family may get a captaincy in three months,
which his neighbour, without patronage, might
not get if he lived for ever. Commissions are
not sold in Austria as they are in England,
but the Ministry of War knows how to
respond to proper influence. In an army of
five hundred thousand, vacancies, it is needless
to say, constantly occur. The lad who
is named cornet in Hungary, is presently
lieutenant of a regiment in Italy, and
by-and-bye a captain in Croatia. After that
he may awake some morning, major, with
the place of aide-de-camp to the Emperor;
and to such a boy, with friends to back him,
the army is decidedly a good profession. The
inferior officers are miserably paid, an ensign
having little more than thirty pounds a-year.
A captain, however, is well paid in allowances,
if not in money; while a colonel has forage for
twelve horses, and very good contingencies
besides. Again, there are to be considered
other very important differences between pay
in the Austrian, and pay in the English, army.
An Austrian can live upon his pay. His simple
uniform is not costly; he is free from mess
expenses, and may dine for sixpence at the
tavern favoured by his comrades. Not being
allowed at any time to lay aside his uniform,
he cannot run up a long tailor's bill; and, being
admitted to the best society, he need not spend
much money on amusement. Besides, does
not the state accord to him the privilege of
going to the theatre for twopence?

The poorer officers in the Austrian service
are so unreasonable and ill-conditioned, that
they are not in general pleased by these
advantages being given to men, who may
possibly be well born, but who have certainly
not been long born;  and in many places
combinations have been made to resist the
unfair system of promotion. A young captain
sent down to command graybeards, with a
lively sense of their own claims on the vacancy,
is now and then required to fight, one after
the other, the whole series of senior lieutenants.
This causes a juvenile captain occasionally to
shirk the visit to his regiment, and effect a
prompt exchange.

Some part of the last-named difficulty is
overcome by the existence of one or two corps
of officers who have no regiment at all.
Where there are no men to murmur, the
business of promotion is carried on with
perfect comfort.

In spite of all this, there is much to be said
to the credit and honour of the innumerable
throng of people forming the Austrian army.
It is an excellently appointed and well-disciplined
multitude. The gallantry of its soldiers,
and the skill and experience of many of its
highest officers, must be freely admitted. Then,
too, the great number of nobles classed within
it has at least had the good effect of creating a
high standard of artificial honour. The
fellow-feeling among Austrian soldiers is also great:
those of the same rank accost each other with
the "Du", the household word of German
conversation; and the common word for an
old companion in arms, is "Duty-bruder."

Duels are frequent, but not often fatal, or
even dangerous. To take the nib from an
adversary's nose, or to pare a small rind from
his ear, is ample vengeance even for the
blood-thirsty.

An Austrian officer who has received a
blow, though only in an accidental scuffle, is
called upon to quit his regiment, unless he
has slain upon the spot the owner of the
sacrilegious hand that struck him. This he
is authorised by law to do, if struck while
wearing uniform. The effect of this savage
custom has been to produce in Austrian
officers a peculiar meekness and forbearance:
to keep them always watchful against quarrels
with civilians: and to make them socially
the quietest gentlemen in the world.

Last winter, a fast English gent left a
masked ball at the Redoute, intoxicated.
Disarming a sentry, he ensconced himself until
morning in his box. The gent was then
forwarded to the frontier, but the soldier was
flogged for not having shot him.

Freedom from arrest for debt is an
immunity enjoyed by Austrian officers; but
those who indulge too freely in their
exemption from responsibility, may want
defenders powerful enough to prevent their
summary dismissal from the service.

I have written thus much about the
Austrian army, because, in fact, as the world
here now stands, every third man is or has
been a soldier; and one cannot talk about
society in this empire without beginning at
once to talk about its military aspect.

Gay and trifling as the metropolis is with
its abundance of out-door amusement, Vienna
must be put down in plain words as the most
inhospitable capital in Europe. The Austrians
themselves admit that they could not endure
to be received abroad as they are in the habit
of receiving strangers here. The greater
Austrian nobles never receive a stranger to
their intimacy. A late French Ambassador,
who conducted his establishment with splendour,
and was at all times profusely hospitable,
used to say that he was not once asked
privately to dinner during the whole period of his
residence in Vienna. The diplomatic corps
do not succeed in forcing the close barriers of
Austrian exclusiveness; and twenty years of
residence will not entitle a stranger to feel
that he has made himself familiarly the friend
of a single Austrian. Any one who has lived
among the higher classes in Vienna will confirm
my statement, and will recall with astonishment
the somewhat indignant testimony of
the oldest and most respected members of the
corps diplomatique to the inhospitable way in
which their friendly overtures have been
received. Invitations to dinner are exceedingly
rare; there are brilliant balls; but these do not
satisfy an English longing for good-fellowship.
Familiar visits and free social intercourse
do not exist at all. Then there are the two