The British army, its strength considered, and in comparison with the armies of other countries, is, undeniably, a very expensive establishment, and the necessity of economy has been urged as an argument in favour of unlimited enlistment. The evidence both of Dr Fergusson and of Mr Marshall goes far to prove that one more fallacious was never advanced. Innumerable are the artifices resorted to by soldiers, under the present system, in the hope of obtaining their discharge--artifices sometimes successful, frequently entailing expense on the government, and at times almost impairing the efficiency of an army. Speaking of the last war, Dr Fergusson says,--"Artificial ulcers of the legs were all but universal amongst young recruits, and spurious ophthalmia was organised in conspiracy so complicated and extended, that at one time it threatened seriously to affect the general efficiency of the forces, and was in every respect so alarming that the then military authorities durst not expose its naked features to the world. These are the results, and ever will be the results, whilst human nature is constituted as it is, of service for life." That unlimited service is the chief cause of desertion may be proved beyond a doubt, if there be any value in the statistics of armies as given by Mr Marshall. In the year 1839, the mean strength of the French army was three hundred and seventeen thousand five hundred and seventy-eight men; the number condemned for desertion was six hundred and six. Eight hundred and eighty-one conscripts were punished for failing to join their corps. In the same year, in our army, of which the strength was less than one third of the French--under one hundred thousand men--the deserters punished amounted to two thousand one hundred and ten, or nearly one-fifth of the number of recruits annually raised. Where must we seek the cause of so monstrous a disparity? Chiefly in the difference of the term of service. The English soldier is by far the best paid and rationed; most of his comforts are more cared for than those of the Frenchman; but the latter takes his service kindly, because he knows that in six or seven years (the period varies a little according to the arm served in) he will be free to return to civil life, whilst still at an age to begin the world on his own account. The following extract from the _Military Miscellany_ illustrates and confirms our present argument, that unlimited enlistment is no saving to the country.