ber of officers more than our army requires, as has been kept up since the peace. But these payments do not form the whole of the expense imposed on the public, by having so many officers; for there can be but little doubt, that the army has been increased, staff-appointments created, and various projects adopted, not because there was any kind of necessity for any of these arrangements, but merely to find employment for the officers. Clothing the Army. In 1833 the sum of £255,000 was voted for clothing the army. This business is placed in the hands of the Colonels of regiments. A Colonel of cavalry is allowed £1,636 a-year, and a Colonel of infantry £2,186, each with the right to put as much of these allowances in his pocket as he can; provided he furnish clothing according to the prescribed regulations. It is impossible that any plan of executing a public service can be more objectionable than this is. It may be true that the Colonels find good clothing, and do not abuse the power which is given them of sacrificing the comforts of the soldier to their private interests; but, however correct the working of the plan may be, this circumstance can never justify continuing to act on so vicious a principle as that upon which it is founded. The committee, therefore, on Army Appointments of last session, came to a very incorrect decision, when they determined to recommend that this plan should still be acted upon. Another reason for discontinuing it is the circumstance that the Board of Ordnance has proved, by having to furnish the clothing of some parts of the military force, that it can provide equally good clothing as that provided by the Colonels, at a smaller expense. The difference in favour of the Ordnance may be taken at 14s. a man; and this, on the number of men in the army, would make a saving of about £70,000 a-year. The right course, therefore, to be pur.. sued, is to place the clothing of the army under the Ordnance Board. The evidence given by Colonels of regiments, and army clothiers, before the Committee on Army Appointments, with a view of showing that the Colonels are able to provide as cheap clothing as the Board of Ordnance, will have no weight with any one capable of forming a correct judgment on these matters; because it is morally impossible that individual Colonels, dealing with army clothiers, each for a small number of men, could make such advantageous bargains as the Board of Ordnance could make by well-managed contracts, if it had to clothe so large a number as 100,000 men. There is still another reason for getting rid of the present system of clothing, and that is, there being no grounds to justify continuing to give to any Colonel of a regiment, hereafter appointed, the emolument which a Colonel now receives from the clothing allowance. His office as Colonel is a perfect sinecure; and if it should be decided not to abolish this class of sinecures, the pay a Colonel receives for holding the com mission of Colonel, about £500 a-year, should be considered as amply sufficient, and the emolument from clothing should be discontinued. This would make a saving of £70,000 a-year. CHELSEA HOSPITAL. In the estimates of 1833, the sum of £47,883 was voted for the charge of that establishment. Of that sum about £23,000 is applicable to that part of the establishment which manages the outpensions of soldiers; the remainder is expended on the salaries of governors and other officers on the establishment, the repairs and gardens of the hospital, and maintaining about 500 soldiers as in-pensioners. As the warrants, under which the Governors and Commissioners of Chelsea Hospital act with respect to paying the soldiers' pensions are prepared at the War Office, and as in the regular course of conducting the business of the army, the information which is necessary for a proper superintendance of the granting of pensions is deposited in the War Office, it is obvious that the Secretary-at-War is the proper officer for carrying the provisions of the warrants into execution, and for doing what is requisite for securing a proper application of the money voted for pensions by Parliament. The great extent, as lately discovered, to which abuses have been carried with respect to soldiers' pensions, makes it highly expedient that the whole of the business belonging to the out-pensioners should be transferred to the War-Office. If this measure were adopted, there would be no reason for continuing any longer to keep up the establishment at Chelsea. The soldiers derive no advantage from being admitted as inpensioners. The rules of the hospital exclude all those soldiers who are incapable of taking care of themselves; and experience shows that men of good character and industrious habits are rarely candidates for admission. After being admitted, many apply for and receive permission to leave the hospital. In point of fact it is