swoop off with awnings, concentrate their forces into swirling cyclones in the middle of the streets, and bang away at plate-glass windows till they prance in their sockets. Before such unfriendly and tricksy foes, through the biting air, comes the great procession. First, a battalion of mounted police; then West Point, with its band and drum-major. Not a sprite of the air has caught the baton of its drum-major. Not a sting of zero, has stiffened that fantastic arm as he lifts and swings the symbol of his foolishness. He is as inimitable in the bleak and dusty street as when I saw him last, on the velvet sward of West Point, that delicious evening in October. Something utterly ridiculous to look at, _is_ refreshing, and anything more faultlessly ridiculous than the drum-major of West Point I never saw. I believe it is fashionable to find fault with West Point; but I wouldn’t give much for anybody who could see these boys and not admire them. They have their faults (their caste and their army exclusiveness sometimes reaches an absurd pitch) but look at them! What faces, what muscle, what manhood! Their movement is the perfect poetry of motion; a hundred men stepping as one. What marching, and at what odds! They are so pitilessly dressed! Thousands of men come behind, warmly muffled; but the West Point Cadets have on their new uniforms, single jackets. More than one will receive through it the seeds of death this morning. What wonder, that two while standing in line sank insensible with the cold not an hour ago. But, dear me! to think that more than one of them should be taken for a “nigger!” The colored Cadet is whiter than a dozen of his class-mates, and has straight hair. In the distance rises, wave on wave, a glittering sea of helmets; bayonets flash, plumes wave, bands play; all tell one story—the love of military pomp and parade, the pride and patriotism which brings these soldiers back to celebrate the second inauguration of their chief; and at what cost of suffering to many of them. What cold and hunger, and delay on the way, and now! what nerve and will it takes to march in a wind like this! After West Point comes Annapolis. Pretty “Middies,” young and slender, in their suits of dark blue! As a body, they are younger than the West Pointers, and slighter. Nor can any comparison be drawn between their marching, for the Middies drag their howitzers. They look true sons of their class; and for intelligence, chivalric manners, and gentle manhood, the true officer of the American navy is unsurpassed.