The Sun.
London, England, 1867-03-22 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, FRIDAY EVENING, IVIARCH 22, 1867.

rests of party than to the good of the service is
brought forward, it is certain to be submitted
to severe and searching scrutiny, and it is well
that such is the temper of the time, since men
in power have difficulties to contend against both
within and without, and have much need of the
balance-pole of public opinion to keep them steady.

As far as Lieutenant YORKE is concerned the case
seems hardly to have demanded so much virtuous
indignation as was expended upon it. As Mr.
COCHRANE justly observed, it is surely no objection
to a young and deserving officer that he is the son

of one who has distinguished himself in the service.
In the case of Sir J. GRAHAM, Sir C. WooD, and

others, it may well be thought that the father's public

services should be reckoned for the son,

rather than against him, and other questions of
character, ability, and professional skill being equal,
should weigh in his favour when an opportunity
for promotion occurs. Unless there was a particu-

.ar individual whose claims were neglected for the

benefit of Lieutenant YORKE, there is no great

ground for complaint, because it by no means fol-

Lowe that all the 370 lieutenants referred to were

abler officers, and they could not certainly have all
benefited by the chance. The system of promotion
by seniority occasioned some discussion, and Sir J.

PAKINGTON defended his promotion of Lieut. YORKE,
by declaring his belief that it was for the interest

of the service that young officers should be some-
times put forward. Admiral ERSKINE, on the Libe-

ral side of the House, supported this view, and said
that if promotion by seniority was rigidly adhered
to it would produce a stagnation in the service,
it would not give the best men, and it would re-
move all responsibility from those who made the
appointments. Admiral ERSKINE quoted the opinion
of the late Duke of WELLINGTON, who, writing from
Portugal in 1810, complained that he had not even
the power of making a corporal, and declared
that the system then pursued could not last,
that it was absolutely necessary for the discip-
line of the army, and to stimulate men
under danger, that he should be entrusted with the
power of promotion. There is no question that in
both branches of our service there is a lack of
prompt and impartial recognition of merit. The
honours bestowed are so tardily given that the world
has half-forgotten the action rewarded ; the prize-
money won by desperate effort often comes only to
a man's heirs. When NAPOLEON gave the Legion
of Honour, on the field of battle, to a soldier sur-
rounded by the comrades who had witnessed
his bravery, and when every officer knew that
the highest ranks of his profession were
within his reach, there was a stimulus to
exertion:which produced the most brilliant effects.
The saying current in the French army that every
soldier carried his marshal's baton in his knapsack
was certainly more animating to youthful enter-
prise, and exceptional daring than the knowledge
that when 300 or 400 seniors had each had their
turn an officer might have a chance of promotion.
In time of peace long service ought no doubt to
weigh heavily in favour of promotion, but we want
a little more vitality infused into our service,
and have hitherto been too much dominated
over by the system of routine. There
are too many blanks in proportion to
the prizes, and it is a problem which our adminis-
trators would do well to consider how to enlarge
the scope for honourable ambition. Sir J. FAKING-
TON last night declared that in every case of promo-
tion numbers of meritorious officers were passed
over, for the state of the navy was such—the stag-
nation in promotions was such—that it was impos-
sible for all the lieutenants to look forward to pro-
motion. However carefully the seniority system
was carried out, many would never get promoted.
Sir JOHN HAY, no mean authority in such matters,
said that according to the present system an
officer was not made lieutenant until he was
21, and on the seniority principle he was 35 years
of age before he became a commander ; while he
was nearly 50 before he became a captain, and 70
before he got to be an admiral. Here, then, is a
great and substantial grievance, and if we want to
get able and efficient officers we must give them a
better chance. The object will not be attained by
a:sudden exercise of rigid severity in this or that
particular case, but by a general and important
examination into the whole system, with the view
of devising some measure which shall open up the
higher ranks of the profession to merit in the lower,
independently of the adventitious assistance of per-
sonal interest, or the tedious advance of old age.

A telegram from New York, dated yesterday at
noon, tells us that the House of Representatives
has passed a resolution instructing the committee
on Foreign Affairs to inquire why the Alabama
claims have not been paid, and what ought to be
done to secure their payment. ho that the new
Congress does not intend to exercise much more
circumspection in its foreign than in its domestic
policy, and is apparently quite regardless of the
consequences of its rash and reckless conduct.
Possibly the desire of the Radicals to oppose
and thwart the PRESIDENT has something
to do with this proceeding, but it is
entirely inconsistent with the proposals for
arbitration which have been recently talked of.
The members of Congress can hardly seriously
believe that any English Government will hand over
the sum demanded, on what. grounds it is difficult
to understand. We might certainly demand, with
far more show of reason and justice, compensation
from the Americans for the expense occasioned by
the excesses of those Hibernian worthies for whom
the House of Representatives are now publicly ex-
pressing their sympathy. The periodical resuscita-
tion of these claims can only be looked upon as a
form of menace towards this country. Happily,
however, we need not accept the language or the
actions of the Congress as representing the people of
America, and we should like to see it display a little
more justice and moderation at home before it takes
upon itself to dictate to Foreign Governments.

