end. Such a boot can scarcely chafe the foot, and in it the most tender parts, heel, instep, and ball of the foot, would be least subject to pressure. Trust not the contract, however, to boards, or the ammunition atrocity would soon be repeated. Let the pattern be supplied to lieutenantcolonels commanding regiments, and let them be authorised to make contracts in the town or district where they are stationed; then let regimental officers and men do the rest; they will take care that the article supplied be of the right quality and kind.

It may be expected that we should now enter on a disquisition about knapsacks, straps, pouches, and other like topics. We can say little more than has been said on these matters, and think little more is to be done. It has always been a pet theory of buffsticks and pipeclays to reduce the weight of the knapsack, and when by some ingenious contrivance this has been effected to the amount of some ounces, they chuckle as though a great military reform had been achieved. Blind guides! ye begin at the wrong end; you take off a few ounces, and leave the strength burdened with the pressure of a cwt. from unnecessary restraints and liga tures. Give him the free use of his limbs, and the soldier would laugh at a few ounces, or even pounds! It is true that the present knapsack is very unwieldy, and might be improved in many respects. It might be shaped more like a regular pack, made of some waterproof material; the straps might be decreased in number, made elastic, and fastened to the waist-belt like the chasseur's; the weight might be better poised, and made more shifting; but these changes can only be obtained in defiance of the dread law-uniformity. What would the system say to it? We do not, however, believe that the total weight a soldier carries can be much diminished without detriment to his efficiency or comfort, nor do we think it is at all too great a demandon his strength. The French soldier is not so large or so strong a man, and yet he carries as much, if not more, and moves along springily under it. In addition to his kit, he has always a tin pan, or part of a tent, or a bill-hook, to bear; but

VOL. LXXVII.-NO. CCCCLXXIV.

he has not to contend with tight coats or stiff stocks.

There are one or two more things on which we would bestow a passing notice ere we wind up. There is the greatcoat, the soldier's chief comfort, the garment his heart clings most fondly to, from being perhaps the only one which is loose or affords general protection. He has certainly a partiality for it, and will wear it whenever he has an excuse. Why not make it worthy of his preference? It is supposed to last nine years, and bear therein the brunt of guard and bivouac. At present it is a very shabby affair both in shape and material. Why not make it of good and durable stuff, somewhat resembling the quality used by officers; have it a little looser, a little shorter, and give it a hood which might be thrown over the head (if the bonnet be adoptedwith the shako this would of course be an impossibility) on exposed posts or in inclement weather? Next, there is the havresack, in which the soldier is supposed to stow away three or six days' provision. It is a most ingenious contrivance to perplex and tantalise him. The straps are so short that, when filled, the havresack hangs a little under his arm, and the opening is so small that it is with the greatest difficulty he can get anything in or out. The bulk, too, interferes with his movements, and jostles his other weights. Made of duck or coarse linen, it is easily penetrable by sun or rain. If the weather be warm, the poor fellow, at the end of a march, finds his biscuit and bacon melted into a mass of crumbs and grease; if wet, his bread is soaked into a sop, and the best part of his supper gone. Lengthen and broaden the strap, and widen the opening; let the material be waterproof, with a linen lining, and let there be compartments for biscuit and bacon, and then the soldier may carry his food with ease, and eat it in comfort. There is one more atrocity we must have a fling at-the canteen. Of all the wondrous devices the system has given birth to, this is the most wondrous. How such a thing was first devised is a problem! how it was ever endured for a day, much less repeated year after year, in this practical age, by a nation always engaged in some war, and often on the eve of great ones, must

