gent part of the population; while the intelligent part of the population dislikes the army which mounts guard over it. Hence the necessity of a fresh war for the conquest of the natural frontier. In the turmoil of such a war it is hoped that all other feelings would be merged in that of national vainglory.

It is only by a consideration of such facts as these that we can obtain an insight into the motives which actuate the French Emperor in his foreign policy. He is perpetually engaged in playing off the complications which arise abroad, against the troubles which meet him from within. When, therefore, we ridicule the chances of a rupture with this country, we must satisfy ourselves that no domestic difficulty could possibly arise which should force him into choosing the alternative of hostilities with England, as a less evil than those with which he has to contend at home, and as possibly the only escape from a fatal dilemma. How it can ever be to our advantage to assist and support him in the prosecution either of his home or foreign policy, it is difficult to discover. In the pursuit of abstract economical theories, and the application of those enlightened commercial principles which characterise a certain class of politicians, we run the risk of overlooking the practical view of the question, and allow our political judgment to be warped by our mercantile sympathies. Thus, by means

of the Treaty recently concluded with France, we have succeeded in alienating from us the only class in the Empire who have ever really been our friends, not from any love to England, but because it was their interest to maintain peaceful relations with this country. All those manufacturing and producing bodies, whose petitions against the Treaty have been pouring in to the Government, since the announcement of the alteration of the Tariff, are become bitter enemies to their rivals here, and a long time must elapse before the masses benefit sufficiently to give a preponderating weight of opinion in favour of free trade. Meantime, the resource of the sufferers lies in a war with England, and the consequent high prices. They who always deprecated such an event as a serious injury to their manufacturing and commercial prosperity, now hail it as their only chance of salvation from utter ruin; and when, eighteen months hence, the obnoxious reductions of duty are made, and a widespread feeling of discontent swells into a murmur of active opposition, our faithful ally will point across the Channel to the authors of the mischief; and should the silvery accents with which he responded to the axioms of Mr Cobden be then changed to a tone of defiance, it will find its readiest echo in the breasts of those among the French people who have always hitherto been our stanchest friends.

"WHEN Right is in front, Left is the Pivot." This is the first thing taught to the cornet; and, if constant repetition can impress such a formula deeply on his brain, it may well be the last thing that haunts his dying thoughts when he departs this life an ancient colonel.

This, the ruling principle of all our cavalry movements, the source of all regularity and precision, according to the advocates of one side; the source of a more than counterbalancing intricacy and slowness, according to the advocates of the other, is now attacked. Not for the first time. Nolan, in his work on Cavalry, mentions (if I am not mistaken) more than one scheme, and gives one of his own as well, for dispensing with it; and now Colonel Conolly, Assistant Adjutant-General at Portsmouth, in a recent number of a military paper, brings forward with a similar object a system which, he tells us, was originally imported into England by Colonel Ainslie, late of the 7th Dragoon Guards; who in the year 1848 had seen it in operation (by way of experiment I presume) amongst a body of French cuirassiers.

The innovation is one that will be attacked in many ways. Unless my brethren in arms are changed of late, a proposal to tear away from us our pivots will give rise to as much scorn in capital letters and sarcasm in italics"-to as much employment of notes of admiration and inverted commas-to as many appeals to Mr Editor of the Military Fogies' Journal to "use his powerful pen"-as any proposition I can think of, unless it were one for taking the gold stripes off our trousers. And not altogether without reason. For if ever there were a case which admitted of a more than commonly safe application of that safe proposition "that there is much to be said on both sides," this is it.

"But, to begin with;" a civilian may ask, "What does your formula mean?" As many of our Volunteers, or intending Volunteers, the men

most immediately interested in the question, must at this moment be in a state of pure civilianism, it may be useful if I try to answer the question.

