The French Chamber refused, as we reported last week, to
exempt candidates for the priesthood from the three years of barrack life to be imposed on all the youth of France; but the remonstrances of the propertied classes have been more effectual. On Thursday the Chamber, by a vote of 329 against 139, for- warded to the Army Commission a suggestion that every con- script who at the end of a year can pass an examination may return home. The effect of this suggestion would be that educated men would serve for one year and uneducated men for three years,—a distinction which will be almost as unpopular as the right to purchase exemptions. Moreover, it will cut the supply of non-commissioned officers up by the roots. It is hard enough to find them now, and the uneducated can- not do the work. It is not likely that the suggestion will be accepted ; but the vote reveals the bitter dislike with which the higher classes regard the conscription. They must have pressed the Deputies in a very unusual way, for no excep- tions are popular.
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