"livener"--and a deadly livener it is--was unknown during the early Victorian era; and the "gin-crawl," that interminable slouch around the hostelries, is a rank growth of modernity. The "nipping habit" came to us, with other pernicious "notions," from across the Atlantic Ocean. It was Brother Jonathan who established the bar system; and although for the most part, throughout Great Britain, the alcohol is dispensed by young ladies with fine eyes and a great deal of adventitious hair, and the "bar-keep," with his big watch chain, and his "guns," placed within easy reach, for quick-shooting saloon practice, is unknown on this side, the hurt of the system (to employ an Americanism) "gets there just the same." There is not the same amount of carousing in the British army as in the days when I was a "gilded popinjay" (in the language of Mr. John Burns; "a five-and-twopenny assassin," in the words of somebody else). In those days the use of alcohol, if not absolutely encouraged for the use of the subaltern, was winked at by his superiors, as long as the subalterns were not on duty, or on the line of march--and I don't know so much about the line of march, either. But with any orderly or responsible duty to be done, the beverage of heroes was not admired. "Now mind," once observed our revered colonel, in the ante-room, after dinner, "none of you young officers get seeing snakes and things, or otherwise rendering yourselves unfit for service; or I'll try the lot of you by court martial, I will, by ----." Here the adjutant let the regimental bible drop with a bang. Tea is the favourite ante-room refreshment nowadays, when the officer, young or old, is always either on duty, or at school. And the education of the modern warrior is never completed. But the civilian--sing ho! the wicked civilian--is a reveller, and a winebibber, for the most part. Very little business is transacted except over what is called "a friendly glass." "I want seven hundred an' forty-five from you, old chappie," says Reggie de Beers of the "House," on settling day. "Right," replies his friend young "Berthas": "toss you double or quits. Down with it!" And it would be a cold day were not a magnum or two of "the Boy" to be opened over the transaction. The cheap eating-house keeper who has spent his morning at the "market," cheapening a couple of pigs, or a dozen scraggy fowls, will have spent double the money he has saved in the bargain, in rum and six-penny ale, ere he gets home again; and even a wholesale deal in evening journals, between two youths in the street, requires to be "wetted." Very sad is it not? But, as anything which I--who am popularly supposed to be something resembling a roysterer, but who am in reality one of the most discreet of those who enjoy life--can write is not likely to work a change in the system which obtains amongst English-speaking nations, perhaps the sooner I get on with the programme the better. Later on I may revert to the subject.