_Major._ I see how it is, Mr. Simple; there has been a trick played off at your expense. I am very sorry that folly should lead officers to such excesses, but I fear we can never remedy the evil. I am an old officer, gentlemen--I have been thirty years in the service, and as long as I can remember a depot-mess, it has been the same--all disjointed--one scene of disagreement constantly presents itself. A number of mere boys meet together, unacquainted wholly with the rules and habits of a regiment,--uncontrolled by the friendly opinions and directions of their own superior officers, and they give way to every species of folly. I do believe that the practice of sending Ensigns to depots is most injurious to the service. A youth is sent from school to a depot, where there is not perhaps one officer of his own regiment: little or no attention is paid to his conduct; he is neither advised nor restrained, at a time when he most requires it; and the consequences are, that every folly, if not vice, assails him, and he joins his regiment with an impression which even that excellent school finds difficult to remove--his health impaired, and his pocket exhausted. Gentlemen, I am giving you a friend’s opinion, and hope every one of you will use your exertions to check the follies which prevail but too much at this depot: and let me also assure you that the sooner you all join your respective regiments the better--each of you can use your private exertions to that effect, and I will use mine. [_This address produced symptoms of sanity in the young officers; they in the most cordial manner thanked the Major, who shook hands with them all, and the party retired in the most unexpectedly peaceable disposition._ * * * * * The above sketch is not at all exaggerated: it is outlined for the benefit of young officers; and also in the hope that it may meet the eye of those of their superiors who may have it in their power to remedy the defect. RECOLLECTIONS OF THE LAST CAMPAIGN IN THE PENINSULA. Halt ye not for food or slumber, View not ’vantage, count not number; Jolly reapers, forward still! Grow the crop on vale or hill. Thick or scattered, stiff or lithe, It shall down before the scythe. Forward with your sickles bright, Reap the harvest of the fight. SCOTT.