s. d. ings In addition to off-reckonings if entitled Not being Colonels of Regiments and) General 1 18 01 18 0118 61 825 060 FURLOUGH PAY OF WARRANT OFFICERS. On Sick Deputy Assistant Commissaries; per annum only. Sub-Conductors, and Hospital Stewards .£80 0 0 75 0 0 45 12 6 NOTE-Members of the Medical Board draw Furlough pay of...Cols. of Infantry ..........Lt. Col. do. Chaplains admitted previous to 31st August, 1836. After 7 years' residence in India draw Furlough pay as.........Major .Captain Chaplains admitted subsequent to 31st August, 1836. On an examination of these tables, I think it will be very apparent that service in India holds out such superior advantages, that it is likely with the changes now contemplated to be much sought after not only as opening a larger field for talent, enterprise and courage, but as the finest sporting country in the world-no game laws, no deer parks, for there they run wild by hundreds. But here I must ery halt, for if the sporting vein is once uppermost I know not where I shall stop. I will merely observe that I have not only found the exercise and excitement of sport improved my powers for study, but I have also found that a knowledge of the language improved my powers for sport; for a man thrown among natives is not likely to find much in that way unless he knows how to make enquiries about it, and enlist their sympathies in his search for it, and this he can never do if he is ignorant of their language. The following general order by Sir Colin Campbell, Commander-inChief in India on the subject of the officers of her Majesty's service, passing an examination in the Hindoostanee language before they can be considered qualified for staff employ, appeared in the January number of this publication. It is, however, so clear and explicit, and bears so forcibly on the subject on which I am writing, that I do not hesitate again to draw attention to it, and I not only do that, but I strongly recommend all young officers going to India to turn their attention to it also; if they have any desire to shake off the trammels of orderly room and regimental duty and enjoy the more pleasing duties of the staff. STAFF APPOINTMENTS IN INDIA. The following general order has been issued in India by order of Sir Colin Campbell, Commander-in-Chief. As a consequence of government general order No. 538, of 1857, published in general orders dated 9th April, by which the staff of the army was opened to her Majesty's service, it is obviously necessary that all officers serving in India should make themselves acquainted with the Hindoostanee language. The Commander-in-Chief must further observe that the calls on the officers belonging to the service of the Honourable Company are so numerous and important, that it is almost impossible to provide Interpreters or staff officers for the numerous corps and detached columns. His Excellency, therefore, desires that commanding officers of regiments will take measures for urging forward the instruction of their officers, more particularly of the younger captains and subalterns in this respect. The Interpreter of the regiment, whose office has been hitherto almost a sinecure will institute a class under the orders of the commanding officer, and will give, when possible, one lecture a day on the Hindoostanee language. The subalterns and the younger captains are to be ordered to attend these lectures. Commanding officers are directed to support the Interpreter by occasional attendance at the lectures as an instructive parade, and they will assist the officers whom it is proposed to instruct in procuring Moonshees with the help of the Interpreter. In conclusion, the Commander-in-Chief declares his intention of acting up to the instructions of his Royal Highness the Duke of Cambridge. An officer is clearly not fitted for the lowest staff appointment in India who has not at least a colloquial knowledge of the Hindoostanee language. At the expiration of six months after their arrival in the country, divisional generals will be required to report as to the progress made by their aide-de-camps. Officers now in India will not be taken on the personal staff of any general until they are declared to have acquired such colloquial facility. Until further orders a return will be sent on the first of January to head quarters from regiments showing the names of all the officers and the progress made by them according to this order. This return will be signed by the Interpreter and counter-signed by the commanding officer of the regiment. There is no time so favourable for the colloquial study of the Hindoostanee language as when a regi ment is encamped. The Commander-in-Chief, therefore, will hear of no delay in the execution of this order because the corps are not in quarters. C. F. OTTER, Lieutenant-Colonel. It will be also observed that in the regulations for the new Staff College at Sandhurst the Hindoostanee language forms one of the subjects for examination, and 300 marks are allotted to it. Too great importance, therefore, as I have endeavoured to show, cannot be attached to this branch of military education, as a very large proportion of the English army is in future likely to be detached on service in India. THE BOOK OF ORDERS. THE English nation has at last begun to be sensible of the importance of encouraging merit, at least in the military services, by the proper distribution of marks of honour, instead of those distinctions being appropriated exclusively to the dependents of the Court, and the members of the aristocracy. Indeed, such honorary badges, though they may be given to persons with inferior claims, can no longer be awarded at the mere pleasure of the Court, except, as in the late case of Colonel Phipps, to defeat their object, holding up their recipient to derision and ridicule, instead of marking him out for popular respect. The nation demands a more general recognition of merit, of heroic conduct, and of honourable service; but, at the. same time, it is guarding against favouritism and abuse, by vesting in itself and the press a censorship of the awards of authority. This is a great step in the cause of human rights. The abominable injustice which characterised the selections for the Bath during the late war, and which for a time brought reproach on the order, worked its own cure, for it elicited such a cry of execration as guarantees the future. We shall still have jobbery, but it will be on a smaller scale; it will not be so flagrant and open. Some there are who, now that distinctive marks are come into fashion, would wish to see a cross instituted for literature, art, and science; and we have several times pleaded for such a decoration in connexion with the cross of valour; but it must be borne in mind that the same obstacles to partiality would not exist in this case, where puffery exercises such influence, and the manner in which our literary pensions are distributed, shows what would occur in dispensing a literary decoration. Still, as Mr. Fullom observes in his work on The Human Mind," it is a remarkable fact that, during the present reign, not a single mark of honour has been bestowed on a literary man. 66 At a moment when so much attention is directed to this subject, when so many Englishmen wear on their breast the badges of knighthood and distinction, foreign