The Times calls attention to one of the most serious
defects in our Army system, the determination of the Horse Guards to paas over the Scientific Services in selections for command. There are now 8,016 officers in the British Army, and of these 1,394 are Artillery, and 823 Engineers,-2,217 in all, or more than a fourth .of the whole number. Nevertheless, of the thirty-two commands now given to Generals, the Artillery hold only three, and the Engineers none,—the Scientific Services getting less than a tenth, instead of more than a fourth, their proper share. The injustice is attributed to the fact that the Artillery and Engineers are under the Board of Ordnance, instead of the Commander-in-Chief, and that may have had some effect ; but more is due, we suspect, -to the fact that in the Artillery and Engineers Purchase has always been unknown. An officer of the Scientific branches must be educated, and men who knew nothing but had money to buy, naturally hated men who knew much but had not necessarily either cash or birth. So strong is this feeling at the Horse Guards, that the appointment of General Napier to the Indian command quite astonished the Army, and was denounced in many quarters as a needless concession to public opinion. It was as bad as making Von Moltke a Marshal.
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