The evidence of the incapacity of our Supply Departments accumulates
till it is sickening. Mr. H. C. Burdett sends to the Times the history of an experiment made just after the Easter manoeuvres with the bayonets of the City of London Artillery Volunteers. The men were ordered to run their sword- bayonets into a mass of cotton-waste enclosed in a truss of straw,—a very easy teat. The bayonets, however, all bent like billhooks, and it was found that they could be straightened with the hand. The Colonel's sword, which was also rammed into the truss, passed through it easily and came out unharmed. It is more than possible that all the bayonets supplied to the Volunteers are of the same kind, and that the force has for the last ten years been carrying weapons about as useful as lath swords. They will be renewed, we have no doubt, and fortunately it is not too late; but it is painful to think that those who allowed and probably profited by this gross fraud will escape all punishment. Some day or other, our countrymen will pay a heavy price for the irrational lenity with which they treat every kind of traitor, and especially traitors for cash.
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