TOPICS OF THE DAY.

THE QUEENS .AIDES-DE-CAMP.

THE Chronicle informs us that the thirty-four Aides-de-camp of the late King have been reappointed Aides-de-camp to the Queen. This is not the whole truth : it is only part of a very disagreeable one. There are thirty-five Military Aides-de-camp; at the head of whom is—the " first and principal "—that Mayor of former Palaces, Sir HERBERT TAYLOR. Then there are nineteen Nasal Aides-de-camp, all reappointed ; which makes the total number fifty-four,—enough to give commanders to thirty-five marching regiments and nineteen ships of the line ! The history and nature of these Aides-de-camp afford an instructive

Illustration of the progress of abuse. When our Monarchs

commanded their own armies in person, they had but six Aides-de-camp. This was the utmost number that WILLIAM had at Namur and GEORGE at Dettingen. It was, in fact, the limit, until towards the close of the reign of GEORGE the Third, when the number was raised to nine,—at a moment when the Sovereign could not manage even his own house hold, to say nothing of what he never could do, leading an army. GEORGE the Fourth, who had a passion for" playing at soldiers," to the public cost, but who was no more a soldier in his own person, nor had more pretension to act the part of a general, than the spiritual Emperor of Japan or the Grand Lama, raised the number to thirty. WILLIAM the Fourth, in a reign of profound peace, raised the number of Military Aides-de-camp to forty-two ; and, although his political friends never could trust him with any command beyond that of a frigate, and then only when provided with a dry-nurse, he added nineteen Naval Aides-de-camp; so

that the total number, towards the close of his reign—indeed until January last, when the promotion made seven of the military gentlemen Majors-General—was sixty-one. Thus, in about thirty years' time, this band of useless courtiers was multiplied beyond tenfold.

A King's Aide-de-camp has the rank of a Colonel in the Army. A subaltern or captain, by being made one, would at once attain the permanent rank in question, and thus supersede every man above him of these or intermediate ranks. This, however, would be " too bad ;" and the practice is only to make Lieutenant-Colonels in the Line, or Captains in the Regiments of Guards, Aides-de-camp. These, of course, supersede every Lieutenant-Colonel above them. At least one-third of the Military Aides-de-camp are young men, who have thus walked over the heads of their seniors : and we have among them one very flagrant example, that of. Lord FREDERICK FITZCLARENCE. This officer entered the service in 1814, and was made a King's Aide-de-camp—that is, a full Colonel--before the promotion of all the veterans who were Lieutenant-Colonels when he entered the Army as a boy and an Ensign. This now old Colonel, who has walked over the heads of thousands, never saw a shot fired in earnest,—if we except the pistol-shots in the celebrated field of Cato Street, where he played second fiddle to a Bow Street runner.