notorious that it is a matter of some difficulty to get pensioners to come into the hospitals. The military establishment of the hospital, which manages the in-pensioners, consists of the following persons:— In addition to their salaries, every officer has apartments in the hospital; also supplies of stationery, coals, wood, and candles, and an allowance in lieu of diet and furniture. In 1807, according to a return to the Committee of Finance of 1828, £137, 13s. 6d. was paid for the expense | the nature of pensions, half-pay, and retired alof the Governor's garden. lowances, has been regulated. The offices of Physician and Surgeon are sine The charge for the army has been diminished, in four years, from 1828, only L.350,000. The charge for the navy has been increased, since 1828, by L.77,000; and that for the ordnance diminished, since 1828, only by L.189,000. The present charge for the non-effective expenditure of the ordnance, is nearly what the whole charge for this service was before 1793. This statement makes it evident that unless the plan is soon changed, according to which this charge on the public has been established, and is now going on, that it will become a permanent charge, instead of being one which should have been diminishing considerably every year since the war. If to the above non-effective expenditure be added what is annually paid for civil pensions, and superannuation allowance, the account of what is paid by the public for non-effective services of all kinds will be as follows: Non-effective military expenditure, £4,754,896 Pensioners, (taken as the same as in 1828,) Superannuation, do. do. Total £6,013,688 This great amount of the non-effective expenditure in the army, navy, and ordnance, shows the profusion and the want of due consideration for the public interests, with which everything in In order to protect the public, for the future, from this system of making provision out of the public purse for so many thousand persons who, while in active service, receive full remuneration for their time and trouble, it may be well to consider whether any individual not now in public service, who shall be hereafter appointed to any civil or military employment, should be allowed to receive any pension, half-pay, or superannuation allowance, except in special cases, and under the responsibility of Government. At all events the present rates of all kinds of non-effective pay should be reduced, and the regulations under which they are granted, revised, and made much more strict. No officer should be allowed to receive half-pay till after five years active service in the field, or fifteen years' other service. The pay of all soldiers who hereafter enter the army should be reduced twopence a day, and their pensions should be reduced one-half; and all other military pensions should be reduced at least one-fourth. Since the foregoing pages were put in types, the army estimates for 1834 have been voted by the House of Commons. They show some improvement. Seven thousand men are to be reduced. The office of Comptrollers of Army Accounts is to be abolished, and the in-pensioners of Kilmainham are to be removed to Chelsea; but all this is very little in comparison with what ought to be done. The House of Commons by their votes this session, on the Navy and Army Estimates, has displayed either excessive ignorance of these subjects, or most culpable neglect of its duty. If the constituent body suffers it to vote away the public money in this manner, they have no right to call on ministers to repeal taxes. The divisions on Mr. Hume's motions for reductions in the Naval and Army Establishments, prove that the present House is much inferior to any former House of Commons in promoting effectual economy. SKETCHES OF LIFE AND MANNERS; FROM THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN ENGLISH OPIUM EATER. Continued from last Number. IRELAND was still smoking with the embers | Park, where the Lord Lieutenant was then reof rebellion; and Lord Cornwallis, who had been sent expressly to extinguish it, and was said to have fulfilled his mission with energy and success, was then the Lieutenant, and was regarded at that moment with more interest than any other public man. Accordingly I was not sorry when, two mornings after our arrival, my friend's father said to us at breakfast, "Now, if you wish to see what I call a great man, go with me this morning, and I will take you to see Lord Cornwallis; for that man, who has given peace both to the East and to the West, I must consider in the light of a great man." We willingly accompanied the Earl to the Phoenix siding, and were privately presented to him. I had seen an engraving (celebrated, I believe, in its day) of Lord Cornwallis receiving the young Mysore princes as hostages at Seringapatam; and I knew the outline of his public services. This gave me an additional interest