"Queen's Regulations for the Army" was what
I should have to provide for this promotion, I
prepared the sum of two hundred and fifty
pounds, making in all seven hundred pounds
which I should have paid for his commission
as lieutenant. But I discovered that I
had reckoned without my host. It appeared
that, although, according to the "Mutiny Act"
and the "Regulations of the Army," any officer
who paid more than the regulation prices
was guilty of a direct breach of orders, yet
the custom of the regiment (and of every
regiment in the army, for that matter) obliged
those who were promoted, to pay nearly double
the stated amount for every step. When
my son obtained his promotion, the cause of
the move upward was a captain who wanted
to retire. The "regulation" price of this
officer's commission was one thousand eight
hundred pounds; but as he had, in years gone
by, paid two thousand six hundred pounds
for his captaincy, he expected to receive a
like sum when he retired. Of what was
"above regulation," namely, eight hundred
pounds, the lieutenant who was made a captain
contributed six hundred pounds, and my son
had to pay two hundred pounds.

More than once, while he was quartered in
England, and also when he was in Ireland, I
paid him a visit. I was exceedingly well
received by the officers of the regiment, and
during each sojourn dined every evening at
mess. What surprised me more than anything
was, not only the very idle life which the officers
were in a measure forced to live from the fact of
their having hardly any employment, but also
the very slight amount of education required in
order to pass the requisite examinations of
ensign to lieutenant, and lieutenant to captain.
It is true that these examinations were very
much more professional than the one which
was passed before a young man could enter
the service: still, they were so very
superficial that any schoolboy of fifteen could have
got the amount of knowledge required with
a fortnight's preparation. Beyond the rank
of captain there is no examination required.
An officer has only to behave himself, keep
clear of scrapes, pay for his commissions, and
wait for his turn of promotion. In due time
he must become a major, and afterwards, as
lieutenant-colonel, command a regiment; if he
choose to "hang on," as it is termed, in the
service, there is no power or law that can
prevent his getting to the top of the tree in
course of regimental promotion, except the want
of money.

When my son became first for purchase of a
company in his regiment, he was considered
very fortunate indeed, as he had only been five
years in the service. The lieutenant-colonel
commanding the regiment offered to sell out,
and his doing so would at once have promoted
my son to the rank of captain. But the sum
demanded "above regulation" was so very large,
that my son's share amounted to no less than a
thousand pounds. At first I demurred, and even
refused. For this sum, added to the eighteen
hundred pounds "regulation" price, would make
a total of two thousand eight hundred pounds to
pay before he could become a captain, and which,
injustice to my other children, I did not like to
expend upon one single member of my family.
But my son explained to me that it was imperative
upon him either to pay this sum or withdraw
his name altogether from the list of
purchasers, under pain of being "sent to Coventry"
for "stopping the promotion," as it is called, of
the regiment. What is meant by "stopping the
promotion," I was told, is when an officer will
either pay nothing beyond regulation, or will not
pay enough to satisfy the officer who wishes to
sell out, and thus, by retaining his name on the
purchase list, prevents others from going over his
head. When this is done, the individual who
wants to sell out, generally—almost invariably
—exchanges into some other corps, in which the
officers for purchase are able and willing to pay
the sum he demands, and thus the step is
lost to his former corps. The correct thing
to do—according to modern English military
etiquette—is, when an officer has not enough
money to pay the sum demanded for a step in
his corps, to withdraw his name from the list
of purchasers, and let the next man who is rich
enough, take his place. Thus promotion has, in
fact, become a mere matter of barter, and is only
to be acquired by those who can afford to pay,
not merely such sums as are sanctioned by the
regulations, but also those extra amounts which
may justly be termed fancy prices.

My son found that even as a captain he could
not get on without the allowance of two hundred
a year which I had made him since he entered
the army. He was not so expensive in his
habits as many of his brother-officers. But
what with the expenses of going on foreign
service when his regiment was ordered abroad, the
enormous amount of money absorbed by his
being moved about from station to station when
he was in England, and the occasional loss or
destruction of baggage, to which soldiers are
liable all over the world, he found his two
hundred pounds per annum insufficient for his
actual wants. Had he exchanged into a
regiment in, or going to, India, he would have
received from the officer exchanging with him,
a sum of money varying from two to five
hundred pounds, and his pay in that country
would have been quite sufficient for all his
purposes. But although ready to proceed to the
East, if ordered there, he did not wish to volunteer
for so long an exile from home as every
corps sent there has to endure, nor did I wish
to make him abandon the regiment to which he
was greatly attached, and oblige him to serve in
a climate which must prove always more or less
injurious, with a new corps, for which he could
not be expected to care as much, as for that
in which he had begun soldiering. Not that
much home service fell to the lot of himself or
his comrades. The regiment was ordered out
to Malta: between which garrison, the different
Ionian Isles, and Gibraltar, they passed nearly