young man in your position can require to keep three horses, three grooms, and a cabriolet.” But the good old man sent the money asked for. At the present day the college of Fort William no longer exists as a college for young civilians. They are so fully crammed and instructed and examined under the competition system that they are supposed to arrive in India fully acquainted with the native languages. They are, therefore, at once sent off to join their official appointments as subordinates in various districts. They have thus no longer any opportunity of exercising or learning to exercise in the capital that social influence which their predecessors enjoyed. Perhaps it is fortunate for society that it is not subjected to the combined and overwhelming galaxy of talent that would be found in a band of twenty or thirty young men radiant with all the honour and glory of successful competition in England, and having as yet had little or no opportunity of finding their proper level with the rest of the working world. We have heard of a story of a young competitive civilian who was asked to dine at the Bengal Club, an institution of which the members are chiefly barristers, merchants, and bankers, with a sprinkling of civilians and military men, who all fancy that they live rather well and generously. “I think,” said the young man to his host of the evening, “I could venture to point out to you several solecisms in your club dinner; for instance, the servants actually handed me two kinds of fish at the same time.” The host kindly explained that the servants had _shown_ the two dishes to the young stranger because he could not understand what they tried to say to him in the native language. Presently, on adjourning to the billiard-room, this young stranger observed an indifferent player pocket his adversary’s ball. “Ah,” he said, “do you allow that play here? The club to which I belonged in London considered it ungentlemanly.” But, fortunately, competitive civilians of this highly aristocratic breed and exquisite sweetness and light are rather uncommon, and many of them are as fine specimens of manly and well-educated Englishmen as it could be possible to find in any part of the world.