Notes of the Month on [DEC. 



We trust that they will not be fools enough to do this again. The 

 nation is sick of a standing army, its enormous expense, its total useless- 

 ness in a sea-girt country like ours, and its real danger to the constitu- 

 tion. The liberties of every country of Europe fell under a standing 

 army. They all had some rough share of liberty, derived from their 

 Gothic ancestors. But when the monarchs raised standing armies, the 

 popular rights were rapidly crushed ; and from that hour the continental 

 kingdoms differed only in variety of slavery. In England a standing 

 army is a mere superfluity, or worse. It is like a powder-magazine, use- 

 less for all purposes of peace, and giving signs of its power only by its 

 explosion. As to Ireland and its tumults, a well-organized yeomanry 

 would do more to keep them down than a regular army of a hundred 

 thousand men. Let us then have the yeomanry raised again, and the 

 country gentlemen of England employed, as they ought to be, in pro- 

 tecting their own property, and in learning to defend their country and 

 their constitution. As we have got rid of the reign of corporals, have 

 sent the horseguards-faction to the right about, and banished the aiguil- 

 let dynasty far from Downing-street, (to which may no misfortune of 

 England ever bring them back,) we say, let us send their standing army 

 after them. The disbanded officers may be employed in the militia and 

 yeomanry ; and so they should be employed, both to give them the sub- 

 sistence to which they are entitled, and to make those descriptions of 

 force of the most efficient order. But, in all cases, away with the stand- 

 ing army ; and let England know no force but that of its constitutional 

 defenders. 



The barn-burners are coming closer round the metropolis. They 

 have made the circuit already from Essex, Kent, and Sussex to Berk- 

 shire. Every night has its conflagration : yet no detection has followed. 

 The stories of the incendiaries seem to have all come from the Minerva 

 press. We have a man in a mysterious costume of French boots, speak- 

 ing German, and moving about in a green coat ; another who resembles 

 a female, and a female who resembles a man. On one fellow is found a 

 receipt for making squibs, and another carries an air-gun doubled up in 

 his pantaloons : but nothing comes of the discovery. The fires go on. 



We doubt, a good deal, the activity of the farmers in protecting their 

 property in all instances. Where a heavy insurance has been made, 

 which is frequently the case, it is just as agreeable to the farmer to 

 receive its price from the insurance-office, as from the market. The 

 transaction is of a very simple kind, and saves much trouble ; while it 

 also saves the farmer from any severe retaliation by the ruffians who 

 have committed the outrage. It is true, that this conduct is altogether 

 dishonest ; for the insurance-offices have, of course, taken it for granted 

 that every possible precaution shall be used, and that they shall not be 

 betrayed, at least, by the farmers : but the insurance people must bestir 

 themselves, or they may rely upon their suffering in a very formidable 

 degree. A letter from Windsor so near have the burnings come - thus 

 describes the scene, which his Majesty might have witnessed, if he had 

 been in his castle : 



" WINDSOR, SUNDAY. On Friday night we were alarmed by a large 

 fire in the direction of Maidenhead. We could distinctly see it from the 

 back of the house. Two post-chaises were out, and we went to see the 

 awful sight indeed it was an awful one. The barns were burnt down 



