of heavy taxation; and before deciding on a plan, the matter should be well sifted and considered. But we have already expressed our conviction that limited service would of itself in various ways produce a pecuniary saving to the government. Adequate pensions would have other beneficial results. Mr Marshall throws out suggestions for a new scale of pensions, and declares his opinion, that no man who has served twenty-one years should receive a smaller allowance than a shilling a-day. "The more striking," he proceeds to say, "the honourable example of an old soldier enjoying his pension, the more likely is it to contribute to spread a military feeling in the neighbourhood. But to repay the retired soldier by a pension inadequate to his sustenance, must have the effect of consigning him to the workhouse, and of sinking him and the army in the estimation of the working class of the population; destroying all military feeling, and, whilst the soldier is serving, weakening those important aids to discipline--the cheerfulness and satisfaction which the prospect of a pension, after a definite period, inspires." We now come to a branch of our subject encompassed with peculiar difficulties, and that will be met with many objections; the present system of disposing of commissions in the army is too convenient and agreeable to a large and influential class of the community for it to be otherwise. The most important part of the proposed scheme of rewards is the bestowing of commissions upon sergeants. We are aware that, in the present constitution of the army, much may be urged against such a plan being carried out beyond an exceedingly limited extent. But most of the objections would, we think, be removed by the adoption and consequences of limited service, and by the extinction of corporal punishment. Others would disappear before a greater attention to the education of the soldier, and before some slight reductions in what are now erroneously considered the necessary expenses of officers.