surprised, and much touched at receiving such a friendly greeting from a soldier on duty, and he wished very much that he knew French enough to ask him if it made his fingers ache to drum so long. But before he could think what to say he had passed by, and the young drummer had begun again.

When Grimkie and John returned to where Mrs. Morelle and Florence were standing, John told his mother how young the drummers looked. "Yes," said Mrs. Morelle, " poor things! they are conscripts, I suppose, just drawn."

This supposition of Mrs. Morelle's was correct. They were conscripts just drawn. In France, and in fact in all other countries ruled over by despotic governments a complete list of all the children, born in every town and district of the state is kept, and as soon as they arrive at the age of eighteen or nineteen, the boys have to draw lots to determine who of them shall leave their homes, and give up all their plans of life, and join the army, to be taught and trained as soldiers, and forced to serve for many long years, without any reward. Nearly a hundred thousand are taken away from their families and homes, in this way, every year.

It is true that those who draw the bad numbers, as they call them, can be released by pay·

ing a sum of money sufficient to provide a substitute, and the rich pay this money for their sons, and thus escape the service. The poor peasants, however, cannot pay it, and their sons are consequently obliged to go.

This system is called the conscription. It is a system designed to give to the government the command of an immense military power, to be exercised for their own aggrandizement and glory, and for relieving the rich and the prosperous classes, of the expense of supplying the material for this power, and throwing it mainly on the poor.

To show that this is really so, let us make a little calculation. Let us suppose that a rich man-one for example whose income is four thousand dollars a year, has a son who draws a bad number, and his father buys him off for eight hundred dollars. Eight hundred dollars is one fifth of the father's income. So that in giving that sum to the government, he gives them his service, that is the avails of his service, for one fifth of a year.

But his poor neighbor's son whose father cannot procure the money to buy him off, is obliged to go and serve in the army, and suffer every species of privation and hardship for many whole years. The actual term of service varies in dif

But in

ferent countries and at different times. all it extends over a period of many years. Thus while the poor men have to give five, eight or ten whole years out of the very best portion of their lives, to the service of the government, the rich escape with the service of a small fraction of one year, and this too, when the ostensible object of raising these armies is the defense of the country, and the rich are infinitely more interested in this defense than the poor, for it is what they possess which chiefly requires to be defended.

The system of conscription is not tolerated in England or America. It is true that in these countries a large portion of the population is enrolled for military inspection and duty, but not in such a way as to interfere with their ordinary pursuits and avocations; and they can not be called away from their homes except in case of actual invasion; and they can not be taken out of the country, in any case, against their will. If the government wishes for regular soldiers they must hire them as they would workmen of any kind, and the expense must be met by a tax levied fairly upon the whole community.

This makes the maintenance of an army very expensive in America, and keeps the army small. The emperor of the French has at his command,

under the system of conscription, a force of about six hundred thousand men. The army of the United States amounts to scarcely twenty thousand. The splendor of the military establishment in France is indescribably great. The military schools for the education of officers, the magnificent barracks for the residence of the troops erected in every part of the kingdom-the camps-the grand parades-the marchings and counter-marchings of regiments-the splendid bodies of troops seen moving continually to and fro through the streets of Paris-the sentinels on guard at the gates of all the palaces and public edifices of the capital-and the elegant horsemen mounted on richly caparisoned chargers, which stand at the corners of the streets to guard the way when the emperor goes to the opera the fortifications which enclose all the important towns, and the castles and batteries which line the coasts-these and many other such spectacles continually meet the eyes of the people of France; while in the United States, in time of peace, a real soldier is very seldom seen.

*It is perhaps scarcely necessary to say that this was written before the breaking out of the great rebellion, by which these, as well as a great many other advantages which we enjoyed under our system of government, have been wickedly swept away though we hope only for a time.

The military establishment of France is doubtless a very magnificent organization, both in respect to its own actual extent and magnitude and to the vastness of the power which it enables those who are at the head of it to wield. It awakens sublime emotions in the minds of those capable of appreciating the whole extent of its concealed and terrible energy, and in the portions of it which are continually coming into view before the traveler in France, it presents to the eye many brilliant and imposing spectacles. But it is sustained at the enormous cost of going into a hundred thousand families every year, and seizing a hundred thousand sons, in the prime of life, and taking them away to spend the flower of their years in idleness and vice, or else to die miserably of wounds or of hardships and exposure, or of deadly fevers in remote lands—in Italy, in Russia, in China-fighting in quarrels in which they have themselves no appreciable

concern.