No one arrived to claim young Alice. The minister of the parish invested for her the small wreck of property that was saved. She remained, by her own choice, with the widow and her son; their lives were thus bound up together, and they were happy. On his return home, Alice was to become his bride.

How cruelly were all these hopes destroyed!

Again I spoke to her. She did not even return it by a look. And I left the asylum with an aching heart.

These are painful incidents; but impressment produced, in other shapes, many miseries even as great as these.

Now in a country with free institutions, which are a marvel and example to the world, was such an evil necessary? It was said to be so at the time; and even in my old age, I have met with brother-officers who contend that it is essential to the maintenance of our navy. Thus every evil has its advocates. Statesmen and right reverend fathers in God believed that slavery was an equal necessity. It was abolished, without regard to the consequences-though they certainly involved fearful sacrifices-and so ought everything that is contrary to religion. and to justice. Selfish and timid men shrink from the redress of every abuse as a dangerous concession, or an insurmountable difficulty. If such counsels had been followed, where would England have been now? But, thank Heaven, that when questions of sufficient importance arise, party. differences sink before their free discussion, and the cause of truth and reason ultimately prevails.

One great source of wrong is indolence; a want of energy and moral courage to grapple with opposition. It was formerly thought less troublesome to hang men than to reclaim them; and to press them for the navy rather than labour to remove the reasonable objections to the service which made impressment necessary. These reforms are now being rapidly ac-· complished. It is shown that the navy may be manned by volunteers, simply by its being done.

Yet it is hard to free ourselves, at sixty, from the prejudices that were imbibed before we were twenty. Even the gallant admiral,* my own respected friend, who has done more, perhaps, than any other person to make impressment unnecessary, would hesitate to make it illegal. It may as well be done. Heaven forbid that such a mode of manning the British navy should ever again be resorted to! for I am afraid that in the present state of progress and of public feeling, the nation would not submit to it. The nearest approach that we could now make to impressment would be the adoption of some system of ballot: a kind of naval militia, from which mere laudsmen would be exempted.

* Sir Maurice Berkeley. I refer to his advocacy of the coast volunteers and continuous service: and of such a system of naval reserves as he thinks would be effective. W. F.

NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE.

THE BRITISH SOLDIER.

ONLY a few years back it would have been a painful task to the impartial writer to discuss the condition of the British army, for his story would have been a catalogue of short-comings, the result of antiquated prejudices, which public opinion during peace was powerless to overthrow. The Crimean war, however, if it produced us no other benefit, will ever be memorable for having dealt the first crushing blow at the system, and every succeeding year has seen improvements effected, which promise to make our army, in time, the first in the world, by incorporating all the good qualities of the continental system, while, at the same time, maintaining those peculiarities which are indispensable for the well-being of our troops.

The great volunteer movement has finally exploded the theory that great Britain is not a military nation, and the defenders of that notion have seemed purposely to ignore the fact that our troops have ever been victoriously engaged in every great continental war, and the exploits of our soldiers in India have fully shown that they are second to none in the world for bravery and devotion to their colours. At the same time, we are quite prepared to allow that we are not a martial nation; we do not like to run headlong into a war for the mere sake of fighting, nor do we maintain an enormous army for the ruinous pleasure of seeing bayonets glistening and colours waving. Our army is a recognised necessity for the defence of our shores, and to maintain our hold over our immense colonial possessions. Claiming as our own the proud privilege of being the first nation in the world, we owe it to ourselves to make that position universally respected, and, viewed in that light, our army is a valuable factor of the nation, and not, as some peaceful folk would wish to have it, a convenient outlet for the dangerous classes of our population. As a rule, however, the nation recognises the obligation of maintaining the army at a proper standard, and supports it ungrudgingly, while inwardly anathematising those continental rulers who, by their constant and reckless agitation, compel us to maintain an attitude of defence, though not of defiance.

Accepting, therefore, the necessity of a regular army, the next point of consideration is how its ranks should best be filled. It may be very true, as Lord Palmerston asserted, that we are all volunteers, and that no man is compelled to serve the state against his will, but, practically, a broad distinction exists. The recruit who enlists in the regular army virtually sells himself for a certain number of years to serve the state, wherever he may be sent; all home ties are dislocated, he may be removed Feb.-VOL. CXXI. NO. CCCCLXXXII.

