Desertions also are steadily decreasing. In 1858[92] upwards of 20,000 men disappeared. In 1874 the net loss from desertion per thousand was 20. In 1893 it was 12.[93] Finally, there remains one more subject regarding the men in the army on which I would say a few words, and that is the marriage question. So long as a system of long service prevailed, a married establishment of only 7 per cent. was recognised by the Government. The virtual result was, that the great majority of men serving year after year were not allowed to marry; and this state of affairs was neither natural nor desirable, tending also to render military service unpopular. Under the present system, as the great majority of the men only remain for a few years in the ranks, they are for the most part single, and on return to civil life can marry at will. The foregoing remarks will, I hope, be of some interest in indicating the beneficial effect of the changes introduced as regards service in the army by the late Lord Cardwell, when Minister for War in 1870. The men who now enter the ranks are probably of much the same class as formerly, but they serve under improved conditions; and whilst I believe that they retain all the enterprise and courage of those who preceded them, they are undoubtedly far better educated, and therefore to some extent require more discrimination in their treatment than formerly prevailed. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 80: Clode's _Military Forces of the Crown_, vol. ii., pp. 25-60.] [Footnote 81: _Commissions on Recruiting_, 1861, p. xiii., and 1867, p. x.] [Footnote 82: _Militia Report of 1877_, app. xvii., p. 546.] [Footnote 83: _Commission on Recruiting_, 1867, p. 221.] [Footnote 84: _Army Return for 1880._] [Footnote 85: See _Commission on Recruiting_, 1861, p. iii.] [Footnote 86: _Actuarial War Office Report_, January 1889.] [Footnote 87: _Annual Army Returns_, 1880 and 1894.] [Footnote 88: _Sanitary Condition of the Army in India_, 1863, p. xxxi.] [Footnote 89: _Lord Airey's Committee of 1880_, p. 19.] [Footnote 90: _Army Annual Returns_, 1881 and 1893.] [Footnote 91: _Army Annual Returns_, 1880 and 1894.] [Footnote 92: _Recruiting Commission of 1861_, p. iii.] [Footnote 93: _Annual Army Return of 1894._] CHAPTER XXIV LOCALISATION AND COUNTY REGIMENTS.--INTERVIEW WITH THE EMPEROR NAPOLEON III.