"This system is rendered still more complete by the practice of recruiting regiments from the same districts, in order that, when their five years of active service shall have elapsed, the soldiers may remain together: and the confusion occasioned by embodying pensioners in other countries is avoided in Turkey, where the officers, non-commissioned officers, staff, and rank and file of a regiment continue united, whether on active service or as forming a part of the reserve. They are engaged in agricultural pursuits, or in trade, during their seven years of furlough, being periodically mustered for military exercise, and always ready to move in a body on any point where reinforcements may be necessary, while a salutary feeling of _esprit de corps_ is maintained by making such regiment a separate and distinct body of men, raised in the same locality, and most of its members being personally known to each other." Mr. Skene does not give us any information respecting the skill and ability of the superior officers. On this point we must confess we are not without apprehensions; for however excellent and efficient the troops of the line may be, their valor and discipline will be thrown away, if the higher officers--which we suspect to be the case--are inferior to those in the Russian service. The threats of Austria give all this subject importance. Honest Christendom for the first time cries, God for the Turk! From "The Adventures of a Soldier in Mexico," in the United Service Magazine. THE CAPTAIN AND THE NEGRO.