[To TEE EDITOR OF TEE " SFECTATOR."3
Sin,—The answers elicited by the examination papers set to French and English recruits are curious and interesting, but it may be doubted whether they are a trustworthy index of the knowledge of the examinees. As a rule, people who enter for examinations have something to gain by passing, and passing high ; but in this case unless a prize was offered for the best set of answers—and this we are not told—what, from the recruit's point of view, was the good of it P Most of them probably regarded the ordeal as a nuisance, as an encroach- ment upon time that might otherwise have been devoted to cleaning their accoutrements, smoking their pipes, or going out for a walk. "Why," they might inquire, "should we be vic- timized in this way ? " I cannot help thinking that where no answers were given it may have been simply from a desire to escape as quickly as possible from the examination room. I certainly surmise another "embryo jester" in the individual who wrote of "a rising of sea buoys." Perhaps his name is
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