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THE MISCONDUCT OF THE WAR . ( To the Editor of the Leader ) . Sir , —The estimate which you seem , to place upon Colonel Hamley ' s work on . the war in , the Crimea is , generally , not shared by many able and distinguished officers in the army , who consider Woods' " Past Campaign" a-very superior and trustworthy narrative of the events in 1854-55 . It is singular that many persons , including the gallant officer , trace the mishaps of this war to the parsimony of the Parliament ( country ) , in . reducing ail our warlike establishments during a long peace ; yet there is not one solitary military blunder made by the commanders , and they were numerous , which ,
by any possibility , can be traced to those reductions . Is there any one so credulous as to believe that if we had kept up an army of 500 , 000 men during the long peace , Lord Lucan , and many others , would have done better in the Crimea ? No ! these officers were selected by favouritism , not merit , and the usual consequences of such selections followed . The starvation of the troops , and the want of adequate transport by sect and liuul , were , no doubt , entirely owing to the gross neglect and ignorance of the two war ministers iu England ; but these do not excuse , or even account for , the absence of skill and energy , and the many instances of inexc usable timidity on the
part of the commanders , which caused so much loss of life , and have so much reduced the prestige of the English army . The flank maroh may liavo been , aa many assert , highly creditable to the genius of the officers who suggested it , but nothing could have been more discreditable to any disciplined force than the manner iu which that operation was performed . If the Russian General had sent a daring officer < such as Franchosci was in the Peninsula ) with a very fovsr riflemen nud horso to attack tho advanced guard of fcho Allies , at tho same time sotting fire to the thiok ooverodthe bn ©
underwoods which skirted , and often , of maroh , numbers must htivo perished , ami tlio Allied force probably been compollod to retire again to the Alma , with tho loss of much of their artillery and bivgugo , and covered with ridicule and disgrace Tho Uiisaiftiw assort , however , tlmt they expootod the Allied nriny would advance on SSLinphoropol , and tlue may probably account for tho Hupinonoas ou then * par in lotting tho opportunity of attacking the Allioa . Nc socrotB " onu ho roaftor , as you supposo , aooouni for the neglects uud blunders iu thw wnr ; they wore pure miatakea of ignorant men . I am , Sir , your obedient servant , A . Souhjer . 28 th January .
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" giants were in the ascendant . Three days before the election Bazalgette was a score of votes a-head . At this crisis , an intimation was received by Mr . Rawlinson ' s friends that Mr . Bazalgette ' s printed letter of application was a tissue of misrepresentations . It was pointed out , for example , that he claimed in . this document to have " acted as Resident Engineer on the Tame Valley
ticulars , so far as we have- been enabled to glea n them from documents before the public , and from special inquiry of our own , are shortly as follows : Mr . Bazalgette , the protege of Mr . Step hens on , was naturally adopted as the candidate of Great George street , whose denizens came forth , as one man , with a blaze of testimonials , in Bazalgette ' s honour and glory . True , two of these testimonials ( their number was nine in all ) were signed respectively by Robert Steplienson and Sir W . Cubitt , Mr . Bazalgette ' s associates in the rciain drainage scheme impugned by Mr . Ward as £ 874 , 000 too costly : so that their commendations had some little tincture of indirect self-praise . Two
more , signed respectively by Mr . Simpson and JVtr : Hawksley , were the testimonials of men , one associated with Mr . Bazalgeite in patching up the Victoria sewer ( that monument of engineering skill !) the other Mr . Bazalgette ' s algebraic prompter , and purveyor of the duplicate formula , whereby lie justified his own tunnels , while discrediting those of his rival , " plain John Roe . " . A fifth bore the name of Bidder , Mr . Stephenson ' s partner ; while the remaining four , signed respectively by Brunei , Hawkshaw , Rendel , and llardwick , were the contributions of gentlemen who sit with Messrs . Steplienson , Cubitt , an « l the x * est , as members of the Council of the Institution of Civil
Engineers . Thus , in point of fact , the nine certificates were virtually one ; and that one was a party manifesto , imbued , as we have pointed out , with a considerable tinctare of self-praise . Mr . Ravvlinson was the champion selected by the Sanitary Reformers to do battle , nominally with Mr . Bazalgette , but really with the formidable engineering phalanx above enumerated . No brilliant names adorned Mr . Rawliiison's modest circular ; no * did he rely , to use his own words , on the " multiplied eulogies of professional friends . " Preferring works to words , he gave a list of fifty towns that he had drained ; and sent round a sheetful of resolutions passed by Town . Councils aud Local Boards , in testimony of the economy and efficiency of his works .