as well as national, the want has been universally felt of some compendious book of reference, which should give us the history and laws of the various orders. But we live in an age and country where intellectual requirements are easily supplied, and such a work was no sooner called for, than it immediately appeared. This magnificent volume is illustrated with no less than five hundred coloured engravings, representing all the known insignia of merit, military and civil, stars, crosses, medals, and clasps, exactly as they appear; and the text furnishes a concise outline of their annals, statutes, and regulations. Given to us under the high authority of Sir Bernard Burke, Ulster King at Arms, the book forms, indeed, a mirror of the military and intellectual chivalry of the whole world. As there is no British officer who does not possess, or may not hope to attain, one or other of these decorations, we cannot doubt that the work will have a large sale both in the army and navy, particularly as it is published at a reasonable price, and so many Englishmen will find their names enrolled in its pages. The book contains much that will equally interest the general readermany curious facts, and strange ordinances, in connexion with the various foreign orders. It is our intention, however, in this brief notice, to confine ourselves to a glance at those orders only in which British officers are more especially interested, as the Bath, the Legion of Honour, the Sardinian order, and the Medjidie, and, at a future time, we may be indebted to the work for some further information. The order of the Bath is the distinction most coveted by military men, and for a long period its prestige was jealously maintained, favouritism being rarely allowed to influence the bestowal. It is well known that the great Duke was no friend to the liberal distribution of decorations. Himself groaning under a weight of blazonry, he growled over every medal awarded to others, and weighed the claim of each aspirant with the nicest exactness. But if this was his uniform custom, he was especially severe in his selections for the Bath. In other cases, he gave with a niggard hand; here he was the ogre of the order. Had he lived to see the distributions made by Lord Hardinge and Sir Charles Yorke, especially of the higher classes-but, no, if he had been alive, such a thing could not have happened. But, supposing it possible, there can be no doubt that the Duke would have made up his mind that the country was ruined, the world at an end, and that he would have worn the insignia of the Bath on the first field day. This honourable order derives its name from the wholesome practice of the Knights, under the original institution, giving themselves a good wash by bathing, on their admission into the fraternity. The last occasion on which they indulged in this ablution appears to have been in the reign of Charles the Second. Probably those foul times were not favourable to such an initiation; but, be that as it may, the order fell into disuse, and eventually expired. George the First, in 1725, brought it again into existence, but in a new form, and under new regulations. The order was now constituted "a regular military order," by royal letters patent, and was made to consist, independently of the Sovereign, a Prince of the blood royal, and a great master, of thirty-five Knights. Under this constitution it could never be bestowed but by a vacancy, as is now the case with the Garter; and, during the great war with France, even Nelson had to wait for a death, before he could obtain the coveted insignia. This rill of honour was too little to irrigate the whole army and navy of England; and, at the close of the war, the order was wisely extended to proportions more commensurate with its design, and divided into three classes. A further extension was made in 1847, when the order was augmented by a civil branch, which, like the military, comprised Grand Crosses, Knights Commanders, and Knights Companions. The numbers were fixed, of the first class, at fifty for the military service, and twenty-five for the civil; of the second class, the military service claimed one hundred and two, and the civil branch fifty; while the military Knight Companions were limited to five hundred and twenty-five, and those of the civil service to two hundred. In the late war distributions, however, all limitations of number were broken through, and there is no longer any restriction in this respect. The Guelphic order has now become foreign: it still, however, is worn by many British officers, who received it from their own Sovereign. It is of recent creation, having been founded so late as 1815, by George the Fourth, then Prince Regent, to commemorate the centenary of the accession of the House of Hanover to the English throne. On the separation of the two crowns, the statutes were revised and modified, and this illustrious order, thus reconstituted, was divided into four classes-Knights Grand Cross, Knights Commanders, Knights, and Members. The Grand Cross is usually reserved for military officers, and is seldom given to a lower rank than LieutenantGeneral, the service for which it is awarded being success in the command of a difficult enterprise, or the conduct of an expedition. When awarded for civil merits, the recipient must have done the State some service, and be of the rank, either of a Minister or Ambassador. The first class of Commanders are wholly military, and the lowest rank admitted is Major-General. The second class is less exclusive, being open both to soldiers and civilians, and not limited to any rank. Admission to the order generally commences with the fourth class, which is worn by the King and Royal princes; butthis is not invariably the case, and the King can bestow the higher decorations at once, without the regular progression. The members, who are a sort of adjunct to the order, rather than a part and parcel of it, wear a medal, suspended by a blue ribbon from the button-hole. This order is highly prized on the continent, and no less so in England, where it was bestowed by William the Fourth on several literary men, as well as on the most illustrious of our soldiers. The Legion of Honour has a lower character than any of the other European orders, insomuch that the Frenchman who has not obtained it, is, in France, considered more distinguished than the one who has. That an artisan should be rewarded for diligent attention to his work, and a mechanic for keeping sober, is doubtless proper, but that he should receive the same recognition as the giants of literature and art, or as the man who perilled his life in the imminent deadly breach, is both impolitic and absurd. Who would care to possess an honour which is shared by a hundred thousand men, most of whom, besides being of the lowest class of society-shop-keepers, mechanics, and operatives, have never done anything to distinguish themselves? This diffusion of the order is the literal development of the principle on which it was founded. It was originated, as our readers are aware, by Napoleon I, as a republican institution, during his Consulate, when, however, he designed, by erecting such a fount of honour, to create among all classes a desire of personal distinction, and so pave the way for the restoration of titles of nobility, as |