The Sun.
London, England, 1863-04-01 00:00:00

The United Service Magazine.

An interesting and valuable political article opens
the narrative apropos to " The Army and Navy
Estimates." After a brief treatise upon "Navy
Timber," wr accompany another contributor,
without budging from our armchair, however,
upon " A Trip to Vancouver's Island and
British Columbia." A passing but searching glance
at "Military Studies," leads the way next to a
timely and well-reflected disquisition upon ‘. Mili-
tary Stations and Convict Labour." C,..pital themes
for professional contributors to the United Service,
have been selected by the writers of the next two
contributions, the one relating to " Military Orga-
nization," the other descriptive of " Greenwich
Characters." Here is one of them :
"Mr. Cheeseman was one of the then old school of mas-
ter's mates worn a long pig-tail, chewed tobacco, and used
plenty of stimulants. He was forty years of age I should
think, and had been before the mast. He had been preseed
into the service from a merchant ship, and knowing how to
work the ship's reckoning, and take an altitude of the sun,
had been offered the rating of master's mate. He was a
tall, raw-boned fellow, a good fighter, and had no deceit
about him. He had a rs•.^^t oost.f.sv‘pi t.a. kid gloves ano
cleat shirts, but he was a first-rate schooner sailor, and that
virtue in these days have covered a multitude of faults."
As a matter of course, at such a criais as the pre-
sent in European history, the United Service c'uld
hardly remain dumb upon "The Polish Revolution
iid the Attitude of the Greet Powers." What
here said by the monthly organ of the
and Navy of England is —as every on,
might have felt sure beforehand would be
the case—perfectly in keeping with all that
is thought and felt upon that momentous sub-
ject by the English People, if not by the Ertglisi
Government. "A Month on tee Overland Route"
is the last contribution to this April number, end-
ing, like its predecessors with the customary
addenda, in the shape of scraps from the " Editor,.
Portfolio," correspondence, critical notices, and
obituary—together with the usual enumeration of
the Stations both of the British Army and the
Royal Navy in Commission, as well as a full and
authentic catalogue of the past month's Promotions
aud Appointments.

The Cornhill .2lfagaztne.

We cannot even now induce ourselves to regard
Miss Evens' intolerably long and tedious midieovai
tale about "Romola " as the serial story in the
Cornhill. Although it has reached its fifty-firs!
chapter; although it has been appearing with E
dreadful persistency during many consecutive
months; although it has had while so appearing
always accorded to it the honour of leading off each
successive number ; although it has the reputation of
having won for itself at starting the noblest remu-
neration in "very hard cash" yet accorded by the
munificence of a publisher as tribute to the fame of
a living fictionist ; although (to sum up every good
reason in one, embracing them all) it is the last and
most elaborate production of the gifted author of
" Adam Bede," the creator of Mrs. Poyser and of
so many other inimitable originals, but that the best
of them all—we can not accept " Rorrola" even now
as the seri-1 in the Cornhill. And for this one
all-sufficient reason, that Romola is an immense
failure. Better far to us—incontestibly, to our mind,
the serial of the golden-coloured magazine—is the
light, spirkling, careless, delightful story now
being told from month to month, by him whom
Punch dubbed so humorously in his Almanack the
Author of Most of the New Novels—to wit, Anthony
Trollop°, here as pleasant as ever as the author of
"The Small House at Allington." Mr. Crosbie, in
d
this new instalment of the narrative, gets deeper and
deeper into his love difficulties. He is—unlike
to
Beverley, "two gentlemen at once"—engaged gthaegLady
two ladies at the same time, Lily Dale and avnery cleverly
Alesandrins! Mr. Millais
so dillustratesnero really so
pealcifiseor,.atnhgeiumparalinadmenLtaadryy the interview—ipparently
incouciante! Cen any-
frivolous, between Mr..
anddiocre than Mirch
prig, heir to the pug
D thinga ,b
be lel o
m, the
ore lovely
Winds," at page 46.?
? Well;
yes ! perhaps, let us
, • ajar) Pirates," at page 630. From Mr.
say, the Sic
Thackeray's charming paper " On Alexandrines,"
vaehleyrate
we have already in a recent impression of our
journal given a quotation now going the round of
the newspapers.. From an excellent paper descrip-
tive of "Life in a Barrack," we take the
following
extract ;

With bounty-money in his pocket, the recruit has not
jpined his reeiment an hour before he finds himself sur-
rounded by friends. True, when the money is gone, the
friends also disappear; but 1 have heard that this result
follows just as naturally amongst men who are not soldiers,
and in places which are not barracks. I doubt, however,
if anywhere else the hypocrisy is so daring, or the catas-
trophe so sudden. There is little or no attempt to hide the
spring of the deep interest your comrades take in you; it is
the tap at the Royal George or the Duke of Wellington, by
you to be set flowing for the entertainment of the gallant
fellows who so warmly greet a new, raw comrade. Their
impatience to be reward.d is wonderful. The recruit, it
should be known, is not allowed to go into the town
before he has got his regimentals. But he has already got
his bounty-money (in many cases), and there it lies idly
in his stupid civilian pocket. Delay is unbearable.
What the regiment has not yet furnished in the course
of public duty, his comrades hasten to lend him
out of i private benevolence. One COlllO3 with a OaP,

another with a jacket, a third with a pair of trousers, and so
on. They do not fit, these garments, but that is nothing to
the purpose. Appearances are disregarded. The capitalist
is to be got out into the town, guy or no guy; and he is
got out accordingly. He behaves in almost every instance
like a man ; that is to say, he freely gets drunk, and es
lib;:rally spends his money for the gratification of his new-
found friends and their new-found wives. Small sums are
borrowed of him with the affability of friendship and the
bonhomie of brethren in arms; and not till the young sol-
dier refuses, or till his inclination to "stand a drain" can no
longer be stimulated, is he allowed to perceive thathiscom-
panions are all the while laughing at him as an innocent,
es a greenhorn, as a chaw-bacon. It is not an uncommon
thing for a comrade more friendly than the rest to leave
the recruit at last in the hands of some female acquaint-
ance, who manages to clear his pockets out quite before he
returns to barracks. Presenting himself there next morn-
ing, penitent and approbensive, he is forthwith placed un-
der arrest, for "stopping absent," while the obliging com-
rade goes off to share the spoils of victorious Beauty.
Besides the foregoing, there are, in the Cornhill for
April, a curious chapter on " Corpulence," a rapid
" Run Through the Southern States," by an English
officer, the usual groups of startling " Notes on
Seielce," a reprobation of "Oaths" and a tribute of
admiration and sympathy to the people of Poland.