2 c

be ever a mystery! Let the uninitiated know that the said canteen is a round wooden bottle for carrying water, shaped flat at the sides, and hooped round the edges with iron, which bumps playfully against the hips at every movement. Should it be water-tight, which is almost a miracle, the water is certain to get a taint from the wood, and to become lukewarm with the slightest heat. The French have a neat tiu canteen, not unlike a sportsman's pocket-pistol, only larger. It is hollowed out on the side next the body; is slung loosely round the shoulders by a thick cord; is never in the way; keeps the water cool, and can easily be lifted to the mouth for a draught. These and all other reforms must, however, be impracticable whilst the present clothing system lasts. Contract manufacturers and contract tailors would soon nullify any improvement in shape or material. Wretched, indeed, is the system which commits the clothing of the army to the lowest contract, and sets some antediluvian old gentlemen, who know little and care less about the matter, and are facetiously termed "a board," to cackle, doze, and choke over the performance of it. It is a system unjust to the army, and unworthy of a great nation. The evil can only be remedied by intrusting the supervision and control of clothing contracts to men who have an interest in the wear and appearance of the articles supplied. Let the clothing and accoutrements when made be sent to regimental headquarters, and there let regimental officers, whose credit will be involved in the look of their men, and who may be supposed to have some sympathy for their comfort, sit in judgment upon them, to test quality and make by regulation pattern. Contractors would soon find they had a different set of men to deal with, and would cease their tricks. "But these alterations would involve great cost," says the system. Doubtless! The question, however, is, whether the soldier shall be clothed at the lowest possible price, or with a fitness for his work, and a due regard to his comfort and protection. If the latter, then there must be cost. We believe, however, that the sum now allowed for the pur

pose, if fairly appropriated-if not suffered to dribble into the pockets of clothing colonels, and contract manufacturers, and contract tailors-would amply suffice to send forth the British army as the best clad body of soldiers in the world.

This contract system has been the curse of our army. From it have arisen bad boots, useless hand-barrows, pickaxes, and spades, bad clothing and putrid meats; from these, again, spring foot-sore soldiers, slow work, fevers, full hospitals, and protracted sieges. Down with it! down with it to the ground!

Here, then, we end. We have answered the question, How to dress him? by dressing him from top to toe, rationally and becomingly, we think. We have based our scheme on these fixed principles, that a soldier should be dressed with a fitness for his work; with a due regard for his health and comfort; with a view to the adaptability of his costume to all climates and circumstances.

Whether we have succeeded or not, judge ye. If we have failed, we have failed in detail, for sure we are the principles are sound and true. Then let another try, and we wish him good speed. But remember, brother mine! whoever you be that undertake the task, to undertake it seriously. It is no light deed. Remember that you are dressing a comrade by whose side you may march, by whose side you may stand in the field of battle; and let no idle crotchet, no vain fancy, tempt you to forget that the sole duty, the sole purpose of your task, should be to study his comfort and efficiency.

Whoever does it, it must be done, and that speedily. The soldier demands it as a right, and surely 'tis no great thing he asks, to be sent forth on his hard and perilous work with his strength unencumbered, and his body protected from the ills his arm cannot reach, or his spirit repel; to be sent forth bearing not about him obstacles more distressing than mountain path, or rugged valley-wearing not about him foes more formidable, and often more fatal, than the bullets and bayonets of the enemy.

He asks to have his strong arm free to strike, and his strong heart

free to endure. Grant him this, and he will go forth-not a truer or braver man, for that he cannot be; but he will go forth more contented and more grateful; he will go forth to prove by long-enduring service that he is too

precious a thing to be weighed in the balance with sodden shoes, rotten cloth, German and effete systems; he will go forth to show that the English soldier is a man worth all care, all cost,—a man beyond all price.

Since the above was written the terrible proof has come. The system has been tested by the exigencies of war, and our forebodings have been too surely verified. England has been now some months at war. She entered on it reliant and expectant, and rightly so. The nation had arisen in its might, strong and undivided. There was no faction, no discontent, no struggle betwixt classes, to cripple its strength or embitter its spirit. Except the few carping spirits of the Manchester party, there was one heart, one thought, throughout the land. The country was prosperous -its resources vast-almost unbounded. Money, sympathy, and material, were in abundance. Never did a people enter on a struggle with such undivided will, such a generous spirit. England was confident then-confident in its strength, confident in its union. She looked on the gallant array of her soldiers as they went forth to the war; she looked on their stalwart frames and their firm manly faces, and thought such men might defy the world in arms; she knew not, and she reckoned not, of the causes which should make their strength weakness, and their valour a vain thing. Thus England began the war: whence comes it, then, that her glory is now trailing in the dust, her might melting like snow? Have her resources failed, or her soldiers degenerated? All these have more than fulfilled expectation. Whence came disaster, then? was it the fault of men or systems? From both, we answer unhesitatingly-but the men were most culpable. The system was bad-bad as could be, but it never could have caused such disaster had there been able men to wield the might and sustain the honour of England. Let us see what share of blame attaches to each. The system was old, useless, effete. Its capital vices were, the antiquity of the machine, a penurious economy; a

