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regiments in her Majesty ' s service . The talk is the talk of schoolboys , and "the life is the life of the " gent . " As for the esprit cle corps , which has usually "been considered the life and soul of armies , that chivalrous sentiment is witnessed in a form of systematic denial and perversion , for which the law lias a name , a trial , and a punishment . " What is an oath
to the duty of " sticking by each other ?" Such is the point of honour as interpreted by her Majesty ' s Forty-sixth regiment , and ostentatiously approved by the " Court . " It appears to have escaped the witnesses that the natural effect upon the public mind of this form of " sticking by each other" is , that the entire regiment becomes a partaker in the disgrace of one or two ' black sheep . '
The reports of the court-martial from day to day have excited a crescendo of public inxlignation and disgust at judges , witnesses , prosecutor , and prisoner in an ' almost equal -degree . ' Let us take a single instance . In the report of Tuesday ' s sitting the' court refused to permit the prisoner to examine Captain Campbell as to his own habits . Here we have a witness who states upon , his oath that lie shunned the society of the
prisoner because ^ among other . proper and perti-* nent reasons , of his " general depraved ' habits , " ¦ *? Krhich . he subsequently explained to refer to the prisoner's taste for the ' society of prostitutes . ' A terribly ruacommon . taste , we are to suppose , among the Subs in the army ! This evidence , although , as the witness admitted , merely hearsay , the Court received without the slightest scruple . But when the prisoner , hy way of testing the value of the evidence asked the witness whether he was not himself
in the habit of frequenting the society of prostitutes , the Court at once interfered , and decided that questions having a recriminatory tendency could not be put . ' Now-, we take it upon ourselves to affirm that no judge in the country would have stopped the line of cross-examination adopted by the prisoner—that it was strictly regular , and that the refusal of the Court to allow the prisoner to ask such questions as might show the character and habits of a witness who
pretended to have shunned the px * isoner's society from moral scruples—looks very like an undue leaning of the Court to the side of the prosecution . There has been a singular anxiety in the Court to convince the prisoner ( and the public ) of their extreme indulgence towards him . This idea of indulgence alone denotes a strange blindness to the functions of a tribunal . The prisoner has no right to seek or expect indulgence ; he simply asks for justice . If the Court -would be a little less indulgent , and a little more judicial , truth and honour would be the gainers .
Let us not bo supposed to accept the responsibility of apologists . " We do not feel any violent enthusiasm for lieutenant Porry . we feav ho is something of a prig , something of what sailors call a " sea-lawyer . " Ho has , perhaps , aspired to be a fast man , and has only succeeded in being port , ' forward , ' and obnoxious . This ia often the case with young men , destitute of individuality , who have not tho moral courage or the force of character to accept their condition in life , nor the sense of dignity to challenge respect without ; familiarity , and to aasorfc independence without inferiority .
Lieutenant Perry , we are lod to boliove , entered tho army as a profession , noC aa an aristocratic club io which Ii « had no titlo to belong . If he forgot tho obligations of his positioH , and nffbefcod tho awaggor and tho * life' of tho club , tho fault was his own , and the punishment ia deserved . But the whole system of an army oificerod " 7 purchase ia rndicnlly debauched . That noblo blood should load tlio chivalrous proteasion of arma , ia at least intelligible
that promotion should be an affair of pursestrings seems an anomaly even on the classic soil of ploutocracy . " Money , no doubt , " writes an officer of fourteen years' standing in the Times , " has its weight in this society as in all others , find I see no way of altering this result . " Perhaps there are a few who
do not yield to this acquiescent indifference . Perhaps there are a few who do see the way of altering this result , and a few other similar results ; who can conceive an army , as they can imagine a Senate , to which 'the name of club' would not be applied with justice A sharp war may purge away many absurdities far more serious than the stock
and the coatee . If we are told that to abolish the existing system would be to democratise the army , we reply that a democratised army , terrible as the idea seems , would be worth an aristocratic club for fighting purposes any day . It is idle to say that these exposures are exceptional cases ; of course they are . But good " officers and gentlemen" seem to be equally exceptional . At any rate , a military establishment composed of an aristocracy of spendthrifts , ' a middle class of bullies and " gents , " and a professional minority of prigs and Parias , is hot in a very wholesome condition .
