It is not unusual to assume that the enormous military establishments of the continent of Europe are an almost unmixed evil. But this may perhaps be disputed on two grounds. In some cases, such as that of Italy, the army acts as a kind of rough national university in which the varied life of districts often discordant is fused into a patriotic whole, dialects are forgotten, and a common language learned. In the case of France the new military system is a powerful engine of democracy. There is a French prince (not of the blood) serving at this moment in a squad of which the corporal is a young peasant from the same department. A few years ago I found the Duc de Luynes, who is also Duc de Chaulnes and Duc de Chevreuse, the owner of Dampierre, the personal friend of kings, serving, by his own wish, for, as the eldest son of a widow, he was exempt, as a private of dragoons, and respectfully saluting young officers, some of whom were his own tenants. The modern military system of the continent, in the case of France and Germany at least, may also, I think, be shown to have told in favor of peace. It is possible for us to occasionally demand a war with the greater freedom, because we do not as a rule know what war means. Those of us who have seen something of it with our own eyes are a very small minority. But every inhabitant of France and Germany has the reality of war brought home to him with the knowledge that those of his own kin would have to furnish their tribute of “cannon flesh” (as the French and Germans call it) at the outbreak of any war; and the influence of the whole of the women of both countries is powerfully exerted in consequence upon the side of peace. CHARLES W. DILKE. NAVAL SHIPS In the conditions of naval warfare the century now closed has seen a revolution unparalleled in the rapidity of the transition and equalled in degree only by the changes which followed the general introduction of cannon and the abandonment of oars in favor of sails for the propulsion of ships of war. The latter step was consequent, ultimately, upon the discovery of the New World and of the sea-passage to India by the Cape of Good Hope. The voyage to those distant regions was too long and the remoteness from ports of refuge too great for rowing galleys, a class of vessels whose construction unfitted them for developing great size and for contending with heavy weather. The change of motive power made possible and entailed a different disposition of the fighting power, the main battery weight of ships being transferred from the bows and sterns—end-on fire—to the broadsides. The combination of these two new factors caused ships and fleets necessarily to be fought in a different manner from formerly—entailed, to use the technical word, new tactics.