§ MR. M'LARENsaid, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for War, Why cavalry soldiers are obliged to serve for twenty-one years to entitle them to the Good Conduct Medal, while all other branches of the Service have only to serve eighteen years to qualify them for that distinction?
§ SIR JOHN PAKINGTONreplied, that the difference arose from the fact of the different periods of enlistment into cavalry and other branches of the service up to the time that the Enlistment Act of the present Session was passed. Hitherto the maximum enlistment for infantry was twenty-one years, and cavalry twenty-four years; and as the practice had been to give these medals three years before the termination of the period of service, the consequence had unavoidably been that the infantry soldier received the medal after eighteen years, and the cavalry after twenty-one years' service, From this time the service had been equalized, and of course the men of both branches of the service would receive their medals at the same period.