in seeing him: but I was disappointed to find no traces in his manner of the energy and activity I presumed him to possess ; he seemed, on the contrary, slow or even heavy, but kind and benevolent in a degree which won the confidence at once. Him we saw often; for Lord A-took us with him wherever and whenever we wished; and me in particular, it often gratified highly to see persons of historical names,—names, I mean, historically | tion. By the way, I remember that one mornconnected with the great events of Elizabeth's ing at breakfast, on occasion of some conversaor Cromwell's era, attending at the Phoenixtion arising about Irish Bulls, I made an agreePark. But the persons whom I remember most ment with Lord Ato note down in a medistinctly of all whom I was then in the habit of morandum-book every thing throughout my stay seeing, were Lord Clare, the Chancellor, the late in Ireland. which, to my feeling as an EnglishLord Londonderry, (then Castlereagh,) at that man, should seem to be, or to approach to a bull. time the Irish Chancellor of the Exchequer, And this day, at dinner, I reported from Lady and the Speaker of the House of Commons, (since, Castlereagh's conversation, what struck me as a I believe, created Lord Oriel.) With the bull. Lord A laughed, and said, My Speaker, indeed, Lord A- had more intimate connexions than with any other public man; both dear X. Y. Z., I am sorry that it should so happen your bull is certainly a bull:* but as certainly Lady C. is your countrywoman, and not an Irishwoman at all. This was a bad beginning certainly but was Lord A- quite accu rate? Lady C. was a daughter of Lord Buckinghamshire; and her maiden name was Lady E. Hobart. One other public scene there was about this time in Dublin, to the eye less captivating, but far more so in a moral sense. This was the final ratification of the Bill which united Ireland to Great Britain. I do not know that any one public act, or celebration, or solemnity, in my time, did, or could so much engage my profoundest sympathies. Wordsworth's fine sonnet on the extinction of the Venetian Republic had not then been published, else the last two lines would have expressed my feelings. After admitting that changes had taken place in Venice, which in manner challenged and presumed this last and mortal change, the poet closes thus a "Men are we, and must grieve when even the shade Of that which once was great has pass'd away." But here the previous circumstances were far different from those of Venice, nay opposite. There we saw a superannuated and paralytic State, sinking at any rate into the grave, and yielding, to the touch of military violence, that only which a short lapse of years must inevitably have yielded to internal decay. Here, on the contrary, we saw a young eagle, rising into power, and robbed prematurely of her natural titles of honour, only because she did not comprehend their value, and because at this great crisis she had no champion. Ireland, in a political sense, was surely then in her youth, considering the prodigious development she has since experienced in population, and in resources of all kinds. The day, the important day, had been long looked forward to by me; no doubt also by my young friend; for he was a keen lover of Ire The idea of a Bull is even yet undefined; which is most extraordinary, considering that Miss Edgeworth has applied all her tact and illustrative power, to furnish the matter for such a definition; and Mr. Coleridge, all his philosophic subtlety, to furnish its form. But both have been too fastidious in their admission of bulls. Thus, for example, Miss Edgeworth rejects, as no true bull, the common Joe Miller story, that, upon two Irishmen reaching Barnet, and being told that it was still twelve miles to London, one of them replied,-" Ah! just six miles apace." This, says Miss E., is no bull, but a sentimental remark on the maxim, that friendship divides our pains. Nothing of the kind: Miss Edgeworth cannot have understood it. The bull is a true, perfect, and almost ideal specimen of the genus. siderations; first, that the evils likely to arise (and which in France have arisen) from what is termed, in modern politics, the principle of centralization, have been for us either evaded or nook of these "nook-shotten" islands, react But land, and jealous of whatever appeared to touch her honour. But it was not for him to say anything which should seem to impeach his father's patriotism in voting for the Union, and promot. ing it through his borough influence. Yet often-neutralized. The provinces, to the very furthest times it seemed to me, when I introduced the subject, and sought to learn from Lord Athe main grounds which had reconciled him and other men, anxious for the welfare of Ireland, to a measure which at least robbed her of some splendour, and, above all, robbed her of a name and place amongst the