Lastly, on the 1st November the historic rank of Cornet was abolished. _Corneta_ or _cornette_ signifies the horn-shaped troop standard which (like the ensign in the infantry) gave its name alike to the officer who carried it and to the troop that served under it. The rank is gone and all its historic associations with it; and a generation is arising which will need to resort to a dictionary if it would understand what Walpole meant when he called Pitt “that terrible cornet of horse.” It is amusing to note that since the expurgation of the word Cornet no abiding name has been found for the rank of a junior subaltern of cavalry. Sub-lieutenants there have been and second lieutenants, sometimes both and sometimes neither, but nothing of permanence. [Sidenote: 1872.] The following year witnessed the death of another venerable institution, namely, of the “churns” carried by farriers. The name transports us to the days when farriers alone of cavalry men were dressed in blue and were armed with axes. The reintroduction of knee-boots, after an exile of sixty years, also revived, though in a different fashion, the memory of early days. [Sidenote: 1873.] The year 1873 likewise brought with it a reversion to primitive times in the shape of an order that greater attention should be paid to dismounted duty, the cavalry being now armed with the Snider carbine. This did not immediately affect the Seventeenth, which as yet possessed no carbines, but it was destined to do so before long. [Sidenote: 1875.] Two years later came another reform, this time in the matter of drill. The old system of standing pivots, or as it was called the “pivot system,” was abolished, and the “Evolutions” of 1759 lost their influence on cavalry drill for ever. While all these changes were going forward the Seventeenth was quartered in Ireland, whither reform after reform pursued it across St. George’s Channel. Being in Ireland it was, of course, called in to aid the civil power (Mallow election, 1872) but was spared the trouble of dealing with any disturbance. [Sidenote: 1876.] In 1876 it was brought over to England for mobilisation with the 5th Army Corps. Having called attention to the disavowal or attempted disavowal of the words Troop and Cornet, one cannot do less than emphasise the introduction of the comparatively strange terms, Mobilisation and Army Corps, which here confront the regiment for the first time. The Seventeenth was encamped on Pointingdown Downs in Somerset for a few weeks, and was reviewed with the 5th Army Corps on the 22nd July. As it is unlikely that the Seventeenth Lancers will ever again form part of a 5th Army Corps (for it is not often that England is so rich in army-corps) it seems well to record so unique an experience in a not uneventful career.