Garrison Gossip. By John Strange Winter. 2 vols. (F. V.
White.)—It is to he presumed that Mr. Winter is acquainted with his subject, and is so far right in choosing it. But he cannot be congratulated on the fortune which has made him its chronicler. If this is" Army society," to borrow a phrase from the title of a former work, it is an extraordinarily mean and petty kind of thing. Really, an opponent of standing armies might find a powerful argument in it. One notable characteristic is the absolute exclusion of anything of professional interest. Legal novels have something, it may be a good deal, of law in them, and clerical novels not leas of theology, or, at least, eccleeiasticism; but it seems to be a role that a military novel should contain nothing but sport and love- making, and the talk that grows out of these. Mr. Winter gives us here the second ingredient only. The only professional thing that we can find in the two volumes, is a sneer put into the month of one of the characters at the scientific corps. And there is a satirical account of a Bishop.
Previous page
