The Mercenary

The meroenary flghting man is a perBon who seldoru reoeivos his due reward during his lifetiine or his just meed oí fame after his death. The character is one bo alien1 to the age in which we live, it belongs so entirely to the days when fighting was the only occupation for a gentleman, that it has forfeited alike our study and onr sympatby. Volunteers we onderstand, but mercenaries we do not. The world apparently has grown to think that fightiug as a profession - the bare trade of arros unconsecrated by any sentiment of cause or country - is not a noble thing and should not, however ably and gallantly followed, be adjudged the highest praise. Possibly the world is right, but we Buspect that change of system in the training of fighting men has had far more influence than mere abstract humanity in1 craating this opinión. In these days of short service and swift wars the old type of professional flghting man bas become extinct. In every country the recruit is forced through a soldier's education at high pressure and returned to civil life as speedily as possible that be may earn money to pay for the education of others. No man, unless he be an offlcer, devotes his whole lifetime to the military calling, and consequently the few mercenaries - the name is too ignoble for them - whoareknown to us in these later times are without exception officers - Qordon, forinstance, Valentine Baker and Hobart. It was not so of old, when the rule was once a soldier always a soldier, and the only school was war. Then few men dreamed of rising to command except through the ranks, and many gentlemen preferred to stay all their lives in the ranks or at highest to carry the ensigus of their companies. Veteran soldiers were worth their weight in gold, and though by no means innocent of rapacity followed their calling from sheer devotion to it and thought themselves unlucky if they