hem for others--Sir Charles Napier, for instance. And
who, let me ask, would have lost the services of such a man to the
State, because he had not the tastes of a Sir William Curtis, nor could
add a "Cubitt" to his stature?

All discretionary powers are, besides, abuses. They are the snares and
pitfalls of official jobbery; and there would be no end of bickering and
complaining on the merits of this and the shortcomings of that man.
Not to say that such a system as this writer recommends would place a
Government in the false position of rewarding extravagance and offering
a premium for profusion, and holding up for an example to our colonial
fellow-subjects the very habits and tastes which are the bane and
destruction of young communities.

Can any one imagine a Cabinet Council sitting to determine whether the
ex-Governor of St Helena had or had not entertained the officers of the
509th Foot on their return from India, or whether he of Heligoland
had really fed his family on molluscs during all the time of his
administration, and sold the shells as magnesia? There could be but one
undeniable test of an ex-Governor's due claim to a pension, since on the
question of a man's hospitalities evidence would vary to eternity. There
are those whose buttermilk is better than their neighbours' bordeaux. I
repeat, there could be but one test as to the claim; and as we read in
a police sheet, as a sufficient ground for arrest, the two words, "Drunk
and Disorderly," so should any commission on pensions accept as valid
grounds for a pension, "Insolvent and a Bankrupt."

To talk of these men as ill-used, or their case as a hard one, is simply
nonsense! You might as well say that the man you asked to dinner to-day
has a legitimate ground of complaint against you because you have not
invited him to breakfast to-morrow.

A GRUMBLE.

I wonder is the world as pleasant as it used to be? Not to myself, of
course--I neither ask nor expect it; but I mean to those who are in the
same position to enjoy it as I was--years ago. I am delicate about the
figures, for Mrs O'D. occasionally reads these sketches, and might feel
a wifelike antipathy to a record of this nature. I repeat--I wonder is
life as good fun as it was when I made my first acquaintance with it? My
impression is that it is not. I do not presume to say that all the same
elements are not as abundant as heretofore. There are young people, and
witty people, and, better, there