m
fire-side, and reading of the great cold in latitude 49 deg., or of the hot
pursuit in the Camanche country, may know something of poor Tobin, who
is made to suit every climate and every emergency.

It has often been a wonder with the curious, why enlistments take place
in times of profound peace; and the probable causes that lead to such
steps are, of course, much debated. We remember seeing, not long ago, in
the newspapers, a brief table of such causes, purporting to come from an
army surgeon who examined each recruit on the subject. It was funny, and
so startling withal, that while some laughed or stood aghast, others
hardly knew which to admire most, the doctor's eccentricity, or his
fertile fancy. We know not if in the world's vast library there is any
reliable exhibition of such causes. Sir Walter Scott's imaginary
Clutterbuck, after some prefatory doubts, leaves the following as
perhaps his principal reason: "This happy vacuity of all employment
appeared to me so delicious, that it became the primary hint, which,
according to the system of Helvetius, as the minister says, determined
my infant talents towards the profession I was destined to illustrate."
Such may be the idea of some at the present day, though Clutterbuck's
declaration is by no means sacred authority. He confesses he was
unmilitary enough to damn _reveille_, and also, to a significant rebuke
from his old colonel. "I am no friend to extravagance, Ensign
Clutterbuck," said he, "but on the day when we are to pass before the
sovereign of the kingdom, in the name of God, I would have at least
shown him an inch of clean linen." The truth is, the causes are about as
various as the trades they subscribe to, or, if one more than another be
predominant, it is "the love of the thing." In the old countries, the
drum and fife mingled their music with the first pleasant scenes he ever
saw; and, in the new world, the same enlivening sounds also awoke the
spirit of childhood. Early associations had merely lain dormant for a
season, but those connected with the bright musket and sabre were
stronger than those of the spade and figure-maker's mould.

Having before us the roll of a company now in service, we will take from
it such information as may be pertinent, premising that the record is so
nearly like that of every other, that the little difference, as
mathematicians say, may be disregarded without affecting the general
result. Of the whole number (fifty), thi