revenue. A cornet, who has passed his riding
school, has got a mount from an infantry friend
and after bragging a great deal about liking a
horse with some "go" in him, is coming to
awful grief, in consequence of a little goodnatured
"bucking" on the part of the animal.
The infantry man, who has himself a first-rate
seat, is slyly enjoying his friend's discomfiture.
That the infantry are much better horsemen
than the cavalry, is an assertion you hear
frequently repeated among the members of the
former arm of the service; and it appears to
be thus far true— that the best officers of irregular
cavalry have nearly always belonged to
infantry regiments. Hodson and Jacob, for instance,
were infantry officers, as are Beatson,
Edwardes, and Chamberlain, and nearly all
the beaux sabreurs of the Indian army. The
native regular cavalry has never been a good
school. It made a handsome appearance on
parade, and answered very well for guards and
escorts; but it was fit for little more, and on
two or three occasions (the mention of Kotah
and Purwan Durrah are never calculated to put
a regular cavalry officer in a good humour) it
distinguished itself by something very like bad
behaviour. It was a great mistake ever to
have attempted to make a dragoon, all pipe-clay
and precision, out of a native accustomed
to easy costume, and an entirely different discipline.
That the regular cavalry turned out no
worse than it did, is highly creditable to its
European officers, who made the best that could
be made of a bad system.

The contests— vigorously carried on in newspapers
and pamphlets— between the regulars and
irregulars, supply a large proportion of jokes to
"our facetious contemporary." These are
mostly too professional to bear reproduction.
There are, however, some social hits at
the peculiarities of the irregulars, which are
more comprehensible in this country. The
irregulars are always famous for their fantastic
uniforms, and usually present an appearance
which has been summed up as " all beard and
boots." They have a foreign rather than a
British appearance, and, from serving in wild
parts of the country where no ladies are to
be met with, are supposed to have incurred
savage habits. In one of the cuts before me an
irregular officer, who has, it may be supposed,
returned on leave to within the pale of civilisation,
presents himself at his own house, bearded
and braided in orthodox manner. His wife
receives him with " Merci, Monsieur, nous
n'avons pas besoin d'un maître de musique."

There was no little rivalry, as may be supposed,
between the " Queen's " and " Company's"
armies, and although they are now
nominally united, a great deal of the old
spirit still exists. " The Royals in India" form
a standing heading in the pages of our friend
Punch, and you may be sure they are represented
in as ridiculous a light as is possible, even
in a country where a man is always supposed to
spend the first year of his residence in making
a fool of himself. How the Royals get into
trouble and fall into ridiculous mistakes through
their ignorance of the native language, how they
come to grief in horseflesh, and get imposed
upon in every transaction with their servants,
is recorded in countless caricatures, and comic
verse and prose without end. The social
superiority assumed by the Royals is one of
the most popular themes for satire, whether
of pencil or pen. An officer of this class is,
to judge by the squibs let off upon him,
supposed to look at all things Indian, through
the eye-glass of superciliousness, and to speak
of them with the haw-haw of contempt. As when,
for instance, Captain Raker, in answer to an affable
inquiry from the lady of the house whether he
dances, responds with a superb air, "Why —
ha! — not in India! You see, I have been so
accustomed to the best society at London parties,
that I cannot really fall into your semi-barbarous
customs all at once." Or when Captain Swellington,
in acknowledgment of the old-fashioned invitation
from a cheerful Indian to take wine with
him, replies, after a slight stare through his glass,
"Ah, yes, I will — upon one condition that you
won't say ' Here's to you' — because I can't stand
that."

While upon military rivalries I should not
omit to mention the moustache. It was not
until 1853 that this "boon" was given to the
infantry regiments of the Indian army. They
had hitherto been shaven, like their brethren of
the Queen's; but it being considered all of a
sudden, that the want of the manly appendage
degraded both officers and men in the eyes of
the natives, the order came out to leave the
upper lip sacred from the touch of the razor.
This entrenchment on their peculiar privilege
is supposed to have disgusted the cavalry, who,
according to the caricatures and poetical satirists,
seriously desired to shave. The Queen's
regiments remained untouched by the innovation
until after the Crimean war, when they also
were directed to grow the moustache. The
Sketch Book of the period of course had jokes
upon this subject also: the officers of her Majesty's
service being displeased with an arrangement
which, as they said, confounded them
with those native infantry fellows! According to the
same authority, even the non-commissioned
officers and men partook of the prevalent prejudice
against the Company's troops. Here is a
specimen of the esprit de corps of the non-commissioned
ranks, as recorded by one of the
Delhi artists:

The wife of an Indian officer is represented
as desirous of engaging one of the barrack
ladies as a maid. Mrs. Corporal Flouncey accordingly
offers herself; but, upon inquiring
into the position of the lady's husband, pays a
visit of apology. " Why you see, marm," says
Mrs. Corporal Flouncey, "it isn't the wages —
which is quite satisfactory — but I've been and
spoke to my husband, and he have objections to
my taking service with the lady of a sepoy
officer."

Here, however, is a tribute to the British
soldier, as distinguished from the sepoy, which