Yours ever, G.B.L. As to school for Hal, you have done quite rightly. Mrs. Napier has a pet school for boys, kept by a cousin of hers, I fancy, that ought to be a fairly useful one. G.B.L. "CHRISTMAS IN THE CRIMEA. "HOW IT WAS CELEBRATED NEAR BALACLAVA IN 1854. "BY LIEUT.-GENERAL LAURIE, C.B., M.P. "In some of his Christmas annuals Charles Dickens delighted to portray the misanthropic grumbler who hated to see others enjoy themselves, and always laid himself out to be especially miserable at Christmas time, exaggerating the effects of the season by assuming a frozen aspect, and like an iceberg, chilling all around him; yet as the same iceberg when swept into the Gulf Stream finds the surrounding air and water by which it is enveloped will not admit its retaining its frigid isolation, it gradually melts and mixes with the warmer current, so Dickens brought his surly and crabbed man in contact with those who had set themselves to see everything under its brightest aspect, and under these softening influences he gradually thaws out and becomes the merriest amongst the merry, carried away by the joyous influences that are associated with the keeping of Christmas. And in all English-speaking countries, and especially in our old home, England, it is looked upon as a season to be given up entirely to pleasure in the present and bright hopes for the future. Memory takes me back to a Christmas which hardly came up to the ideal, and the contrast of then and now, of trials and miseries endured then, as compared with present comforts, may make us more satisfied with, and thankful for what we now enjoy. Twenty-nine years ago England had contributed as her share of the Crimean invading force over 35,000 men, of whom a scanty 8,000 were on Christmas Day, 1854, available for duty; many of the remainder had helped to fill the huge trenches hastily dug for graves on the fields of Alma and Inkerman, or slept below the innumerable little mounds which surrounded our camp hospitals, and inside the canvas walls of these the number of sick exceeded the total of those who still stood in the ranks, although none were received into hospital as long as they were able to carry themselves and their rifles. During the greater part of December we had been reduced to half rations, and sometimes to no meat at all; half a pound of biscuit; one blanket, and threadbare suit of uniform contributed but small support and protection to meet a climate not unlike that of Nova Scotia. And we were entirely without fuel, other than the roots of small alder bushes, which were grubbed up with pickaxes carried off from the trenches, and sometimes the pickaxe handles were used to warm a canteen of water for tea. But soon these became so scarce that we were without a single fire in the camp of my regiment for three days. In