or is, from his ignorance, utterly useless in an
trade or calling, will take service, or engage in
any undertaking, unless he hopes sooner or
later to better himself. If he enlist, his prospects
are hopeless. Even if by smartness, good
conduct, and proficiency, he become a non-
commissioned officer, there remains between him
and the commissioned ranks, a gulf which is
almost impassable. Allow that, in process of
time, one sergeant out of three or four hundred
in times of peace, is promoted to the rank of
cornet or ensign, what hope has he of further
advancement? In the whole English army—
cavalry, artillery, engineers, and infantry—
there are not two dozen captains who
have risen from the ranks; and I question
whether there are more than two or three
field officers. The reason for this is the
purchase system, which, to our disgrace as a
nation, the legislature persist in upholding, and
which is the real cause why our recruiting is
almost at a stand-still, and must, before long
come to a dead-lock.

There are in England a vast number
young men, chiefly of the middle class—sons of
medical men, clergymen, lawyers, small landed
proprietors, and others—born with an innate
distaste of anything like a professional
life. These youths generally waste the best
years of their lives by "loafing" about their
native place, until the paternal purse and
patience are alike at an end, and then they
betake themselves to one or other of our colonies.
These would make excellent soldiers, and have
all the dash and daring required for active service;
but want of money hinders them from
entering as officers, and to enlist in the English
army is not only a moral degradation, but
sacrificing every chance of ever making a name
or even gaining rank. Why should we not
make the army fit for such young men to enter,
to better their own condition as well as that
of the service? To do this, the punishment
of the lash must be abolished. No reflecting
man who respects himself will ever enter
the ranks so long as there remains even a
chance of his degradation by flogging. The
next great evil we have to contend with, is
the purchase of commissions, and of promotion.
So long as this national disgrace remains in
this country of all the countries in Europe,
no poor man will enter the army, for he knows
well that his poverty will be an insurmountable
obstacle to his advancement.

Lastly, abolish all direct appointments to
army commissions. There ought to be but
two modes of entering the service: the one
through the military college—the education at
at which, by the way, is not so expensive as to
be entirely beyond moderate means—the other
through the ranks and the barrack-room. Let
the latter become a certain means of obtaining
commissions for well educated men, who are
smart soldiers and of good conduct, and let
there be no question of money to hinder their
advancement. Do these things, and we shall
soon be able to dispense with lying recruiting
agents, crimps, and all who inveigle the
unfortunate recruit of the present day into "taking
the shilling:" while we shall most assuredly
make our own army as popular as the army on
the other side of the Channel.

THE STEAM'S HIGHWAY.

THERE is a royal commission now sitting to
inquire into the costs of conveying travellers
and goods by railway. Everybody knows, or
can know, beforehand, what discoveries this
commission will place upon record; but the use that
will be made of the information so to be
authenticated, partly depends upon the public's
minding its own business. The common roads
of the country are more naturally its own
business than anybody's. But what are the
common roads? The Queen's Highway is at
present the paved or macadamised horse-road,
which, for all the larger concerns of travel and
traffic, is superseded by the rapidly developing
Steam's Highway. Instead of a railway
here and a railway there, we have, or shall
soon have, a railway everywhere. The iron
roads have already become, to all intents and
purposes, the common roads, and are, for all
the business needs of the nation, that which
the old king's highway used to be. Is it desirable
that when railroads have become, for all distances
of any length, the only natural means of
land communication between one part of the
country and another, they should be distributed
into the absolute keeping of a great number of
irresponsible bodies? Does it mend the matter
that those bodies are often in conflict with each
other, and always wage war with the public by
a hostile system of taxation; now drawing thirty-five
millions a year out of the public pocket for
much less than half the service that sum ought
to buy? If the public will but take the trouble
to inquire into this matter for itself, there can
be only one result, and it will not take long to
secure a reduction of the cost of railway travelling
to one-third of its present rate.

Of course we all know it is very desirable that
we should pay a railway fare of five shillings
where we are now paying fifteen. The suggestion
of such a change is indeed so unexpectedly
agreeable, that we assume the notion of its
possibility to be much too good to be true. Yet
it may very well be, that where we now pay
fifteen shillings for a railway journey, our
grandchildren will be paying only eighteen-pence!

Is it absurd to say that transport by railway
should be twenty times cheaper than coach
travelling used to be? A pound of coke
evaporating five pints of water will develop
force enough to draw two tons weight on a
railway to the distance of a mile in two
minutes. A train of coaches weighing eighty
tons, and holding two hundred and forty
passengers, can be conveyed from Liverpool to
Birmingham and back in seven hours, by four
tons of coke, which cost about five pounds. To
arry as many on a common road, would require