The Duke of Cambridge, in a speech at Fishmongers' Hall
on Wednesday, lauded the efficiency of the British Army, and gave in proof of it one of the oddest pieces of evidence we remember to have read. He said that Isandlana occurred on January 22nd, and the news arrived in London on February 11th. By the 28th no less than 8,000 men and 1,800 horses had left, in fourteen large vessels ; and on April 4th, part of those men took their share in the defence of Ekowe. "They had traversed 6,800 miles of sea, and 185 miles of land. He doubted whether the military authorities of France or Ger- many could have transported 8,000 men so great a distance in so short a, time. " The English Army had, therefore, some reason to believe that its efficiency had not deteriorated." We have no wish to assert deterioration, though there was, undoubtedly, con- fusion in making up the regiments, but is not the credit of this dispatch due rather to the Admiralty than to the Horse Guards P Or does his Royal Highness really believe that Count von Moltke, with equal transport at his disposal, could not have for- warded a division in the same time P The Navy should have its share of credit, even although, as a correspondent in another column shows, it is a cheap Service, organised as a strictly Par- liamentary Department.
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