multiplicity of, and want of unity in, departments; complexity of details; the rigidity of official routine; the abuse of patronage. Driven on by the relentless vigorous will of one man, it had jumbled, and jolted, and creaked, after many break-downs and stoppages, through the PeninsularWar; after that it sank into a torpid repose, retaining just vitality and movement enough to administer respectably to our home and colonial necessities. Occasionally it was brushed up, painted, and greased, to make an appearance; and John Bull, deceived thereby, actually thought it was rather a respectable machine, which had done good service, and would do it again. The time came. There was war, and we had to bring forth the old system; there was nothing else to fall back upon. All our war experiences and appliances were octogenarian. Our generals were old, our system was older. It was worse than at the end of the war. Time had increased its defects-age and desuetude had brought on decrepitude. During the long years of peace, no serious effort had been made to bring on the system, pari passu with the science and energy which were working such miracles in our social state, which had had no existence in the war administration. Peninsular men administered the departments; Peninsular prejudices guarded jealously against reform or innovation. Our storehouses were filled (with the exception of a few very late improvements in ordnance and musketry) with materiel manufactured either for the last war, or after the patterns then used. Some depart nents were defunct, others had sunk into a dozy state of routine. In fact, everything was at a dead lock. Thus was it that England exhibited to the world the extraordinary spectacle of a nation standing in the foremost files of civilisation, surrounded by the most wondrous appliances of art and science, and entering on a gigantic

struggle, with an obsolete war-system half a century old. Our great military rivals-one now our ally, the other our enemy-had been wiser in their generation. They, especially the former, had sedulously applied all the discoveries and inventions of science, and had zealously used the intervals of peace, and the experiences of their petty wars, in perfecting the organisation of their system,-in giving to it consolidation, elasticity, and strength. Many of these defects were inherent in the system; many were produced or aggravated by the pernicious economy which has been busy for many years in paring, and clipping, and reducing our system to the lowest ebb of vitality. The odium of this has been thrown on the country. It was the work of faction rather than of the country. The people asked for a moderate expenditure, and the different Governments met the demand by concentrating all their economic forces on the army and navy establishments. It was to conciliate faction, rather than to satisfy a popular cry, that the evil was wrought. The pressure was from within rather than from without. There has arisen lately in the House a body of few and audacious men, whose souls are in their cotton-bales, whose homes are in their counting-houses, whose nationality follows the best markets; these men clamoured madly for the reduction of our army and navy; they would have swept them away altogether, and left us without soldiers or sailors. These men, though few, were strong, inasmuch as they often held the balance of parties: to conciliate them, to win them over to prop their sinking strength, or swell their feeble majorities, Whig ministries again and again drew the life-blood of the nation, sacrificing the best interests of the country to the purposes of party.

The mischief, however, would not have been so great had the economy been well directed; but the reforms, being adopted rather from necessity than conviction, were ill-judged and illtimed, and aimed oftener at sound parts than corrupt ones. It was easier to lop off a limb than probe a sore. Thus was our system crippled in its best limbs, whilst the disease of the body

left untouched and uncured.

want of unity in departments

was another crying evil, and cause of weakness. All great military nations have recognised the necessity of undivided authority in time of danger or emergency. What gave such energy to the legions of Rome and the armies of Napoleon, save the supreme will of a dictator? And is it not the absolute power of an autocrat which has lately given such ascendaney to the forces of Russia?

Our military constitution is a confederation of petty states, all having separate chiefs and laws, and a sort of petty independence, being bound together only by a somewhat loose principle of co-operation. Such a constitution could not afford the strength and union necessary for a grand or sudden effort. The petty jealousies and cross purposes of divided authority would be ever fatal to vigour or promptitude of action.

