Quiet restored by the unanimous chorus, we fell asleep: "Joe," in the morning, declared" that tiptop row would beat hollow a Woolwich slum pothouse on a Saturday night, and the circus play-house could not come a hacting like that ere, with merry Andrews, dancing bears, sham fights, and ballad-brawlers into the bargain." The cutdown middy depicted with a rueful countenance "the awfulness of his position," when his shirt was the ready winding sheet, "the ashes to ashes, dust to dust," ringing in his ears, and hearing that old Nick of a fellow with his hands digging the grave in the shingle. And Tristram acknowledges that no night in his officer's career was never passed with more excitement and incident, than when he, a midshipman-prizemaster, voluntarily imprisoned himself, for a night's rest, among the unrestrained inmates in the hold of a "press tender;" but where he was "as safe as in a church," while faithful Joe, the marine, commanded the main guard 'fore the officers' hammocks.

Slow indeed was the progress of the naval subordinates to equality with the military subalterns, as passengers on board "contract" or "merchant" vessels, until we, as the author of all the leaders on naval subjects, and the letters of Tristram, brought to the notice of the authorities their inferior accommodation.*

"April 20th, 1855.-To all commissioned officers, and officers accustomed to mess with the lieutenants," a certain amount of passage money was allowed from all foreign stations to England; but "to mates, assistant-surgeons, second-masters, and subordinate and warrant officers, half the amount." "Hence any master or mate of a merchant vessel would infer that the mates, assistant-surgeons, second-masters, and assistant paymasters of the navy are not commissioned officers, and will consequently be treated with the usual indifference to half-deck passengers, who are of every degree, colour, and denomination."

The leader concluded with this point blank shot at this degradation of the naval subordinate officers' rank and position, on passage to duties in the service of their country :-

"Here is indeed a grievance to the naval assistant-sugeons worthy of a motion in the House of Commons, which we trust will soon be made, with a view to its redress, and to bring under legislative consideration the general degradation of the junior commissioned officers of the navy on board contract and merchant vessels, which their 'passage allowance' have unequitably created."

Tristram followed his leader up by letter, April 27th, headed "Naval Officers Banished to the Half-deck' and Before the Funnel.""

"The mates and assistant-surgeons, the second-masters and assistant-paymasters, commissioned officers in Her Majesty's forces by sea and the following gentlemen naval officers, 'by order' in Council, viz., midshipmen and medical students (avaunt, ye spectres * British Army Despatch and Nautical Standard, from April 13, 1854, to April 25, 1856.

of dressers), clerks, assistant-masters, and naval cadets, all of whom, in a ship-of-war, are entitled to parade the Queen's quarter-deck, must, as second-class passengers in a contract steam-vessel, Takə notice, none but cabin passengers admitted abaft the funnel.""

Here is the true description of these officers' privations, in their miserable berths under "half-deck hatches :-

"In the half-deck' of a merchant vessel, these commissioned officers and quarter-deck gentlemen, who in a ship-of-war have their stewards and cook paid by the country, will have no attendance but the ship's boy, who will take the soup and the tea, the salt meat and pudding, from the coppers alternately in the same wooden kid; iron spoons, wiped with anything, will serve to sip coffee, soup, or grog; and the carpenter's sheath-blade, which is used for every distasteful purpose, will be the general carving knife."

The whole leader and letter, published eleven years ago, obtained a practical alteration in favour of those junior naval officers on board passage vessels; but the present Admiralty squared this naval wrong with the military right.

"Passages in Contract and Merchant Vessels. -All officers (including warrant and subordinate officers), when ordered pasaages in contract vessels, are to be provided with first-class accommodation; and petty officers of the navy are to be provided with second-class accommodation, as in the case of non-commissioned officers of the army."

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Travelling Expenses, &c., of Officers and others on the Home Stations. All officers (including warrant and subordinate officers), who may be entitled to travel by railway at the public expense, are to be furnished with passes for the first-class. Petty officers, seamen, and others, under similar circumstances, are to be furnished with passes to enable them to be accommodated in 'covered carriages' with seats."

