Help with this census entry please

[Top-of-the-hill]

  What is the occupation in the middle two entries - presume it is something military? I have included a bit extra in case it helps.

[Donnie H]

Looks like "In Defence Corps" to me

[Treetotal]

Agree with Corps but the first letter doesn't match the other Ds. The first letter of the third occupation looks the same as Lethum on the las line.
Carol

[Kaz-]

I think that letter is a P as in Portsmouth.  M Police Corps?  Looks more like M Pelvice Corps, but that doesn't make much sense to me!

[Top-of-the-hill]

  I thought the first letter was P, but I can't make police of the rest, though it would make some sense.

[bbart]

Is there two M's prior to "police" in that column, or is the first a stray M from the preceding column for married/male?

If both M's are in the column, I'm thinking it's M M police corps, as in Mounted Military Police Corps.  Notice the small L in "Dealer" and "Appledore".   They are quite different, but one matches the top "police", and the other matches the lower "police".

I can't make out what is following the top one (perhaps some abbrev. for Middlesex?), but the lower one looks like "Hants".

[Geoff-E]

To give some sort of context, they were Boarders in Barham, Kent.

One of them was James TAYLOR 27

[Top-of-the-hill]

   They were staying at one of the pubs in the village. If they were with a mounted police corps, which looks the most likely, I wonder what they were doing there? I suppose there would have been a stable at the pub. The nearby Barham Downs were often used for military musters and training, (from time immemorial!)

[Geoff-E]

The  Military Mounted Police (MMP) was apparently formed in 1877.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Military_Police