440 Notes of' the Month on Affairs in General. [^Oct. 



this speechmaking generation, we shall have either thrown the whites 

 into the hands of the blacks, or the islands, with both whites and blacks, 

 into the hands of the Yankees ; then, it is to be hoped, we shall be satis- 

 fied. But as matters are going on now, between laws to teach the 

 planters how to take care of their own property, and to encourage the 

 produce of strangers in preference to that of our own countrymen. West 

 Indian property is going to the dogs, hour by hour. 



Since his Majesty's accession, one valuable change has taken place in 

 the military equipment, by the adoption of red for the general service, 

 cavalry as well as the infantry of the line. We are not quite so much 

 charmed with the remaining mustache privileges of the life-guards, 

 lancers, and hussars, who are still too much Frenchified for British tastes, 

 and who would fight as well, and look much better, by applying the 

 razor to their upper lips as well as their lower. We also think that in 

 naval tailoring, the new taste is by no means an improvement, and that 

 the white facing which Nelson, Jervis, Howe, and CoUingwood made 

 a terror to our enemies, is ill-displaced for the Frenchified red and blue 

 of the present fashion. Now, too, the British marines are to have a 

 Frenchified title, and to be called naval guards ! a copy of Napoleon's 

 " gardes de mer," as if nothing could be good that was not borrowed. 

 The " naval guards !" are to be divided into four corps, with a distin- 

 guishing appellative to each of the four divisions, viz. : — " 1st, King's, or 

 Kent division ; 2d, Queen's, or Devon division ; 3d, the Lord High Ad- 

 miral's, or Hants division ; 4th, Princess Victoria's, or Essex division ; 

 and that a third colour (the original standard of the corps) is to be re- 

 stored, and presented to the third division. This flag is St. George's 

 Cross, having the rays of the sun diverging from each corner of its centre. 

 When the marines bore this flag, they wei*e designated His Royal 

 Highness the Duke of York and Albany's, or the Lord High Admiral 

 of England's Own Naval Regiment." Perhaps in no service in the 

 world has the passion for changing viniforms and names exhibited 

 itself so much as the British. The changing of the uniforms may be in- 

 telligible enough, for the tailor-interest has always been strong. But 

 when no one was to be the richer by the change in the names, we find 

 it difficult to assign the reason of this perpetual shifting of nomenclature. 

 Thus we have seen the 95, first the sharpshooters, and then the rifle-bri- 

 gade ; the royal artificers, now the sappers ; the third foot guards, now 

 Scotch fusileer guards; artillery corps, now regiment of artillery; horse 

 artillery drivers, now horse brigade ; household troops, now life guards ; 

 the (iOth, now Duke of York's rifles, &c. &c. cum muUis ; and the ser- 

 vice not a hair's breadth the better for them all. 



