Amongst the agitations of the day, there is none more unaccountable to a peaceable man in a time of peace, than the resistance to the disbanding of the Yeomanry. It is of course impossible for anyone so unconnected with party as myself, to divine the ministerial motives for the measure; but judging from my own experience, I should have expected that every private at least, would have mounted his best hunter to make a jump at the offer. It appears, however, that a part of the military body in question betrays a strong disinclination to dismiss; and certain troops have even offered their services gratuitously, and been accepted, although it is evident that such a troop, to be consistent, ought to refuse, when called upon to act, to make any charge whatever. [Illustration: “I VISH VE COULD BE DISBANDY’D.”] Amongst my Scottish reminiscences, I have a vivid recollection of once encountering, on the road from Dundee to Perth, a party of soldiers, having in their custody a poor fellow in the garb of a peasant, and secured by handcuffs. He looked somewhat melancholy, as he well might, under the uncertainty whether he was to be flogged within an inch of his life, or shot to death, for such were the punishments of his offence, which I understood to be desertion, or disbanding himself without leave. It was natural to conclude, that no ordinary disgust at a military life would induce a man to incur such heavy penalties. With what gratitude would _he_ have accepted his discharge! He would surely have embraced the offer of being let off with the alacrity of gunpowder! And yet he was a regular, in the receipt of pay, and with the prospect and opportunity, so rare to our yeomanry, of winning laurels, and covering himself with glory!