to almost every class. Men of the keenest wit
and of the highest intellectual attainments are
delighted by his sketches, and so is the errand
clerk who sees them (it is a merciful provision)
through the shop windows.

Long may Mr. Leech's poorer admirers enjoy
that gratuitous opportunity of enjoying his
works. Long may those whose moderate means
will enable them to do so, go in and buy. And
often hereafter may we, who are ready to come
down with our shillings, be able to get in
exchange for them, a sight of more of those
brilliant sketches fresh from the hand of one of
the most fertile of our English humorists,
and one of the most remarkable artists of our
school and day!

COURT-MARTIAL FINDINGS

A long train of courts-martial have been held
at various times on offences that have relation
to anything in the world but what is martial—
harlequinades of official inquiry which, for more
than a hundred years, have furnished the scandal
and amusement of the times. A little groping
and diligence will bring a few of the more notable
together in a focus.

Any one who studies the catalogue of these
curious tribunals will be struck by one very
curious feature in their relation to the public—
the full, steady, and indignant current of protest
that has always waited on their proceedings.
The contemporaneous journals are always
overflowing with angry denunciations of these clumsy
and arbitrary investigations. Another curious
feature is the almost invariably mistaken
conclusion such courts arrive at—so gross and
monstrous as to require a tardy and reluctant
rectification from higher authorities. There is
scarcely a sentence or "finding" of any famous
court-martial that has not gone astray in one
direction or the other—sinning either in a wholesale
or unexpected levity so ludicrously at variance
with the evidence as to take away one's
breath, or else in a tyrannous and crushing
condemnation as utterly unwarranted by existing
evidence. In a wholesome revision, on which
public opinion has, happily, some direct
pressure, is the only safeguard of innocence; and
their functions being thus virtually abrogated
through sheer incompetency, courts-martial are,
fortunately, restricted to the bald and barren
duties of mere note-takers and garnerers of facts
for a higher tribunal. Over the portals of the
Judge Advocate's office should surely be written
—as over other Circumlocution Offices— "How
not to do it."

There was a very fast, fine, and exquisite regiment
of horse, a perfect squadron of dandies,
the very pinks of ton and fashion, and who
reflected the graces and elegancies, as they
bore the name, of his Royal Highness the
Prince Regent. This was the famous Tenth
Hussars, whose airs and refinements, and cool
insolence, were the talk and amusement of
fifty years ago. The legends of their polite
ill-breeding were numerous. How they went
to balls on the express understanding that
the "Tenth never dance," became a household
word; and how the beau captain, who, in a
moment of weakness, was seduced by a
captivating hostess into a reluctant consent, signified
his pleasure by inspecting the young person
offered to his notice by a "Trot her out, then!"
These and other vulgarities quite prepared
the public for any symptoms of disorder in the
economy of the regiment. Such symptoms
showed themselves in the great Waterloo year,
eighteen hundred and fifteen. The Prince
Regent's Own had been of the army of occupation,
under the command of Colonel Quentin,
and, in reference to the poultry and kine of the
inhabitants of the country, the troopers had
not behaved with a soldierly abstinence. These
excesses had been commented on in several
general orders not certainly in any very special
or invidious manner, but in company with
many other corps. Plundering, in fact, was
more or less common to every large army in
a foreign country. However, on the return
home of the regiment, the officers affected
to resent bitterly the discredit which had been
cast upon their regiment, and pretended to
think that it was in some way connected with
the conduct of Colonel Quentin, who was highly
unpopular with them, possibly because he was
some shades "finer" than his "fine" subalterns,
and basked and blinked in the soft sunlight of
Prince Regent favour. By-and-by it took the
shape of a sort of round robin, precisely as in
the instance of a late notorious case, and it
was determined to hunt him from the regiment
by means of an appeal, signed by some of the
officers, and addressed to the highest authorities.
Colonel Quentin at once prayed for a court-
martial, which was granted; and a most tedious
inquiry was then entered upon. It is to be
seen published in a thick volume, and the
result was a virtual acquittal on the charges.
Some indiscretion was proved; for which the
sentence was a slight reprimand. But, in a rather
lengthy memorandum from head-quarters, it was
pointed out that this sort of combination among
officers against one of their number was very
unworthy, and prejudicial to the interests of the
service, and that therefore every one of twenty-two
exquisites who had signed the memorial, should
be forthwith obliged to leave the regiment, and
drafted into other corps as opportunity and
vacancies might occur. Here was a heavy blow
and great discouragement, which should surely
have acted as a warning to recent unlawful
combinations of officers, and here is a wholesome
precedent for those in authority as to the proper
and suitable punishment to be inflicted. So was
scattered that cohort of military Brummels. Its
honours passed on to the regiment of the next
succeeding number— the scarlet trousered—
who, in the polite recrimination of social
intercourse, hail each other as "stud groom," "dash-
dashed cur," and other pleasant raillery.

The loose irregular notions of these wild
courts where justice is dealt out on the uncertain
twirl of a teetotum, are happily illustrated