K

at a moment's notice from all he holds dear, and, in fact, the voluntary nature of his service ceases from the moment he has been attested. The natural result is, that only those enter the ranks who have no other means of support, and who have but the alternative between crime, in too many cases, and an easy life in barracks. Such being the materials on which the authorities have to rely, and as a large proportion of our soldiers are drawn from the "lower classes," as they are termed, it stands to reason that exceptional measures must be employed with them, and that the laws which regulate ordinary society are not applicable to a large body of reckless men collected in barracks, and that strict discipline must be the first rule, to which all others are rendered subservient,

It has been argued by many well-meaning men that the worst use to which you can put a man is to make him food for powder; that from the moment he dons the red coat, the efforts of all in authority over him are combined to convert him into a mere machine, and he is deprived of the use of his intellectual functions. We hold, however, that in many cases a soldier's life is beneficial both to the character and life. In the first place, the recruit picked up from the streets, and rapidly drifting into the dangerous classes, is at once rendered valuable, in so far as he works for his living. He is slowly but surely imbued with ideas of regularity and order, and the man who, if left to his own devices, would certainly have become a denizen of a gaol, is converted by the salutary process of drill into a being who assumes a feeling of self-respect, and takes a pride in the honourable profession to which he belongs. At the same time, we are convinced that the strict and regular discipline of camp and barrack life brings out a man's intellectual powers. Take the ploughboy, for instance, slouching about the country lanes with hanging head, and meditating an inroad into his landlord's preserves. Surely he is the lowest type of English humanity. But let him be enlisted, and within a year he is a different man. You would hardly recognise in the up-standing, honestlooking soldier, the peasant the sight of whom saddened you twelve months previously, and caused you to reflect painfully on the anomalies of society, and the futile efforts that are spasmodically made to ameliorate the condition of the rural labouring classes. Still, we do not attempt to conceal the fact that our army is not in so satisfactory a condition as might be desired, and we fear that the ranks contain too many men who are no credit to them. This is not as it should be, for the presence of these men deter others from enlisting who might become an honour to a profession. In the middle classes of society, a brother or son who enters the army is regarded as a lost member; his name is rarely mentioned, save with repining; and the character of our troops essentially suffers by the admission into their ranks of all comers. This is an evil for which, we regret to say, we can offer no remedy. Soldiers must be had, to supply the place of those who are expended or receive their discharge, and the authorities have no time for selection; they find it necessary to fill up the cadres of the battalions in the shortest available way, and cannot reject a healthy full-grown man because his character, prior to enlisting, was not as it should be. The only way, then, of drawing really valuable men into the ranks is by heightening the usual tone of the soldiers, and this we hold to be essentially by improving the condition of the barracks, and looking after the social comforts of the troops.

We believe that the time has gone by when a Wellington could write in such depreciatory terms of his soldiers as was the case during the Peninsular war. At that period the moral condition of our army was at its lowest ebb, and nothing was done to prevent it. The severe repressive measures employed by the Iron Duke produced a spirit of recklessness; and though our men were the bravest of the brave in action, their presence was regarded with dread by the native they had come to assist. The progressive tendency of the age did much to improve this, and the admirable behaviour of our troops, with few exceptions, in the Crimea, proved that a salutary influence had been at work, unnoticed during the prior forty years. To judge fully of this, it only needs to read Lord Raglan's despatches side by side with those of Wellington in the Peninsula. And this contrast will be rendered more striking when we reflect on the peculiar trials to which our army was exposed on the desolate plateau of Sebastopol. From the highest to the lowest there seemed to be an utter absence of administrative tact, and it needed a hard campaign and the expenditure of many a valuable life to show in all their odious light the defects of our military organisation. Regarding the present condition of our army, we might fancy that sixty years, and not six, had elapsed since the signature of the Treaty of Paris. Our army now is, for efficiency and useful knowledge, equal to any in the world, and should any untimely accident occur, which will be averted, we trust, our men will show that it does not require the French exclusively to win such a battle of giants as was Solferino. As it may interest the reader to know how this result has been achieved, we will briefly run through the reforms introduced during the past few years by the Duke of Cambridge, that true soldier's friend, who has devoted himself to his difficult task with a singleness and honesty of purpose which must command the admiration of all.