The city " giants , " led by Mr . Low man Taylor , sided with Great George-street , and espoused the cause of Bazalgette . An active canvass , backed by the united , influence of the Corporation and the Engineers , speedily won over a score or so of waverers ; so that , two days before tbe election , Mr . Bazalgette stood safe to win . The " metropolitan party" ( so called because they venture to prefer the interests of 2 , 350 , 000 people , inhabiting 100 square miles , to the interests of 150 , 000 , inhabiting one square mile ) , adopted the candidate put forward by the Sanitary- Reformers ; and did their best to secure the return of JEtawlinson .
But the metropolitan members He scattered far and wide , and are not as yet . organised and disciplined like the practised electioneerors of the City . They could not—probably they would not if they could—resort to the electioneeriu ^ artifices employed by their opponents . No flying sheets , with false addresses , were circulated against Bazalgette , to meet such at tucks as that fulminated against Mr . Riuvlinson from " No . (> , Charmjjj-cross ; " the respectable occupant of which house instantly published a repudiation of the paper . No couutcrrumours were propagated by Riuvlinson ' s
supporters , to meet the rumours set afloat against Mr . Ward and his friends , by the Great George street interest . These latter adroitly invoked all the prejudices against the late Board of Health to damage Rawlinson ; who , they declared , was a " mere nominee of Chadwiclc "—a thick-anil-thin theorist in pipes—the very father of stoppages and failures—a man who would drain a mansion with a quill , and all London through a few 12-incli tubes . As for Mr . Ward , ho was an anonymous slanderer—a persecutor—the hiddeu prompter of Chad wick — the secret soul of the late Board of Health—an
adventurer—a charlatan—n hireling scribe , fighting , not for tho public weal , but to gratify his own personal spite against that great and good man , Bazalgette Mr . Rawlinson , for all reply , sent round u circular showing how tho drainage of Carlisle had teen estimated by tho late Mr . Stcphonson at je 75 , 0 ()() ; how he , Rawlinson , hnd estimated it at only . € 23 , 000 ; how the worka had just bqcn completed for , € 22 , 500 ; and how analogous economies might probably be effected on tho Great Gcorge-atrcct estimates for the main drainage of tho metropolis . It waa of no avail . Great Geoxge-streot and the
Parliament will think fit to adopt , we have no means of judging . If , indeed , individual and corporate morality in the least degree resembled each other , we should entertain no doubt of the result . For half the amount of misrepresentation which blots Mr . Bazalgette ' s circular , a banker ' s clerk would be turned out of doors . If a candidate for an upper footmanship set forth on inquiry that he had filled that post in a nobleman ' s family , but proved to have been only
Canal , and there constructed a great number of locks , bridges , and heavy earthworks ; " also to have been * engaged in extensive works in Portsmouth dockyard ; " furthermore to have been for twenty years in act ive practice , " after" completing his professional education ; and , lastly , to have been appointed on the engineering staff of the Commission of Sewers in 1848—a date alleged to be false .
button-boyforfour months , on probation , at five shillings a-week , his services would probably be declined , or his appointment , if made , would be forthwith cancelled . But the ways of forty-four men are not as the ways of one ; and though each would condemn the delinquent button-boy , it does not follow that all will condemn the deceptive draughtsman . For there is something quick and keen in individual perceptions of honour—but something blunt and dull in a Board ' s collective conscience .
Postcript , Friday Eventing . —Tbe Board has met today , and called on Mr . Bazalgette , by a vote of 17 to 16 , to explain bis conflicting statements respecting the Tame Valley Canal ; of which , in Ms ' circular of the 15 th , he named himself aton ° . as " Resident Engineer , " and " constructor . " Thus pressed , Mr . Bazalgette has confessed that he was but one of three subordinates under the Resident Engineer , himself and a Mr . Tempelay being employed as superinteadeats , while a Mr . Drysdale was engaged in preparing the plans and designs . Was this ignominious avowal of the deception previously palmed on the Board received with a burst of indignation ? Not at all . Individual consciences probably winced ; bnt the collective conscience received , the confession in silence ; and " the subject dropped . " Such is Corporate morality . Will it awaken to a clearer sense of right and wrong ? or have we now the final denouement of this " tale of a trick ?"