Startling Intelligence from the River Plate
and Paraguay.

The mails from Brazil, via Bourdeaux, delivered
this morning, bring most startling news, of which
the following is a summary :
President Mitre had returned from the seat of
war ; and a change of Ministry at Rio, it
was thought, would cause the breaking up of the
Triple Alliance." The revolutionists against the '
central Government were every day gaining strength
being liberally supplied by Chili with all the requi-
sites of war.
At Buenos Ayres a revolution had been attempted
at Belgrano, within two miles of the city, the par-
ticulars were not known as the police had kept
everything quiet, and meny arrests were taking
place.
The Brazilian fleet attacked Curupaity, but were
repulsed, and three iron clads put hors de ccnnbat,
their plates having been started. By privateLnews
it is stated that Marquis Caxias had bought over
the commander of that place, and had delivered
$1,000,000 to him, but that when the fleet ap-
proached to take possession, as agreed on the 2d of
February, the reception was of so warm a nature
that they were forced to retire.
A body of 5,000 Paraguayans had again moved
into the province of Corrientes, to aid, it was
thought, the revolutionists, and cut off the retreat
of the Brazilian land forces from Curuzu.

LATEST INTELLIGENCE.

(REUTER'S TELEGRAMS.)

PRUSSIA AND SOUTH GERMANY.
BERLIN, March 22.

In addition to the agreement on the military
question, a complete understanding is stated to
exist between Prussia and the South German
States, Wurtemburg excepted, in reference to the
future position of those States towards the Northern
Confederation. This understanding will be carried
out immediately after the adoption of the Federal
Constitution.

The Borsen Zeitung of to-day publishes an
article advocating au intervention against Wurtem-
burg.

It is expected that a Plebiscitum will take place
in Luxemburg on the question of the entry of that
province into the Northern Confederation. Prussia
is not opposed to this course.

SERVIA.

VIENNA, March 22.

The Turkish Ambassador in this city has officially
announced to the Austrian Government that Prince
Michael of Servia will set out on Monday next for
Constantinople, and that all differences between
Servia and the Porte have been settled.

THE AMERICAN MAILS.
(By Telegraph.)

QUEENSTOWN, Friday Morning.

The Inman steamer City of Antwerp arrived here
at 4.20 this morning, and, having landed passengers
and mails, proceeded for Liverpool ; all well
Calm, hazy.

The Handy Horse-Book. By a Cavalry Officer.
One Vol. Pp. 153. William Blackwood and

Sons.
Within the compass of a pocket volume, extend-
ing to no more than a hundred and fifty very

readable pages, " A Cavalry Officer" here gives

us the result of his own personal experiences

n regard to Driving, Riding, and the General

Care and Management of Horses, coupling

with the record of those same experiences

a variety of practical instructions not only in re-

Bard to Riding and Driving, but in reference to all
the various departments of stable management—
Breeding, Selecting, Buying, Stabling, Grooming,
Haltering, Clothing, Feeding, Watering, Grazing,
Training, Harnessing, Shoeing, Drawing, Purging,
and Selling--to say nothing of Work, Vice, Pulse,
Diseases, and Operations. Nothing whatever that
Groom, Coachman, Huntsman, Veterinary Surgeon,
Stable-help, Farrier et hoc genus omne, could reason-

ably be expected to find notified in a popular
treatise of this character, has been anywhere over-

looked. Not that the book is intended so much for

the guidance of any one among these—being, rather
it should be said, designed as purely for the infor-
mation of masters, so as to put them better upon

their guard at every turn as to what should be done,
given, or avoided, under every rationally conceivable
circumstance of Stable Management. A single
instance, as to this, will be as good for us to ad-

duce as a dozen instances, as a score of them, or as
a hundred. Take in regard to this fact, therefore,

. -
let us say at once, the one isolated section or divi-
sion of the work, under the head " Grooming." Four
cardinal rules are there laid down at starting.

First, one to the effect that the groom must never
be allowed to doctor the horse himself, that is on
his own unaided or unguided responsibility. In-

stead of which he is to be required invariably to

apprise his master of whatever may have hap-
pened whether, fur example, it be accident,
wound, or symptom of indisposition ; receiving
thereupon his master's instructions as to what is
to be done, or as to whom be may call in.
Secondly, that he is never to exercise a horse
anywhere but where his master has appointed,
and never to indulge in either cantering or
galloping. Thirdly, that he is always to stand
by, carefully observant, while the shoes of
the animal are being changed or removed, so
that he may see himself that whatever instruc-
tions he has had in regard to the shoeing are

