The Express.
London, England, 1853-08-11 00:00:00

LONDON, THURSDAY, AUGUST 11.

We seem to have taken of late to Playing at Sol-
diers, and to-day we are Playing at Sailors also. The
Camp at Chobham is followed by the Review at
Spithead. Being practical people we manifested some
public satisfaction on being told that to work Infantry,
Cavalry, and Artillery together in Surrey would lead
to the cure of divers evils of our military system.
But tho i tprovements we were told would follow our
temporary adoption of themilitary systems of the Co-
ntinent are still in perspective. The reforms constantly
asked for, for months and. years past, have not yet
been made ; and all that Chobham seems at present
to have really achieved is a place in the list of Ex-
I cursions from London—somo extra traffic for the

South Western Railway—a constant corner in the
pages of Punch. The Chobham Playing at
Soldiers is (we repeat) to be followed by a
Portsmouth Playing at Sailors. The red coats hav-
ing tired out the idlers on town,—having spent un-
counted quantities of blank cartridge, and displayed
unheard-of prodigies of valour round about Virginia
Water, we are to have the naval service put upon their
I mettle. Infantry, cavalry, engineers, artillery, are

all at once at a discount. Tho town cuts Chob-
ham in a body, and rushes helter-skelter,
by special train and special steamboats, to
be sea-sick at Spithead. The waste of harmless gun-
powder is to be transferred from the land to the
water, and the idlers of court and city, tired by
the real toils of sham-fights on shore, are now
to be gratified by mock battles at sea. The
Lords and Commons are all bidden to the show ;
and less could scarcely have been done, for
both Lords and Commons have been most
courtier-like, most discreetly mute (with one or
two manly exceptions) about the Eastern question.
And then the Commons, who have to vote the
money for these speclacks outside the Opera, must
be propitiated. So two of her MAJL-11CS steamers are
ordered to take on board all Honourable Members
who may choose to present themselves at Portsmouth
Ifor that purpose soon after daybreak this morning.
i The vessels are ordered punctually at six—with sea-
-1 sickness to follow. Great will be the hilarity of Ports-
mouth and the joy of Portsea. If they cannot have
re al war, then three cheers fora sham one. Flags willbe
' flying, and great will be the businessof the brewers and
publicans of Hants. A few thousand, at the most, may
see those grand sea Itviatlians, our Wooden Walls, go
through some distant and half smoke-hidden mermen-
vres—floating giants at play—and then the remaining
millions of tax-payers will pay the piper; and the
whole affair, like the echoes of our sea thunder off
the Nab, will die away—in smoke.

WE are often told that ours is an age in which
we must never calculate upon events diverging from
the usual tram-roads—that there is nothing for ns

but to look upon social life as a very mechanical,
prosaic affair, and make the beet of it. If wo want
romance, we are told to look for it at the circulating'
library. Society is " cabin'd, cribb'd, confin'd "
within such narrow limits, is pinioned down by such a
multitude of petty trammels, that we must never expect
any development within it that may not be explained
by the commonest laws. There are very few dili-
gent observers of the course of public events who
will not be able to show the utter fallacy of this

statement of the composition of modern society. Such
persons know well enough that in any crowd they
enter they may be jostled by some individual worthy
to figure as the hero of a three-volume novel
or a five-act drama. They will not turn
pale f you tell them that they have
just shaken hands with a murderer. They
acknowledge as the vulgarest of truisms that "there
is a skeleton in every house." They are fully con-
vinced that as they walk through society they are
for ever on the verge of awful mysteries that the
merest accident may bring to light. They are certain
of only one thing, that nothing in the constituted
state of social life around them is certain. Such
person■ as these will look upon the trial at
Gloucester (reported in our columns this day), in

which a soi-dibant Sir RICHARD SMYTH strove to eject
an undoubtedly bona fide SMITH (a minor) from
the possession of estates valued at from 20,0001. to
25,0001. a year as a phenomenon that may be ex-
pected occasionally to manifest itself in the working
of society. The " used up" portion of the world
would never expect to meet with details of this nature '
out of a three-volume novel. Certainly, they are
such as would do credit to the imagination of a crack
novelist. SMITH versus SMITH is clearly an illus-
tration of the romance of real life.
The present possessor of the ancestral acres of the
SMITHS derives his title from his grandmother, the

sister of a certain Sir 111:GII SMYTH, who died in 1824.
Sir HUGH was known to be twice married, and to
have had no issue in either case. On the death of
Sir limit, is 1824, his brother, Sir JOIIN, succeeded to
his estates, who, dying in 1849, was succeeded by
his sister FLORENCE. The plaintiff claimed possession
as a legitimate son of old Sir by a previous mar-
riage. Ilis mother, he said, died in childbed, and the
birth was kept a secret, because the father wished to
marry a daughter of the Bishop of BRISTOL. The
plaintiff was (he alleged) sent abroad, and his father
made afterwards to believe him dead. The documents
brought forward in support of the plaintiff's case were
the register of the marriage from an old family Bible
—the register of the baptism from the same Bible—
a letter from Sir Hum to the wife just upon the
eve of delivery—and deeds made in favour of the
present claimant when Sir HUGH was made ac-
quainted with the fact of his existence. It is to be
remarked that the signatures to these documents were
attested with various degrees of assurance by persons
apparently entitled to different grades of credit. One
fact was asserted which, although it proves nothing,
was calculated to make a remarkable imprtssion. The
plaintiff declared that when in 1849 he communicated
to Sir JOON SMYTH the fact of his being in posses-
sion of proof that he was the legal heir, the effect