During peace there may be safety in a multitude of counsellors; but there must be one head, one hand, to govern a crisis. From the multiplicity of departments arose the complexity of details and rigidity of routine which have caused so much disorder, and been among the primary causes of disaster. Each little imperium had its formalities and its etiquette, which were maintained with all the pertinacity of a German state. Let us die rather than abandon our routine! Departments vied with each other in accumulating forms and formalities, until the evil ran so high that the executive part of the army was overpowered by the bureaucracy. Would that it had ended here. In war it ended in starvation and death. "Give us

medicine for the sick-stoves to keep them from dying of cold." "We must have the requisition properly signed and approved." "Give us food clothing for our men." "The order must come through the proper channel. Let men die-let them rot-let them hunger—thirst— perish from starvation-shiver with cold-grow sore from lameness!what is it to us? Routine must be maintained." So spake the systemand so men died by hundreds. Is it not a thought to stir the blood within us, that England's bravest sons have been offered up wholesale to the re

quirements of official form? Is it not a thought to humble and shame us, that a set of petty officials should have power to set their absurdities against the life-blood of England?

Last in the catalogue of vices comes Patronage. Like many of the others, it was scarcely perceptible in peace. The peculiar construction of our army made this little known or felt; but war is the great test of military systems, and it has demonstrated patronage as one of the evils we deplore. Our nobles, like the Roman patricians, and perhaps like them alone, have ever enhanced their position by gallantry in the field, and intrepidity in time of peril. Eagerly and readily they leave luxury, state, pleasure, homes, to go forth to fight or die bravely by dozens, as at Inkermann, in the foremost ranks. But this gallantry covers a multitude of sins. There are other things required of officers besides gallantry. In most of these, it must be confessed, they are wanting. It is not from want of capacity or will, as some would assume, but from lack of stimulant, and from peculiarity of position. They do not enter the army as a permanent profession. In peace they adopt it as a pastime-in war as an enterprise. It is not the vocation of a life. Whilst in it they are not dependent on merit or attainment for advancement, and always look forward to some era when they purpose to abandon it, and return to the old pursuits. Consequently they have no sympathy with minute details-no stimulus to master the more abstruse studies or the higher duties. It is only the man who becomes once and for ever a soldier who will do this-who will accept all parts of his vocation. But such a man must have a hope-an incentive in his career. For such a man there is no place in the British army; or if there be, it is darkness and despair. His skill, his zeal, his constancy, will be to him as dead-weights; they will not advance him one step. There is need for all classes-room for all-but there must be place for all. If you would have highly-educated, highly-instructed soldiers, proficient and ready at all points, like the French officers, you must adopt the French system; you must let it be known that the best

man may get the best place. Then good men and true enough will come forth, and among them, we doubt not, many of the aristocracy.

Such was our system when the trial came. War was declared, not suddenly, but after long deliberation. There was a long interval for preparation. To our foes and allies it was a godsend. They employed it well, and the crisis found them ready. To the indolence and indifference of our officials it was nothing; they scorned and neglected it. Now was the time to investigate thoroughly the resources, not only of the service, but of the country, and see how the one could be applied to the other. This was beyond red-tapism; it was not the routine: so war came, and found us as unready in all the essentials of preparation as though the question of peace and war had never been mooted. The routine was followed; we fell back on Peninsular men, Peninsular rules, and Peninsular stores-all good in their day; but they had been superseded now by newer things and more vigorous men. The men of the age are the men to meet its wants. An army was to be sent forth worthy of our fame and our might. The order was given. The Horse Guards performed its function among the departments well. It produced before the eyes of England à body of soldiers (thanks to our regimental system) well equipped, well drilled according to the system, well disciplined, and better armed than any troops had ever been before. The cheeks of Englishmen must have glowed, and their hearts leapt with pride, as they saw the gallant array of stalwart men and the glittering ranks of proud horsemen marching onwards to maintain the old glory and add to the old fame. All knew how these men would fight. Did any among the admiring cheering crowds think how these men were to be fed, clothed, and covered? I trow not. Yet the meanest among them thought as much on the subject as officials. The Horse Guards did its part well; what of the other departments? The Commissariat was reduced to the lowest ebb. It had neither officers, organisation, or means. Could these be renewed in time? Experience proves they