The increased scale of Greenwich Hospital pensions for the executive officers is cut down, and the reduced number of these pensions distributed to other applicants, viz., chaplains, medical officers, engineers, and marine officers, by an Order in Council, which new scale we little imagined was in Admiralty frame when we, in the pages of the United Service Magazine for last month, gave the increased number of these pensious to the captains, commanders, and lieutenants, by their lordships' final authority, and so considered throughout the Navy List; but the medical officers' lever on the fulcrum of the colleges hurled the increased out-pensions from the original pedestals of the commanding executives, who on deck brave all weathers by day and night, and scattered them among the civilians and others, who sleep all night and are sheltered all day from the inclemency of the weather.

"Greenwich Hospital Pensions."-Her Majesty sanctions the granting of the following pensions to officers of the Navy entitled to the benefits of Greenwich Hospital, to be enjoyed so long as they are not on the establishment of inmates of the hospital. Such persons

to be called "Greenwich Hospital pensioners," and to be paid out of the Greenwich Hospital funds. Ten pensions of £150 a year each to flag officers, to be selected from the list, six only of those to be granted at present, and the remaining four as vacancies occur among the four flag officers of Greenwich Hospital; these ten flag officers to have the privilege of rising in half-pay, as well as in rank, to that of full admiral, such persons not to be held in addition to "good service pensions;" captains, one pension of £80; commanders, five pensions of £65; lieutenants, five pensions of £50; staff-commanders and masters, three pensions of £50; inspectors of machinery and chief engineers, seven pensions of £65; chaplains and naval instructors, seven pensions of £50; deputy inspectors-general of hospitals and fleets, one pension of £80; staff-surgeons and surgeons, 14 pensions of £50; paymastero-inchief and paymasters, 13 pensions of £50; chief and first class gunners, five pensions of £25; chief and first class boatswains, six pensions of £25; chief and first class carpenters, four pensions of £25; field officers and Royal Marines, four pensions of £80; captains of Royal Marines, five pensions of £50.

Her Majesty has further approved the following regulations-1. That retired officers should only be eligible for the pension applicable to the rank which they held on the active list. 2. That all officers who accept these pensions be placed on the retired list or superannuated, if warrant officers, and that they be allowed to retain their pensions notwithstanding promotion. 3. That the service afloat required to render officers eligible for these pensions shall be as follows:-Captains, 15 years; commanders, 12 years; lieutenants, nine years: staff commanders and masters, nine years; inspectors of machinery and chief engineers, nine years; deputy inspectors-general of hospitals and fleets, nine years; staff-surgeons and surgeons, nine years: paymasters-in-chief and paymasters, nine years; chief and first class gunners, nine years; chief and first. class boatswains, nine years; chief and first class carpenters, nine years; chaplains and naval instructors, 15 years; marine officers, 21 years service afloat, or on shore on full pay, except in the case of such officers as have received severe wounds in action, or disabling hurts on actual service, whose cases may be specially considered by the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty. 4. That the existing rules respecting time in the coast-guard, transport, and mail service established by Order in Council of the 1st August, 1860, be applicable to the above officers."

Had this scale of Greenwich Hospital pensions been the foremost on the file, it might have excited a mere questionable opinion of its equity-but arising, as the French say, from the "accomplished fact," that the medical officers command, through the colleges and the Commons, the whip-hand of the Admiralty-we must consider that it is not fair play aboveboard to give first the increased pensions to, and then to rob the poor executive Peters to pay the rich civilian Pauls.

NOTES ON WEST INDIA CORPS.

Jamaica being now before the civilised world, drawn from her obscurity by recent startling events, and called upon to give some account of herself, shows a list of shortcomings quite sufficient to afford materials for all classes of political and social disputants, and therefore a few words on West India Regiments may not be out of

season.

In the palmy days of sugar monopoly, these Colonial Corps used to be regarded with no very favourable eye by the resident proprietors, who felt the degradation of owing their security to, or being coerced by the countrymen of their own slaves.

