not have taken place within the compass of a
single day.

A French philosopher of the last century
asserted that it is by no means hard to make a
multitude believe in an absolute impossibility,
but that to persuade it of the truth of something
that is extremely improbable, without being
impossible, is difficult indeed. To illustrate this
assertion we have told the story of Solomon Gunn.

               VOLUNTEER CAVALRY.

THERE is a great talk of raising corps of
Volunteer Cavalry throughout England, in
addition, of course, to the numerous regiments of
rifle volunteers which have been formed in every
part of the kingdom.

If appropriately dressed, well mounted, and
usefully armed, volunteer cavalry can be made
most effective, particularly when used, as such
troops would be in England, purely on the
defensive, and in their own country. As an old
dragoon officer, the writer is of opinion that a
thousand volunteer cavalry, if brought into
the field as they ought to be, would do quite
as good service in the defence of their country
as a thousand regular cavalry. Further, if,
in the event of an invasion of England, he was
allowed his choice of commanding the Household
Brigade of Cavalry, numbering some two
thousand four hundred sabres, or a similar
number of properly-trained and well-officered
volunteer cavalry, he would, under all
circumstances save that of a regular charge upon even
ground like that of Hounslow Heath or Salisbury
Plain, greatly prefer to lead the latter
troops.

There is no country in the world where so
many men of every class are good horsemen as
in England. In France and other continental
lands, the upper and some few of the middle
classes ride occasionally to display themselves
and their horses; but with us nearly every class
ride, and ride for riding's sake. In what town
out of Great Britain would we ever see—as is
seen every week in London, Glasgow,
Manchester, Liverpool, Edinburgh, or Dublin—the
lawyer, the doctor, the banker, or the merchant,
one day trim and neat in his office or on 'Change
—apparently without a thought beyond the case
in court, the sickness of his patient, the rates of
discount, or the price of cotton—the next day
clad in scarlet and tops, well mounted, and
riding to hounds? Nay, even of our listless
"swells," who through the London season
look as if they had barely energy to shave and
dress, how many are there who in the hunting-
field show themselves in the first rank of a
numerous and hard-riding phalanx? The most
courageous horseman the present writer ever
saw—whether after an Indian boar on the Deccan
Hills, or an English fox on the Leicestershire
grass-lands, is a civil servant of the late East
India Company, who lived for thirty years in the
land of the sun; the next best hand across
country whom he can call to mind was a
Manchester cotton-spinner; and the third best in his
list is a lieutenant-colonel of infantry. Lower
in the social scale, amongst tradesmen, shop-
keepers, and small farmers, how many there are
who can, how few who cannot, ride, although
nearly all are untaught. There are very many
more men—taking high and low, rich and poor—
who can ride, in England, than who could shoot
before the rifle corps were raised. In fact, we
are a nation of horsemen, and with a little care
and a little training, might turn out such a body
of volunteer cavalry as the world has not yet
seen.

It may be urged that the yeomanry regiments
are composed of the riding classes, and that
they hardly come up to the beau idéal of
cavalry. This is true, but it is to be
accounted for. The English yeomanry are—
with all respect be it spoken—a bad imitation
of all that is objectionable in the English
dragoon; in the British horse soldier as he was
—as in but too many respects he is—not as
he ought to be. In all the yeomanry corps
the writer has seen on parade, the men were
more stiff-stocked, more tightly strapped, more
small-jacketed, more unwieldly armed, more
German-seated on horseback, and had a more
general appearance of pipe-clayed helplessness,
than the most ultra regulation of our
regular dragoon regiments.

English volunteer cavalry should be composed
entirely of men not weighing more than eleven
stone, who own at least one horse. No person
should on any pretence whatever be enrolled in
its ranks who is obliged to borrow or hire the
horse of another. The great secret why in our
Indian wars the irregular cavalry have their
horses in better condition than the other mounted
corps, is that almost every man is owner of the
animal he rides. In some of these regiments a
great number of horses are owned by one
proprietor, who hires horsemen to ride them, but
these corps never have their horses in as good
condition as in troops where every man owns the
charger he rides. All troops should practise in
peace what they have to perform in war. The
weapon or the uniform which is not suitable for
a campaign should be made over to the
"properties" of the nearest theatre; it is not fit for a
soldier to use or to wear. Thus, if volunteers—
like all other troops—are to be useful in the
field, they should adhere strictly to the rules
likely to make them so, and amongst these, one
of the foremost should be one forbidding any
member of the corps to ride other than his own
horse on parade. Of late years a great improvement
has been made in our English cavalry style
of riding, the men being taught to use shorter
stirrups, and adopt a much more hunting style
of seat than formerly. The volunteer cavalry
should in the first place be taught to ride, and
should be brought together once a month or so
to prove that they have not forgotten what they