An investigation was undertaken forthwith . Inquiry was made at Birmingham and Portsmouth ; dates were computed ; the records of the Commission of Sewers were examined . From Birmingham a letter was sent by the secretary of the Canal Company , certifying that Mr . Bazalgette was not , as he stated , resident engineer on the Tame Valley Canal ; and , therefore , did not construct the locks , bridges , and embarkments on that work . From Portsmouth a telegraphic message was received to the effect that Mr . Bazalgette ' s only engagement there had been as a draughtsman on probation at 5 s .
per diem ; m confirmation whereof his own letter of resignation , specifically describing his post as that of " draughtsman in the civil architects' department , " was sent up by post next day . As for Mr . Bazalgette ' s professional education , it was ascertained to have been begun at the date when , according to his circular , it ended j so that his twenty years' practice was inclusive , not exclusive , as he had alleged , of his pupilage . Finally , it appeared that he had ( inadvertently , of course ) , antedated his appointment on the Commission of Sewers , so as to give himself a factitious priority over district engineers really his seniors in office .
I he , first , two of these misrepresentations were set forth by Mr . Ward in a letter which , with the documents in proof , he forwarded to Mr . Nicholay on the day of election , with liberty to lay the ease before his colleagues . Mr . Nicholay opened the case ; but , when he had got half way through it , he lost his presence of mind , and sat down , fairly overwhelmed by the clamour of the Bazalgette party . He read Mr . Ward ' s letter , but the documentary evidence he , by a singular oversight , kept back . Thus , Mr . Bazalgette , when called on for his defence , was enabled to treat Mr . Ward ' s statements as simple
assertions , and to meet them by a simple denial . When Mr . Bazalgette sat down , not one of Mr . Rawlinson ' s supporters rose to reply to him . They appear to have been seized with a sort of moral paralysis . Not one of them thought of adverting to the documents—which lay all the while on the table , irrefragable proofs of culpability , but as utterly unheeded as if they had not been in existence . The case having thus , to use the slang of the bar , " fallen through , " Mr . Bazalgette was elected by a triumphant majority ; and Mr . Ward ' s name was duly hooted b } ' Mr . Bazalgette ' s supporters .
For three days public opinion , misled by this break-down of the case in Mr . Nicholay ' s hands , was strongly in favour of Bazalgette , and as strongly ngainst Ward . On Wednesday last , however , Mr . Ward published the whole series of documents at length , in the Times ; connecting them with a few brief remarks ; nnd setting forth , iu a crushing summary , their bearing on Buzalgettc ' s circular , and the irrefragable proof they afforded of trick and misrepresentation .
The oflfeet on tho town was instantaneous . The London ratepayers felt that a lucrative post , of great trust , had been won by a trick at their expense ; nnd the public at large felt that Mr . Ward , for doing his duty , had been unjustly maligned . So tho matter stands at present . What the upshot will be , whether a protest against the election by tho minority , indignant \\ t the deception put upon tho Board ; or , on the other hand , a vote of confidence by the majority , anxious to screen their officer from further attack ; or , thirdly , a Committee of Inquiry , to talk over the unpleasantness , and shelve it ; or , lastly , and not the least probable , a sub silentio acceptance of tho wrong , as something bygone nnd incurable ; which of all these , nnd divers other possible courses , the new Pariah
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Tiaere is no learned man "but will confe 33 he hath much , profited by reading controversies , las senses awakened , and his judgment sharpened . If , then , it be profitable for him to read , wiy should it not , at least , be tolerable for Ms adversary to "write ?—Milton .
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[ IN THIS DKEABTStEKT , AS All OPHTT 0 N " -=, HOWEVEB EXTREME , ARE ALLOWED A . JT EXPBESSIOX , THE EDITOB NECJBSSAEII . T HOLDS HMSE 1 I JIESEONSIBLE lOR NONE . ]
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FEBRUARy 2 , 1856 . ] THE LEADER . m
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Leader (1850-1860), Feb. 2, 1856, page 111, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2126/page/15/
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