The original number of six alone have emoluments, which amount to I Os. 6d. a day. All, however, have the privilege of " the entt6e "—that is, the right of access to the person of the Sovereign by the backstairs on high days and holydays. Most of them perform no kind even of Court duty; as is sufficiently proclaimed by many of them being actually in the East Indies or the Colonies. Twelve of them are Militia-men, of whom to expect any kind of military service, would only be ridiculous. Witness Sir WATKIN WYNN, who is conveyed to the House of Cum-nous in a chair and a blanket, to vote against popular measures and the Marquis of HUNTLY, who is on the verge of eighty. Of the politics of the men whom the Queen, by the advice of her Liberal Ministers, delighteth thus to honour, a very few words ss ill suffice. They are for the most part the creatures or the favi.urite of her Tory predecessors, and of course Tortes—a few of them red-hot ones ; witness the activity and flaming zeal of some whom we could name at the late Westminster lied Midflle,e:,; elections. Out of the whole number of ffily.four, the ditl!eulty would be to point out as many as half-a-dozen Reformers. TIL re is not a single NAPIER among them : but in lieu of such, we have Sir AyousTus DALRYMPLE, the Tory Member for BriOtton; Colonel WOOD, the Tory Member for Brecoushire, brother-in-law of CASTLEREAGH, and father of the eloquent Guaidstuan who beat JOSEPH HUME in Middlesex; the two FruCLARENClis ; Leeds VALLETORT and Ds GREY; and the Marquises of ORMOND and THOMOND,—names of no sweet odour in the nostrils of honest Reformers. Why are such men as these placed in a position to have easy access to the Monarch? Is it that the command and patronage of the Army, not being sufficient for the Duke of WELLINGTON, be must also, as a female Sovereign can have no need of them, have a band of half-a-hundred Tory Aides-de-camp about the Queen, to support his secret influence at the Court? . It is alleged in extenuat6n of this foolish act of the Whig Ministry, that it has been the practice of former Sovereigns to reappoint the Aides-dc camp of their predecessors. This, as a precedent of any standing, would only apply to the six original paid Aidesdc-camp: but we cannot believe for a moment that it is applicable ;even to them, either constitutionally or rationally. If Aides-de., cans,p tuean_what the .term expresses, and not a mere political job, iV is absurd to suppose that the General is to coRtant himself with the assistants chosen by those who have preceded him in the command— no general of common sense does any thing of the sort. With respect to the forty-eight additional Aides created by the Tory successors of our soldier Kings, there is neither good precedent nor good excuse. On Reforming principles, every man of them ought to have been packed about his business, and six stanch Reformers (the Army, on a diligent search, would perhaps be found to contain such a number of meritorious Reforming Lieutenant-Colonels) named in their room. These appointments are not, indeed, of very great consequence or necessity, but they are, perhaps, of as much importance as the Maids of Honour and the Bedchamber Ladies, that have been so ostentatiously proclaimed. The advent of a female reign, under which military pomp, in reference to the person of the Sovereign, is not only mischievous but ridiculous, ought to have been gladly embraced as a fitting opportunity for abating a nuisance, instead of making it the occasion, as our Ministry has done, of countenancing or continuing a very ugly abuse of their predecessors. This is a bad omen for the much-desired reform of the Army.

POST-OFFICE IMPROVEMENT.

A GREAT deal has been said about improvements in the Postoffice, but very little has been done. There have been plenty of inquiries, reports, and plans, with the view of making that establishment the means of a cheap, speedy, and safe conveyance of correspondence ; but the business is still conducted by an uncertain, tardy, and expensive process. The Post-office Bumbureaucracy are too strong for the Reformers. Lord LOWTHER, a resolute man, confessed that he was no match for the Post-office people. Sir HENRY PARNELL and his brother Commissioners of the Revenue brought enormous jobs and gross mismanagement to light: but nothing effectual was done to amend the system. Now Lord DUNCANNON, Mr. LABOUCHERE, and Lord SEYMOUR are at work ; and they have recommended, in their Ninth Report, the immediate adoption of Mr. ROWLAND HILL'S plan of stamped covers in the Twopenny and Threepenny Post department : but nothing. has been done. There is a bitch somewhere. Lord LicitFIELD IS, apparently, as much the tool of the Bumbureaucracy as his predecessors : he denounced Mr. HILL'S scheme, as wild and impracticable, (though a considerable number of the first men of business in the metropolis had petitioned Parliament strongly in its favour;) and he will hardly let his ignorance be proved by actual experiment, if he can help it. Mr. HILL proposed that there should be two kinds of stamped covers,—one to be sold at a penny, to frank a letter of an ounce weight; the other at twopence, to frank six ounces. Specimens of the covers are given in the Ninth Report : they are of the size of half an ordinary sheet of letter-paper,—and economists would be apt to make them serve for letter-paper in many instances. Even by the limited half-measure which the Commissioners recommend, besides a vast saving of time and trouble, the public of London would gain a very large reduction of expense, the postage charge being lowered one half within the Twopenny range to the two millions who inhabit the Metropolitan districts.

It is not merely by the use of stamped covers that the Twopenny and Threepenny Post might be improved : there is a sad want of despatch in the delivery of letters. Mr. ROWLAND HILL gave the following extract from his work on Post-office Reform, as part of his evidence before the Commissioners, in whose Ninth

Report it will be found.

