Many of the officers are scarcely to be distinguished from the men in air, bearing, or dress, except by the plain, ill-made, and slight swords, which they carry from an unornamented shoulder-belt; but now and then one sees a young iellow with the appearance of a gentleman, in spite of his coai'se long coat; occasionally a great tall lumbering fellow, Avho seems to be of a different race from the men around him, slouches along in his heavy boots. Tlie clothing of the troops appears to be good. Tlieir boots, into which they tuck their loose trousers, are easy and well-made, and the great-coats worn by the men fit them better than our own fit the English infantry. The colour, which is not so much a grey as a dunnish driib, is admirably suited not onlj^ to conceal the wearers in an open countrj', but to defy dust, mud, or rain, to alter its appearance.
FOL'KTii Division, March 31. The recent debates on the system of purchase in our army have been verj"^ much canvas.sed in camp since the reports reached US, and it must be admitted that the advocates of the system are more numerous than its opponents, whatever may be the relative merits of their arguments. Of course the commission i.s looked upon as a device to shelve the questiori for some time to come. The iViends of" the system seem to take it for granted that the arguments used against it must emanate from men of democi'atical and imconstitutional tendencies, and from enemies to the army and to the aristocracy, and Captain Figgs or Colonel Cottontwist are as fierce in their denunciations of Lord Goderich, Sir De Lacy Evans, and even Lord Palmerston, because he made some theoretical admissions against the system, as Lord Plantagenet or the Earl of Saxo-Gi-ammaticus.
They protest loudly that the object of these innovators is to drive "gentlemen" out of the armj'-; while their opponents declare that the eflect of the system is to keep " gentlemen," — those iieiy cadets of old families who in other times were the true soldiers of fortune, the descendants of the gentry cavaliers,— om^ of the army. If the ex-Sergeant Jones, now holding a commission in one of our corps or regiments, is noisy in his cups and over-elated with his good fortune, his peccadilloes are the. subject of rejoicings, and are regarded as sufficiently conclusive evidence that we cannot open our commissions to the rank and file; and if he is brought to a court-martial and reprimanded or cashiered, the demonstration is complete.
It must be admitted that the training of our barrack-rooms is not favourable to the acquirement of decent manners and gentlemanlike demeanour, and that until we elevate the profession of anns in England, and remove the popularly impressed stigma from the rank of a private soldier, we cannot expect to induce the needy members of the more respectable classes in society to enter as volunteers; and the high rate of rewards for skill in all mechanical and industrial arts will ever offer an obstacle to the efforts of the recruiting sergeant to enlist a better sort of recruits so long as the present scale of pay and ration stoppages is maintained. The advocates for the abolition of purchase are impressed by the force of such objections as are presented by the general constitution of our array; but, after all, what the country keeps up its army for is, not to consult the wishes or the tastes of any class whatever, however numerous, powerful, and wealthy, but to fight its battles and to maintain its liberties and its glory against all comers.
Pompej^'s dandies were, no doubt, greatly displeased at being slashed in the face by Caesar's rough legionaries, and thought them very low fellows, nor had Knpert's cavaliers any great opinion of the good breeding or politesse of Old Nol's Ironsides; but the camp has never been regarded as any special school for demeanour or the inculcation of etiquette, however favourable it may be to the development of some of the nobler qualities of humanity; and if we really can procure brave, intelligent, zealous, and deserving officers, though tliey may have a smack of the barrack-room about them, we must submit to the inconvenience. It must be recollected that our boasted mess system utterly breaks down in active campaigning, and that the officers live separately or in very small groups in the held, so that it is only in times of fcace that those whom Providence finxit vieliore Into will be obliged to come in contact with the commissioned gi-ossio', who will, after all, always be in a very small minority.