2.  How many guns are there in a field-battery?

    If you will answer these, you will greatly oblige your friend and
    reader,

    GRANT SQUIRES.

In the United States service, the “company,” in time of war, contains 98 non-commissioned officers and privates, and 3 officers; total, 101.  The regiment consists of ten companies.  A brigade usually consists of four regiments, and, if the ranks are full, should contain about 4,000 men.  It sometimes happens that five or six regiments may be comprised in one brigade.  A division contains usually three, sometimes four, brigades, and with full ranks would number from 12,000 to 15,000 men.  A corps contains three divisions, and should number, say, 45,000 men.  In actual conflict, these figures will, of course, widely vary; regiments being reduced by losses to, perhaps, an average of 300 men each, and the brigades, divisions, etc., to numbers correspondingly smaller.  A field-battery has either four or six guns, in the United States service usually the latter number, and from 150 to 250 men.  The English and French Armies are not very dissimilar from our own in the matter of organization; but in the German army the company contains 250 men, and the regiment 3,000, and they have but two regiments in a brigade.

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    Pittsburg, Pa.

DEAR ST. NICHOLAS:  I want to tell you What a nice time I had on vacation.  I enjoyed the holidays so much that it makes me happy to tell everybody.  Our Sunday-school gave a treat on Christmas night, and the church was very handsomely decorated.  Above the center, in amongst the evergreen wreaths, was a shining star made by jets of gas.  The pastor, Mr. Vincent, said this was to represent the Star of Bethlehem.  Then the large Christmas-tree was loaded with gifts, and when lighted up I pretty near thought I was going to see Aladdin’s wonderful lamp and Cinderella from fairy-land.  I am sure every one felt happy, and we sang the Christmas carols louder than ever, so loudly that the church trembled.  But may be it was the organ made it tremble.

    LILLIE S.

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MR. EDWIN HODDER, the author of the new serial, “Drifted into Port,” which begins in this number, is an English gentleman, and he wrote this story, not only to tell the adventures of his heroes and his heroines, but to give American boys and girls an idea of life at an English school.  We think that the doings of Howard, Digby, Madelaine, and the rest, will be greatly interesting to our readers, especially as these young people leave the school after a while, and have adventures of a novel kind in some romantic, sea-girt islands.

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BESSIE G.—­Your letter is not such a one as we are apt to answer in the “Letter-Box.”  But the best possible message we can send you, and one that you will understand, and apply to your own case, is a beautiful little poem which will interest all readers.  We shall give it to you entire.  We take it from a treasured old newspaper slip, and regret that we do not know the author’s name.