Let us not t > e misunderstood . Far from us to libel the army . ~ W " e are jealous of its reputation as we are proud of its renown . We know that fops have fought and " dandies have stood hardships" as well as the rudest and the roughest ; —to this "Wellington bore witness . But it —will take a severe brush on the banks of the Danube , or on the heights of Sebastopol to rub out the disgraces of the Forty-sixth . England will be
glad to know that bullies can stick by each other in fighting as well as in swearing . A little of the superfluous energy wasted at Windsor in midnight brawls , would be well spent against the Russian battalions ; and , for our own part we should be content to see all the proceedings of the recent courtsmartial annulled , and the gallant ¦ witnesses and prisoners together courting expiation in the thickest of the fight
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THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF HEALTH . Sir Benjamin Haxil is to bo President of the new Board of Health : preferred over the heads of Lord Seymour , Mr . C . Lewis , Mr . James Parker , Mr . M . Baines , and Mr . Strutt ; and very properly preferred . But still it ia a very _ ridiculous appointment . . Mr . Simon , in one of his able state-paper essays , thus sketches tho functions of a minister of health : — " Into tho hands of this now minister—advised , perhaps , for such purposes by some permanent commission of skilled persona , -would devolve tho
guur-( hanship of public health against combined commercial interests , or incompetent administration . lie would provide securities for excluding sulphur from our gas , and animalcules from our water . Ho would come into relation with all local improvement boards , in respect of the sanitary purposes yf thoiic existence . To him wo should look to settle , at least for ull practical purposes , the polemics of drainage and water supply ; to form opinions which might guide Parliament ' , whether etreet scwera reully require to bo avenues for men , whether hur < l water really bo good enough for all ordinary purposes , whether clatornugo really bo indispensable to an urban water-supply .
" Organisations against epidemic disease )—questions of quarantine—laws for vaccination , nnd the like , would obviously Ho within his province ; nnd thither perhaps also his colleagues might ha glad to transfer many of those medical questions which now belong to other departmontu of the executive—tho sanitary regulation of emigrant ships , the ventilation of mines , tho medical inspection of factories and prisons , tho insecurities ^ railway trallle , at hoc yenn / i omne . "
The sketch might havo beon amplified into a moro statesmanlike portrait ; other particulars of qualification might havo beon added
and then , thinking all the while of Sir Benjamin Hall , we could read the" character" in the sense in which we take Swift ' s " advice to servants . " Sir Benjamin Hall is an admirable man : a parvenu aristocrat , who has bewildered a Kadical borough into electing liim—he must be a very clever man . Possessed of a copious smile , which clothes his presence with ineffable—if not strong-minded—sweetness , he . is notoriously gifted with " popular
manners , "—us those manners are always described which are insulting to the people . Then Sir Benjamin Hall is conspicuous for his irrepressible horror of bishops : —a lively monomania which is entitled to some sympathy . Furthermore , Sir Benjamin Hall has obtained son \ e club fame for faith in the lead of a Radical morning journal , which considers tliat the great democratic points are—to insult the Court because it occasionally interferes with the aristocracy , and to drive Irish Eoman Catholics into insurrection because
they are not partial to the Presbyterianism which in Scotland illustrates itself , as a reformed religion , by inducing a depressed population to take to delirium treniejis . Sir Benjamin Hall was in the market for office : having no objection to drop in at Downing Street , on Hs way to the House of Lords [ Nolo Epis . copari will l ) e more than a . phrase "when he gets there ] ; and having indicated to the Coalition , by secretiveness during- the Session , his , continuous astonishment at having been left out . ¦ .
His cap acity to be in his " place" with regularity , and , after hia many years admiring study of Lord Palmerston , to answer aquestibn with conciliatory ineonclusiveness , cannot be doubted . It is even possible that , with the aid of a private secretary of a llarylebone education , Sir Benjamin .- 'could get . through a despatch , and manage a correspondence with advocates of local self-government demanding owporlunities to came up to town . Let
us also , as Liberals , not overlook the fact that Sir Benjamin Hall , when iDressed once in seven years at Langbam-place , is in favour of " a considerable extension of the suffrage , " and of Lord Dudley Sfcuart , and suppression of Maynooth ; vote by ballot , and Lord Palmerton ; triennial Parliaments , and primogeniture ; and a variety of democratic measures of that class .
But , in the name of Chadwick , what are Sir Benjamin Hall ' s qualifications as Minister of Health ? "When we look out for a judge , we seek a lawyer ; when we find a bishopric vacant , we expect a man who knows sonicthing of the New Testament . Or if these are not nnalagous cases , let us examine tho routine in ordinary public business appointments .
It was Lord Cartereb who remarked that tho Secretary of State ( for 1 ' orcign Affairs ) ought to bo ablo to talk French ; and wo generally fill groat offices with officials possessed of somo sorb of suitable speciality . When wo do not observe such a rule of common sense , wo hear a groat jnany complaints—as when a Yorkshire squire , with no moro practice than . ho got m keeping ofF hia mortgagees , was mado finance- Miuistor by tho Whigs . Sir Benjamin Hall ' s appointment ia passed ovor , tho public feeling mthor relieved , the aristocracy , declining to consummate- tho bilious ambition of the
tho spitoiVu Lord Soyinour , has , ooii < loscondocl to look bolow tho gangway and eei ^ . e a moi . ropolitim member—who , though boasting of tho croat of tho bloody hand , nnd a painfully Welsh pucligroe , has behaved with the liberal acutoneaa customary in such ropreaontativoa . Examined by itself , however , tho appointment can only bo regarded aa improper , nndat a moment whon tho Board of Health ie or should bo something moro thau o . dilettmito
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756 THE LEADER [ Saturday ,
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Aug. 12, 1854, page 756, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2051/page/12/
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