FOR PEACE AND WAR. 9 



family, or which servants of the State or postmasters are obliged 

 to keep to perform their duties, those belonging to public breed- 

 ing establishments, also all licensed stallions and brood mares 

 certified as such. The passing the horses into the service then 

 begins ; those are first taken which the owners- are ready to part 

 with for the ordinary remount price of £25 ; the remainder are 

 inspected, and those which are adjudged fit for service are 

 valued by the valuers attached to the commissions, and this is 

 done without reference to the remount price or to the possibly 

 temporarily enhanced prices occasioned by the mobilisation. 

 The horses valued are then passed into the service, commencing 

 with those of lowest adjudged value, and the owners are imme- 

 diately paid their price in cash To lighten the 



burden of this forced levy, the parishes of a district are per- 

 mitted to avoid compulsory furnishing of horses, by voluntary 

 presentation of their proper coutingeut from their own district. 

 In this case they are paid the remount price augmented by ten 

 per cent., but the horses must be produced within forty-eight 

 hours of the receipt of the order to furnish them. Whilst the 

 levy is going on the owners must keep their horses at their own 

 expense ; but the government officers must not detain the horses 

 over forty- eight hours at the levying centres. Thizs, if every- 

 thing is in order, it may be estimated that the War Department 

 would be in possession of the horses they require at the levying 

 centres within four days of the receipt there of the order to 

 furnish them. It is worthy of remark that the major part of 

 the horses thus to be furnished would be destined for artillery or 

 transport purposes, as the cavalry regiments, forty-two in num- 

 ber, are kept up during peace to their full field strength, six 

 squadrons of 150, or 900 horses each, to which is only added, 

 on mobilisation, a first and a second reserve squadron. 



" In addition to this system for providing a reserve of horses, 

 as so clearly explained by Colonel Goodenough, there is also in 

 Hungary a description of landwehr answering, in many respects, 

 to our yeomanry. These number in all 32 squadrons, and each 

 keeps up a permanent cadre for purposes of training, but they 

 also buy a certain proportion of horses in excess of their peace 