Probably the most serious objection against our system, and the one which supplied the most trenchant argument to the professional agitator, was the employment of the lash for coercive purposes. Floods of objurgation have been poured out on this, and we do not seek to defend it, for we hold that, while it does not make the bad soldier better, it indubitably renders the good soldier worse. Still, we are not prepared to recommend the total abolition of the lash, for in the field there is no other punishment so sharp and expedient. There are always a certain number of skulkers in our ranks, and were not the cat held over them in terrorem, the guard-room or prison would sooner be crowded with lazy vauriens, shirking their fair share of work, and throwing it on their more willing comrades. The opponents of the lash appeal to the fact of discipline being maintained in the French army without degrading punishment; but we happen to have witnessed it working in the field, and have seen men shot like dogs for trivial offences, which we requite with a dozen lashes. Surely, of two evils, it is better to choose the least and if the English knew the cruelties practised in French regiments under the cloak of punishment, they would not be so ready to join in the outcry about the abolition of the lash. Still we may go so far with them, that we utterly deny the necessity of using the lash on home stations, where a man's services are not so absolutely required in rank and file. There are many modes of punishment far more irksome than the lash, and the

argument that it is necessary to flog, in order to prevent desertion, is negatived by the fact that desertions have always been most numerous from notorious flogging garrisons.

Although the authorities, then, in our opinion, wrongly maintain flogging at home, such changes have been introduced that it is certainly the soldier's own fault if he be subjected to this ignominious punishment. The rank and file have been divided into two classes of first and second, and every recruit, on entering the army, is placed in the former category, and may defy the lash so long as his conduct keeps him in that class. If reduced to the second, he is then, and then only, liable to flogging, and has it in his power to redeem his character if he please. In a word, if a private likes, he is as safe from flogging as the members of any other class of society. We believe, moreover, that a project is in circulation to do away with the lash altogether in peace times, as it has proved so powerless to check that desertion for which it was solely maintained, and that the enemies of our army will thus be deprived of one of their most potent arguments. In this case we may certainly borrow from foreign armies the system of disciplinary companies, by which notorious bad characters are drafted away, and prevented from offering an evil example to those honest but weak-minded men, who cannot resist the voice of the tempter.

The next great reform to which we will allude is the formation of permanent camps at Aldershott, the Curragh, and several other places. Financial reformers always have a field-day when the estimates for these establishments are brought up, and assert that the gigantic outlay in them is not justified by the benefits derived from them. Before talking so loosely, however, we would recommend these gentlemen to go and judge for themselves a week's visit to the camp would prove to them that the soldier obtains invaluable information as to the way of taking care of himself when summoned into the field. It is perfectly surprising to see how handy our men have become by this training system; all that helplessness which characterised them at the opening of the Crimean war has disappeared, and they are in no way inferior to the French. The only objection we have to offer against Aldershott is, that it is assuming too much of a permanent character by the erection of stone barracks, and this evil has grown to such a head that the commandants are obliged to march their battalions out, during the summer months, for some miles, in order that they may encamp and be initiated into the mysteries of the bivouac. Our readers will probably remember the intense turmoil raised last winter about the Curragh camp, and the letters of complaint with which the Times was inundated; but the authorities acted wisely, in our judgment, by not heeding them, for men and horses became hardened, and were enabled to form an idea by the annoyances they suffered of what awaited them in the event of their being sent into the field. Had they been enabled to acquire such experience before the Crimean war, many lives might have been saved.

In other respects the system at Aldershott is truly admirable, and the visitor, with his preconceived notions of a soldier's life, will find them delightfully dispelled. At the first glance, he will probably feel unconfortable, for the camp certainly is not the most attractive object of the world, consisting as it does of blocks of blackened huts, aligned with