independent States of Europe, that both father and son would not have been displeased, had some great popular violence put force upon the recorded will of Parliament, and compelled the two Houses to perpetuate themselves. Dolorous they must of course have looked, in mere consistency; but I fancied that internally they would have laughed. Lord A, I am certain, believed (as multudes believed) that Ireland would be bettered by the commercial advantages conceded to her as an integral province of the empire, and would have benefits which, as an independent kingdom, she had not. I doubt not that this expectation was realized. But let us ask, Could not a large part of these benefits have been secured to Ire. land, remaining as she was? were they, in any sense, dependent on the sacrifice of her separate Parliament ? For my part I believe that Mr. Pitt's motive for insisting on a legislative union was, in a small proportion perhaps, the somewhat elevated desire to connect his own name with the historical changes of the empire; to have it stamped, not on events so fugitive as those of war and peace, liable to oblivion; but on the permanent relations of its integral parts. In a still larger proportion I believe his motive to have been one of pure convenience, the wish to exonerate himself from the intolerable vexation of a double Cabinet and a double Parliament. In a government such as ours, so care-laden at any rate, it is certainly most harassing to have the task of soliciting a measure by management and influence twice over, and two refractory gangs to discipline, instead of one. It must also be conceded that, neither management nor treasury influence could always avail to prevent injurious collisions between acts of the Irish and the British Parliaments. In Dublin, as in London, the Government must lay its account with being occasionally out-voted; this would be likely to happen peculiarly upon Irish questions. And acts of favour or protection, would, at times, pass, on behalf of Irish interests, not only clashing with more general ones of the central government, but indirectly also, [from the virtual consolidation of the Irish territory with the larger island since the æra of steam,] opening endless means for evading British acts, even within their own acknowledged sphere of operation. these considerations, even an Irishman must grant that public convenience called for the absorption of all local or provincial supremacies into the central supremacy. And there were two brief arguments which gave weight to those con On Meantime in those days, Ireland had no adequate champion: the Hoods and the Grattans were not up to the mark. Refractory as they were, they moved within the paling of order and decorum; they were not the Titans for a war against the heavens. When the public feeling beckoned and loudly supported them, they could follow a lead which they appeared to head; but they could not create such a body of public feeling, nor lead and head where they seemed to follow. Consequently that great opening for a turbulent son of thunder passed unimproved; and the great day drew near without symptoms of tempest. At last it arrived; and I remember nothing which indicated as much ill-temper in the public mind as I have seen on many hundreds of occasions, trivial by comparison, in London. My young friend and I were determined to lose no part of the scene, and we went down with Lord A- to the House. It was about the middle of the day, and a great mob filled the whole space about the two houses. As Lord A's coach drew up to the steps of the entrance, we heard a prodigious hissing and hooting; and I was really agitated to think that Lord A- whom I loved and respected, would have to make his way through a tempest of pub lic wrath; a situation more terrific to him than to others, from his embarrassed walking. I found, however, that I might have spared my anxiety; the subject of commotion was simply, that Major Sirr, or Major Swan, I forget which, so celebrated in those days for their energy, as leaders of the police, had detected a person in the act of mistaking some other man's pocket handkerchief for his own. No storm of any kind awaited us, and yet at that moment there was no other arrival to divide the public attention; for in order that we might see every thing from first to last, we were amongst the very earliest parties. Neither did our party escape under any mistake of the crowd; silence had succeeded to the uproar caused by the tender meeting between the thief and the Major; and a man who stood in a conspicuous situation, proclaimed aloud to those below him, the name or title of members as they entered. "That," said he, " is the Earl of A——,—the lame gentleman I mean." Perhaps, however, his knowledge did not extend so far as to the politics of a nobleman who had taken no violent or factious part in public affairs. At least the