strictly attended to by the farrier. Fourth, tha
he is never to be allowed, at his own option, to
clean his horse out of doors. All these rules
Magenta—the Sobriquet by which the Cavalry
Officer who writes the book is known (as he him-
self tell us in a foot-note to his Preface) in his own
Regiment—recounts or lays down as so many Laws
of the Medes and Persians—doing so, as he adds,
upon the good old principle of Prevention being
better than Cure. So scrupulously exact is he in
his instructions upon this branch or upon that
branch of his subject, that if he undertakes to
enumerate (as he does at page 15) the various
requisites or appliances of a groom, he does
so with an eye to the utmost minutiae for-
getting nothing, but setting them all down,
one after another, item by item body-brush,
water-brush, dander-brush, picker, scraper, mane-
comb, curry-comb, pitchfork, shovel-and-broom,
manure-basket, chamois-leather, bucket, sponges,
dusters, corn-seive, measures, leather boot for
poultices, clyster-syringe, drenching-horn, linen-
bandages, woollen -bandages, stopping-box, tow-and-
tar, chalk and rock-salt. He has capital advice to
give, too, in the matter of clipping and singeing, of
cleaning and of bandaging. Hunt where we will for
au oversight, we can nowhere discover any. Com-
prehensive and minutely-detailed though the hcok
is, it is so scrupulously exact in treating of every-
thing that could possibly be touched upon in rela-
tion to the Care and Management of Horses, that
one might almost be disposed to regard the little
Handy Book before us as one that had passed
through an immense number of editions, having at
every reprint or reissue been subjected to the
most searching revision and correction. Treat-
ing of the colour of horses, we find the " Cavalry
Officer's" opinion sound enough according
to our own experience his preference being
given to bay, brown, black, grey, or dark
chestnut, as compared with pie-balls, skew-
balls, cream-coloured, roan, white, or mouse-
coloured. Admirably exact, again, is Magenta's
key to the judging of age by the teeth, that is by
the permanent nippers or front teeth in the lower
jaw—those said front teeth or nippers being six
in number. At from Two to Three the two
front teeth are cut and placed. At from Three-
and-a-llalf to Four—the next pair of nippers.
While, between Four-and-a-Half and Five the
corner pair not only appear, but the tusks in the
male are produced. Again, as the Cavalry Officer
intimates—At Six years old the marks or cavities
in these nippers are worn off or effaced in the two
centre teeth. At Seven, in the next pair, and at
Eight in the corner pair, the animal being then
pronounced aged. Gradually after that, as time
runs on, the horse growing older year after year,
the oval form of the nippers changes until at last,
when the animal is about Twenty years of
age, it is not oval in any way, but completely and
distinctly triangular. Another indication of age in
the growth of the horse is this—that after Six the
tusks every successive year get blunter, the grooves,
very visible at that age inside them, becoming at
length smoothed away altogether. Enough has
already been here remarked, however, to indicate the
popular and practical character of a work that will
befound to be a perfect treasury of information to any
owner of a horse in the three kingdoms, as beyond
any doubt of it, the handiest among all the Handy
Horse books that have ever yet been published
within our own knowledge.

Pope's Poetical TVor•ka.

One Vol.

pp. 526

William Tegg.
A charming little bijou edition of our Eng,
lish Horace is here provided for the corner o
the pocket or of the knapsack, of the valise or o:
the portmanteau of all travelling Britons who love
to carry about with them what we remember once to
have heard Leigh Hunt call " a bit of home," mean-
ing one or two of the choicest of one's favourite books
more particularly when they happen to be portions
of our poetical literature. Pope as a poet, too, is
almost a literature in himself. In order to regard
him at his highest and best—as a moralist and as a
philosopher—we have but to turn to his noblest work
of all, one of the noblest poems in the lan-
guage, his " Essay on Man." To view him as
a satirist we have but to turn the leaves
of the " Dunciad," the dazzling wit, the
poignant and incisive irony, the side-shaking
humour, of which, are all ennobled and perfected,
so to speak, by the affecting and sublime moral in-
culcated in the closing passage of that most remark-
able work—a passage in reading which aloud,
years after its composition, the voice of Pope him-
self is said to have broken in tears—and in alluding
to which incident Dr. Johnson exclaimed, to the
person with whom he was talking about it, •' And
no wonder, Sir, for it is divine." As an observer,
again, of the artificial society in which he himself
moved in those—" teacup times of hoap and hood"
—the days of Anne, what a chari.iing memorial of
his style and taste, of the vivacity and espiglerie of
his intellect, has he not left us in his dainty, ima-
ginative phantasy, entitled " The Rape of the
Lock." Then, as a lover of nature, observe him, as
he reveals himself to our view, as in his Pastorals.
As an appreciator of the classics—behold him in his
transcripts from Horace. Then, too, The Messiah
—The Temple of Fame—Vertumnus and Pomona
—Eloise and Abelard—Windsor Forest—The Wife
of Bath—The Universal Prayer—The Dying Chris-
tian to his Soul—January and May—the Essay on
Criticism. Remembering all which, as well as all the
rest of his various poems, needless here in any way to
be enumerated, are we not in a manner justified in
speaking of him as in himself a literature? And
Popo in his entirety thus as a Poet is here iu this
new and beautiful little edition, placed within reach
of us all as a companion volume that it is a positive