W. volunteered to walk home with me, the bungalow being but a few hundred yards off. As we leisurely strolled along, W. said, 'D. is really the most excellent commandant I ever knew. Without being over-strict, he knows well how to hold his own, and to enforce obedience; at the same time, what could be kinder, I might say more parental, than what he said just now? And what could be better than his taking on himself to let you leave the cantonment? Not one commandant in a hundred would have done it!' 'So I found out,' returned I. The singular scene that passed between myself and the General of Division was then told to him. He was greatly amused. 'You must let D. have the story, it is really too good to be lost; it only shows what a life of routine makes of a man, unless he has a mind powerful enough to raise him above such influences. I agree entirely in the view D. takes of B.'s condition; indeed, I have feared it for some time; the misfortune is, that I don't see what can be done to save him. Would it be possible to send him home on sick leave?' 'The case is this,' said I, 'the authorities and the medical board take what I regard as a narrow view of what is best to be done. They argue that it is encouraging drunkenness to send a man home on that account, and they would rather keep him in this country to die, or be dismissed the service, than they would sanction his being sent home for the effects of alcoholism. The only alternative is, that the doctor must make up a false case, at the risk of losing his commission, or the man must hang on till he gets his furlough. It has, I know, been placed before several boards officially, that many a man's life might be saved, and the evil habit subdued, if he were allowed to go home in time, and have the sea voyage, the European climate, and the home influences; but these representations have elicited nothing but anger and reproof. Such being the views adopted at headquarters, nothing is left to the executive officer but to act on them.' 'I am quite aware,' returned W., 'that what you say is correct. You have, in fact, scarcely gone far enough, for they add, that it is more for the advantage of the State to let in fresh blood, in the shape of fresh men, than to keep on the list men who have broken down from their own vicious habits by sending them home, and thus prolonging their lives. Such patched-up men, they say, can never go through fatigues, and wear and tear, that a sound man could and would go through. And to say the truth between ourselves, I think they are right. Compassion and friendship make one feel that the regulations are hard when they are applied to one of our own friends and intimates; but, looking to the advantage of the service only, I cannot say that they are ill-judged.' 'To some extent I agree with you, but everything is in degree, and a margin should be allowed. As you put it, to send a man home merely to prolong his life, I think, carries with it the condemnation of the whole