Although the form of a soldier's dress is important, for it may make a considerable difference in his health and comfort, its colour and ornamental details are a very secondary consideration. It were absurd to doubt that a British soldier would fight equally well, whatever the tint of the cloth that covered his stalwart arm and stout heart. Strip him to-morrow of his scarlet, and he will do his devoir as nobly in the white jacket of the Austrian grenadier or the brown one of the Portuguese _cazador_. Such matters, it will be said, may be left to army tailors and pet colonels of fancy regiments, in conclave assembled. Nevertheless it is a subject that should not entirely be passed over. Soldiers are apt to look with disgust and contempt upon equipments that are tawdry and unserviceable, or that give them unnecessary trouble. They should be gravely, soberly, and usefully clad, in the garb that may be found most comfortable and durable in the field, not in that which most flatters the eye on a Hounslow or Hyde Park parade. Dr Fergusson is amusing enough upon the subject of hussar pelisses and such-like foreign fooleries. "The first time I ever saw a hussar, or hulan, was at Ghent, in Flanders, then an Austrian town; and when I beheld a richly decorated pelisse waving, empty sleeves and all, from his shoulder, I never doubted that the poor man must have been recently shot through the arm; a glance, however, upon a tightly braided sleeve underneath, made it still more unaccountable; and why he should not have had an additional pair of richly ornamental breeches dangling at his waist, as well as a jacket from his shoulders, has, I confess, puzzled me from that time to the present; it being the first rule of health to keep the upper portion of the body as cool, and the lower as warm as possible."