"To interchange letters between London and Hampstead through the post, requires, under the most favourable circumstances, about ten hours. A letter which shall arrive in London between six and seven O'clock by a morning mail, would not be delivered at Hampstead, or any other place equally distant, till eleven or twelve o'clock. A London tradesman, residing at Hampstead, who should from any cause be prevented from returning home as usual in the twee. kg, would be unable to prepare his family for his absence by a post-letter, unless lie wrote before three ()cluck ; and even after two o'clock a letter would be too late if put into any district receiving.house. If two letters were put into the proper district receiving.bouses in London, between five and six o'clock in the evening, one addressed to Highgate, the other to Wolverhampton, (which lies 120 miles further along the same road,) the Wolverhampton letter would be delivered first."

A correspondent has sent us the reply of a Post-Lee func tionary to it complaint he made of heavy postage which be supposed was an overcharge. lie had sent a letter from Elstree to Colney, the distance seven miles; and the charge was sevetipenee. He wrote to the Post-ollice to inquire if that charge could bu cor rect, and received the following answer.

" Sir—In reply to your inquiry, 1 Leg to explain. The enclosed letter was posted at Elstree ; AVM forwarded from thence by the Twopenny Post to London, tind front London by the General Post to Barnet, and delivered by the Penny

Post from thence at London Utley. The charge is correct, viz Elstree to London 21. London to Barnet 4d.

13arnet Penny Post to Culuey Id.

"If the letter had been sent by Cross Post, it must have gone from the posttown, Edgeware, to St. Alban's, and been delivered from thence. The charge of postage would have been the same, but the letter would have been delayed one day. I am, Sir, your obedient humble servant, "G. WELCH, for the secretary." It thus appears that the letter was sent thirty-two miles, instead of seven. All this inconvenience, and a vast deal more, is endured as if it were irremediable. There is abundance of complaint, but no earnest methodized exertion to improve a system 'which.every body is daily annoyed: It is almost ludicrous t0'.1lud the Ostablishtnent of allaremil from London to Birmingham, Chester, and Holyhead, hailed as a prodigious boon by the inhabitants of the first mercantile city of the world. So it is, however: on Tuesday, at eight o'clock in the morning, the only day-mail from London to the provinces commenced running. We have no doubt that the Post-office people think that they have performed a feat which ought to silence all complaints for a long time to come; and the Times said that the arrangement would give unqualified satisfaction. But our contemporary was premature in his praise. He thought that the mail would take newspapers ; but, finding that only newspapers for Ireland will go by that conveyance, he grumbled on the day following.

"Birmingham. Liverpool, and Manchester are excluded ; and even Chester, in which the mail is to stop for half an hour, is not allowed to receive lw it any newspapers. If any distinction had ever been drawnby the Legislature between the facilities to be afforded for the transmission of letters and newspapers, some ground might exist for the foundation of the rule now for the first time rut forth by the Post office ; but, in every argument on the subject, aml to every act of Patliament for the regulation of the Po.=toffice, the necessity of securing the conveyance of newspapers with a rapidity and punctuality equal to that provided for letters, has been the avowed object. It is reserved, thus, for the Postoffice to thwart not only the objects of the Legislature, hut the wishes and convenience of the public. The facilities for travelling in all directions have been multiplied beyond all precedent by competition in every species of public conveyance. Yet, with the exception of the mails travelling u little faster, and the establishment of the day.rnail to Dublin aud the Falmouth mail to London, the arrangements of the Post-office are the same that they were thirty years ago ; and it would appear, that because one mail-coach was sufficient at that period for any particular town or district, in the true spirit of monopoly, the conveyance that was then sufficient for the duty is still to attempt the performance of it now that the extent and importance of that duty is doubled."

There is a way to make the Post-office what it ought to be. This is not a patty question, but it is one in which every member of society is interested; and there should be a national demand for Pest-office Reform,—the merchants, bankers, professional men, and the inhabitants of the Metropolis generally, taking the lead in the movement. We have not the least doubt that the Tories mean to have the credit and popularity of this great practical hnprovement; but the Whigs, if they are wise, will forestall them.