubts. For this reason he prefers the ballot. Personally he also dislikes large bounties, for, as he well observes, "they appeal to the worst passions of the worst men." It would be better, he says, to put the service on such a footing that men would enlist from a feeling that they were acting rationally. How would this be effected by means of the ballot? for surely the ballot is a species of compulsory enlistment, and it would be difficult to persuade a man who had drawn a lot which made him a soldier, whether he liked or not, that he was acting rationally.

General Windham very wisely abandons this part of the subject rather abruptly, and leaves it to the country to settle how it will raise the militia. He may rest assured that it will not be in the manner proposed. Once established, the militia is to be "well treated," and such a current of good feeling kept up between it and the line, as

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would ensure an ample supply of recruits without having recourse to bribing the frequenters of the lowest class of beer shops. What the expression well treated may mean with regard to the militia, it is not easy to define. It is a very vague term. What, moreover, is the necessity for the good feeling alluded to, if the militia must, whether or no, under certain circumstances, join the army when required? The whole scheme rests for support entirely on the ballot. General Windham would accept good men if they offered, but, if they did not, he would apply the screw and compel them.* The civil employments suggested for discharged soldiers is one that has often been made, and it would certainly be most desirable to carry it out as far as practicable. It should, however, be remembered that the soldier is from habit a gregarious animal, and lonely or sedentary employments are not quite suited to him. There is more indicated to avoid, rather than to adopt, in General Windham's letter. Most certainly increase of the soldier's pay within anything like reasonable limits would do no good. It would simply be adding to the profits of canteen keepers. If compulsory saving was tacked on to it, we may rest assured it would be of no use at all. It will require a total revolution in the constitution of our army, before raising men from the ranks, and giving them commissions, will be doing them a service. Many of the men thus promoted, especially into the Land Transport corps, have been treated with a gross breach of faith since, and altogether our conduct to foreigners in our military service, compared with that to our own countrymen, has not tended to make the latter feel that their merits have been appreciated. Nothing can be better than General Windham's remarks upon our so-called camps of instruction. The subject was treated in the October number of this Magazine, and the system we have entered upon is so generally condemned, that our authorities would probably relinquish it, if it was not that so much money has been spent already in carrying it out, that they perhaps consider it more dangerous to stop, than to go on. Almost word for word the General repeats what we have already said on this subject, and every remark he adds to it is of the most practical and sensible nature. But drill and housemaid displays suit the genius of our military institutions best, and we must needs be ruled accordingly. The youth, the zeal,; and activity, and, it may be added, the experience and strong sense of duty of the Commander-in-chief, are the best hope of change; but considering the material to be worked with, this is not to be so readily or easily effected. Time alone will develope it. Whatever is done should be well weighed and considered first and whatever the late war has taught us besides, it offers no criterion on the possibility of a similar one occurring, to induce us to consider it the standard by which we are, in our military arrangements, to be too closely regulated. J. W. F.

* Nothing is said about the navy: it was perhaps not necessary, and yet, if compulsion is to supply us with better soldiers than we have at present, the pressgang might on similar grounds be advocated for our navy. Are our soldiers under the present system as bad as they seem to be represented? Is their conduct in the field or in quarters so discreditable as to call aloud for some radical change?

PENSIONS OF NAVAL OFFICERS' WIDOWS.

IN the United Service Magazine of May, 1849, Tristram had the honour of addressing the gentlewomen of the British empire, for the benevolent purpose of soliciting their influence with their lords and masters in behalf of naval officers' widows, who, in comparison with their military sisters in bereavement, were thereto lamentably neglected in the scale of pensions, though granted by the country which their cherished husbands had faithfully served and bravely defended.

That address, like the cordial balm of Gilead, calmly worked its effectual cure of one of the grievances under which the widows of naval officers suffered from the reign of George II., when their pensions were first established by Order in Council.

This one grievance is explained by observing, that the subordinate officers of the navy, except assistant-surgeons who were warrant officers, did not hold commissions till subsequent to 1840-since which, mates, second masters, and assistant-paymasters, have been progressively raised to the rank of commission-officers equally with the assistant-surgeons; consequently the widows of captains, commanders, lieutenants, masters, and pursers (now paymasters), could not obtain pensions unless their husbands had been ten years commissioned officers from the date of their first commission as lieutenant, master, or purser, as regulated by the 4th article of the "Pensions of Naval Officers Widows" :

"The widows of officers (except chaplains) who shall have married after the 31st of December, 1830, are only entitled to the pensions of their respective classes in the event of their husbands having been on the list of commission or warrant officers, or on the list of naval instructors, ten complete years, except the husband be killed in action, or lose his life in the execution of the service."

Mrs. Waghorn was the first naval officer's widow who received the benefit of the subordinate officers of the navy being created by their Sovereign commission-officers equally with the subalterns in the army. Lieutenant Waghorn was the naval officer who distinguished himself in the commercial world, by having originated and established the overland route to India. His ten years' commissioned time, to entitle his widow to a pension, agreeably with the aforecited article, was counted from his first commission as mate.

(Tristram may here opportunely call public attention to the discrepancy in the Navy List, in respect to the relative rank of mate in the navy with that of the subalterns in the army. In the circular published in the Navy List for "Information for the use of Military and Naval Officers proposing to settle in certain of the British Colonies," it is promulgated that "mates in the Royal Navy rank with ensigns in the army, and mates of three years' standing with lieutenants in the army, and are entitled respectively to corresponding privileges in the acquisition of lands." This information from the Colonial Office is at variance with Her Majesty's previous Order in Council, which is actually published in the same Navy List, under "Admiralty authority," page 223 :"Mates and assistant-surgeons of the navy rank with lieutenants in the army." Tristram queries which of the twain is to decide the military