CORRESPONDENCE. 
4f)8 
ing the hypodermic injection of gray matter I fear I have con¬ 
cealed about my person without a license ; but here goes a fool, 
preceded by a big D, barefooted, and the angel can take a back 
seat and a Manhattan cocktail while the wading is being done. 
There is always some cheerful idiot to stand up on his pos¬ 
terior extremities and want to know the why and for what this 
stirring up and ventilating of these old stories. It is only 
necessary to reply that it’s about time that some one would 
yank this Army Vet business up by the roots and replant it in 
more congenial soil. And if the odor emanating herefrom is 
not that of “Araby the Blest,” it is because the old thing is un¬ 
dergoing decomposition. His Nibs in the Army is a “ Maverick,” 
a motherless, homeless, unbranded thing, and, like that mytho¬ 
logical monstrosity, known as a griffin, partaking of some of 
the properties of the enlisted man, the commissioned officer and 
the citizen. He is mostly enlisted man, however, and very 
little of the other two, except a few white hairs on the off hind. 
So little authority has he that the last recruit joining may with 
impunity invite him to osculate his posterior elevation at any 
time, and it lays with His Nibs whether he shall refuse or ac¬ 
cept. If he refuses, while the recruit may feel slighted, still he 
lets it go at that. 
His Nibs is appointed by the Secretary of War on the rec¬ 
ommendation of a regimental commander, and the regimental 
commander can recommend a Sioux blanket Indian for the 
position if he so desires, -and it goes. There is an order some¬ 
where about His Nibs being a graduate, but many an order “is 
born to blush unseen ” and waste its gibberish on the circum¬ 
ambient. He is paid $900 a year, with an allowance of coal-oil 
and cordwood. He also is allowed quarters, and at this point 
your Uncle Samuel hastily grabs him by the slack of his 
kakhies and the rear shirt button and plants him in a little 
house in the middle of the row assigned to married enlisted men 
(this is pretty tough in a nigger regiment), where he may ob¬ 
tain a splendid view of the dump pile or the rear end of a troop 
stable. In addition to this, there are four of the army vets who 
get $1200 a year pay, and the same privileges. These fellows 
belong to the 7th, 8th, 9th and loth regiments, respectively, and 
as additional to the $900 man they are called seniors, for it must 
be remembered that the ist to the 6th regiments inclusive have 
only one man at $900. Doesn’t this simply beat hell, and re¬ 
mind one of the newspaper accounts of O’Hooligan’s Strategy 
Board? During the late scrap there were several volunteer 