As, however, the richer and wiser of those Colonists lost no time. in exchanging their uncertain "cane pieces" for smaller, perhaps, but more secure possessions at home, and a less independent class of immigrant supplied their places, these black corps were gradually and quietly received as a necessary local institution, increased or reduced according to the necessities of war or peace.

By a reference to recent Army Estimates, we find that an establishment of 4,329 officers and men of the West India Regiments costs in pay alone the startling sum of £131,045 annually, or nearly as much, if not practically more, than the best of our own English soldiers.

The establishment of a company in these regiments consists of a Captain, two Subalterns, and 101 of all other grades; and eight such companies, compose a battalion, with one Colonel, two Majors, a Paymaster, Quarter-Master, Adjutant, and a proportion of Staff-Sergeants; but unlike other corps, these have no Medical Officer permanently appointed, or attached to them; nor have they any Depots for officers as formerly in England, and which used to occasion unpleasant collisions with those of "the line," highly prejudicial to the interests of the Service.

These Colonial Corps are an agglomeration of the most discordant elements the enforced Volunteer from a captured slaver-the vagabond Creole black-the idle East India Coolie-the dissipated Mulatto with pretensions to a white connection-superior Sergeants from Regiments of the Line, or such as have formed marriages with coloured women- the Officer who is ambitious of holding a higher position, under a lower social system-the Candidate for rapid promotion by purchase--the decayed Gentleman-the sons of Local Officials-and lastly, élevés from the ranks.

It will readily be seen that to bring such a mass into discipline and harmony, must be rather an exercise for special ingenuity, than a task likely to be serviceable to the State, and there are men who take a pleasure in thus giving evidence of capacity in some peculiar rather than useful or profitable task, and who labour to demonstrate a problem of no practical utility.

But, notwithstanding these desultory efforts, the Colonial Corps are very much depreciated, and each seems in its turn, as we have been assured, to join in the popular outcry against its neighbours.

In other Colonies, as a rule, the Local Force by being confined to one Island or Province, learns the necessity of conciliating the Civil Population, and avoiding debt and irregular habits, but in the West Indies, the Jamaica Officer may say to himself, "What matter how I live here to-day-there to-morrow-cared for by nobodyperhaps booked for the coast,' there to die." So argues each in his turn, and thus a recklessness is engendered which has been the subject of very general comment.

Again, a residence on the Coast of Equatorial Africa, and a sojourn amongst Fantees, or a Campaign against their neighbours, are not calculated to develope the better qualities of our countrymen-indeed so low is the social scale in our possessions on the Western shores of that great continent, that, although no doubt amongst our officials may be found occasionally a man of superior antecedents or ability, the majority of the resident Europeans seem rather to adopt the barbarisms of their temporary home, than to carry with them the civilisation of England.

Amongst other causes of the unsatisfactory state of these Regiments, may be classed the following:-1st. The tendency to break up into disjointed cliques. 2nd. Improvidence of officers, and inevitable expenses of mess. 3rd. The neglect of religious observances by the majority of officers. 4th. The system of espionage, substituted for the word of honour. 5th. Frequent Courts Martial. 6th. Breaking up corps into detachments. 7th. Unsatisfactory monetary transactions. 8th. Impossibility of any 'esprit de corps.

The tendency to break up into cliques may be attributed to several causes-Companies on Detachment duty with their own officers, for any length of time, become alienated in feeling, and to a certain extent, in interests from the main body of the battalion, so that when in the course of duty they are relieved and return to Head-Quarters, the officers at any rate retain their exclusive spirit, and not unfrequently hold to one another in knots, should any disorders amongst the Field-Officers lead to the disruption of the social system of the corps.

Here, too, where so many men of humble origin, who, by merit or fortune, have become the associates of others, started from their respective spheres, by poverty or the hope of rapid promotion by purchase, a threefold element of discord is at once found; while removed as these three classes are from the wholesome checks of social life in England, there is constantly fermenting a struggle for the mastery, and according as a representative of one or other of the three rises to the command of the Corps, so does his party flourish to the detriment of the rest, who, however, in their turn are not idle, but have generally one of their own, in course of preparation to succeed to the command and readjust the balance of power; thus U S. MAG. No. 449, APRIL, 1866.

MM