Let the inquirer take two dinnerknives-if no better they are no worse than anything else that suggests itself to me-and place them in one straight line: the edge of each facing in the same direction. These we will suppose to be two troops in line; the edge representing the front of the troops, and the two troops constituting one squadron. Now, taking the right-hand extremity of each as pivot, let him wheel each to the right to the extent of a quarter circle, so that the two shall form parallel lines at right angles to the front of their former position. Now we say the troops are in open column, Right in front

so said, because that troop which was on the right of the line, now leads. Again, let him take the right extremity of each as pivot, and again wheel each one a quadrant to the right, so that they may again fall into line. Now let him observe-is the knife which originally held the right of the line, still on the right of its companion? No: it is on the left. But if, instead of executing this last-described wheel into line to the right, he exactly reverses the proceeding: if he takes the left extremity of each for pivot, and, from column, wheels them into line to the left, he will find that the knife which originally held the right, holds it still. And this last order of knives is what our military system calls the "natural order." When the knives are in the position produced by the wheel from column into line to the right, they are said to be "inverted." And if from the original line the experimenter chooses to bring them into column by a wheel to the left, he will find that a wheel into line to the Right restores the natural order, while a wheel to the left inverts it. And this is the explanation of the formula, "when Right is in front, Left is the Pivot: when Left is in front, Right is the Pivot:"-one

which I have known cornets obliged to receive, chiefly on the ground that "ung homme de bien, ung homme de bon sens croit tousiours ce qu'on luy dict, et qu'il trouue par escript."

As regards squadrons, the system now in use admits of inversion. A regiment in column of squadrons is allowed to wheel them into line either to the right or to the left, though one of these movements must necessarily invert them. But as regards the component parts of each squadron, from the troop down to the individual horseman, all inversion is prohibited. Whatever relative order has, on first formation, been assumed by the men in the troop, or the troops in the squadron, that is to be retained through all the chances and the changes of manoeuvre; an object which is attained by the help of a series of movements contrived with a special reference to it.

It is likely enough that, upon reading this, the first impulse of many an unprofessional man will be to cry out "Pedantry" and "Red Tape;" and, reverting to my illustration of the knives, to ask whether they are the less knives because a given one holds the left instead of the right. Perhaps not. But yet as is the case in many instances where similar cries are raised-the apparent pedantry has its reasons: it is the result of an attempt to preserve, at the expense of some slowness, a regularity whose loss has been proved by experience to entail a tenfold slow

ness.

Take some thirty or forty horsemen, and place them in rank side by side, and then give them the word to "advance by single files" (it may make it more intelligible to unprofessional people if I say in the words of a captain of the City Light-Horse, to "make a string of ones" *) from the right flank. It is easy enough to suppose that they have done it, and have established their string of ones, forty long now give them

the word to form parties of, say, three abreast. This would be easy too, if a whisper from heaven would come to each man saying, "such and such other two are the men that you are to form with;" but as since the days of Socrates there has been no wellauthenticated instance of a supernatural communication having been made to any individual trooper, let alone to every man of a whole squadron,we may dismiss this supposition, and assume that, as no man can tell with whom he is to form, it could only be after a terrible amount of shuffling and after great loss of time that the formation could be effected at all. The natural mode of removing this source of confusion is to "tell off by threes," that is, to arrange the rank, on its first formation, into groups of three. This done, so long as the members of each group do not forget their companions, they can

"form threes."

Now, let your string of "ones," which has advanced from the right, ride up into line with the leading horseman; and do it by the process of each successive man riding upon the right of his predecessor. It is not difficult to see that the relative position of the individuals in the line so produced is, speaking with reference to their position in the original line, inverted. The "three' which held the right of the first line, holds the left of the second; and the man who held the right of each three, holds the left. And if you follow up this new formation by another advance by single files from the right, it follows that the new column, as compared with the old one, is also inverted as regards the relative order of the individuals composing it, and that he who once rode at the head of a "three" now rides at the tail. If under these new circumstances any reminiscence of his old position come over him to the exclusion of a sense of his new one,— and instances of such a loss of wits are nowise rare on the part of horse