dreaded insults did not follow, or only in the very feeblest manifestations. We entered; and, by way of seeing everything, we went even to the robing room. The man who presented his robes to Lord A-, seemed to me, of all whom I saw on that day, the only one who wore a face of grief; his voice and manner also marked a depression of spirits. But whether this indicated the loss of a lucrative situation, or was really disinterested sorrow; and, if such, whether for a private loss, or out of a patriotic trouble at the knowledge that he was now officiating for the last time, I cannot say. The House of Lords, decorated (if I remember) with hangings, representing the battle of the Boyne, was nearly empty when we entered. Lord A―― took this opportunity of explaining to us the whole course and arrangement of public business on ordinary occasions, and also of rehearsing the chief circumstances in the coming ceremonial. Gradually the house filled: beautiful women sate intermingled amongst the Peers; and, in one party of these, surrounded by a bevy of admirers, we saw our fair, but frail enchantress of the packet. She, on her part, saw and recognised us by an affable nod; no stain upon her cheek, indicating that she suspected to what extent she was indebted to our discretion; for we had not so much as mentioned to Lord A the scene which chance had revealed to us. Then came a stir within the house, and an uproar resounding from without, which announced the arrival of his Excellency. Entering the house, he also, like the other Peers, wheeled round to the throne, and made to the vacant seat a profound homage. Then commenced the public, business, in which, if I recollect, the Chancellor played the most conspicuous part,that Chancellor, of whom it was affirmed in those days by a political opponent, that he might swim in the innocent blood which he had caused to be shed. Then were summoned to the bar-summoned for the last time-the gentlemen of the House of Commons; in the van of whom, and drawing all eyes upon himself, stood Lord Castlereagh. Then came the recitation of many acts passed during the session, and the sounding ratification, the jovial "Annuit, et nutu totum tremefecit Olympum," contained in the Soit fait comme il est desiré, or the more peremptory Le Roi le veut. At which point, in the order of succession, came the Royal assent to the Union Bill, I do not distinctly recollect. But this I do recollect that no audible expression, no buzz even, testified the feelings which, doubtless, lay concealed and rankling in many bosoms. Setting apart all public or patriotic considerations, even then I said to myself, as I surveyed the whole assemblage of ermined Peers-How is it, and by what unaccountable magic, that William Pitt can have prevailed on all these hereditary legislators and heads of patrician houses, to renounce so easily, with nothing worth the name of a struggle, and with no indemnification, the very brightest jewel in their coronets? This morning they all rose from their couches Peers of Parliament, individual pillars of the realm, indispensable parties to every law that is passed. To-morrow they will be nobody-men of straw-terræ filii. What madness has persuaded them to part with their birthright, and to cashier themselves and their children for ever into mere titular Lords? As to the Commoners at the bar, their case was different: they had no life estate at all events in their honours; and they might have the same chance for entering the Imperial Parliament amongst the hundred Irish members, as for reentering a native Parliament. Neither, again, amongst the Peers was the case at all equal. Several of the higher had English titles, which would, at any rate, open the central Parliament to their ambition. That privilege, I believe, attached to Lord A. And he, in any case, from his large property, was tolerably sure of finding his way thither-[as in fact for the rest of his life he always did]amongst the twentyeight representative Peers. The wonder was in the case of petty and obscure Lords, who had no weight personally, and none in right of their estates. Of these men, as they were notoriously not enriched by Mr. Pitt, as the distribution of honours was not very large, and no honour could countervail the one they lost,-of these men I could not, and cannot fathom the policy. Thus much I am sure of,-that, had such a measure been proposed by a political speculator previously to Queen Anne's reign, he would have been scouted as a dreamer and a visionary, who calculated upon men being generally somewhat worse than Esau, viz. giving up their birthrights, and without the mess of pottage. However, on this memorable day, the Union was ratified; the Bill received the Royal assent, without a mur. mur or a whisper one way or other. Perhaps there might be a little pause,-a silence like that which follows an earthquake; but there was no |