There really seems to have been some blundering either at
the Horse Guards or the War Office about recruiting, under which under-sized men have found their way into the ranks. The Duke of Cambridge, exonerating himself personally from anything but a good deal of carelessness—for we suppose he signed, though he did not read, the circulars on the subject—admitted that a good many men had been admitted into the ranks with too slight a. width of chest, and Lord Lansdowne hinted it might be necessary to pay more for broad-chested men. We do not know that the matter is of national importance, as weedy young reprobates con- stantly develop from good diet, exercise, and drilling into powerful men, but it is of national importance that 'orders should be obeyed. If everybody leaves everything to eVerybody else, and then Benda up to Parliament everybody else's comfortable return, the first shock of real service will bring chaos. In time of war, with an army like ours, it is impossible to be strict to a hair's-breadth, but that is all the more reason for being more strict in time of peace. If the Duke of Cambridge had become King of Hanover, as might easily have happened, we suspect his recruits would have had chests ,
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