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their fault that a system of wasteful rather than inadequate expenditure , that a system of purchase and of favouritism , that a system which made education of no more avail than the absence of it , had deprived them of the benefits of skill , experience , and ^ tbe habits of war The general faults and follies of the campai gns in the East arose from a national neglect of the army . Engaged in a constant struggle with gigantic abuses—the legacies of Tory administration—the army was forgotten , or , if remembered , it was shut out from the national sympathies because it had become associated with the oppressions of " the good
old times of Church and King . " Left to itself , it became a kind of close corporation , and while the Duke of Weiiin gton lived , none of its abuses could be removed . By degrees , the organization which he gave he permitted to die out , and it is one of the stains upon the reputation of the Duke that he did not insist upon keeping up the army in an effective state . When the war broke out our troops -were all over the world . They were caught up where they could be found , and were thrown upon the Turkish soil as fast as they could , be gathered from the four winds . There were the men—a finer body
of reg iments than ever England sent to assert her policy in any era of her history . But where was their organization ? They had no efficient staff—the brain of an army ; they had no commissariat , or only one formed of inexperienced men snatched from every quarter of the world ,- they had no land transport ; they had no efficient hospital service ; they had a mere handful of cavalry . When we remember these things , as we are especially bound to remember them now , the wonder is not that the army did not do more , but that they did not do less ; not that they suffered so much , but that they did not suffer more .
Among the services rendered by the army is one of the greatest importance to England . It was said , and sincerely believed , that forty years of peace and commerce had enervated this nation ; that patriotic fire had become extinct under piles of gold and bales of cotton ; that the canker of peace had eaten the heart out of us . And well might such bitter comments on English life be . believed at a time when all armaments were ridiculed
as insane except for purposes of defence , and the doctrine was hourly and daily taught that England should sell her proud * position among the nations for a mess of potage . Two years of war , and that war against the incarnation of despotic power , baa altered the tone of the public mind . The soldiers of England who stormed the heights of Alma and defended the heights of Inkerman ; the gallant men who rode down that green vale fringed with Russian rifles and liussian cannon ; the men who endured the terrible hardships of the winter without a murmur ;
officers , who like Butleb at Silistria , and Williams at Kara , held their post without flinching—the one saving Bulgaria , the other Asia Minor—these have shown that England is still the England of Edward III . and Eb » BT V ., Of ObOMWELL , MaBLBOBOUGH , and Wellington . That is an important fact ; but how much the more important when we reflect that every gallant fellow who fought in the Eaat was a volunteer . Europe will . not readily forget those two facts—the demonstration of our vitality in other direction * than those of peace , and that demonstration by the free will of our sons .
And now that we have once more an army , what will be biir best mode of recognizing its services ? The best mode of proving that wo value them , and value that army for them , will be by doing justice to it in all its branches ; by perfecting ita organization ; by abolishing those unjust modes of
promotion—the relics of the most corrupt time m our history ; by establishing military schools applicable to the whole of the officers of the army ; by giving the common soldier the means of carry ing on his own education in quarters ; by treating him as a man , and not as a machine ; by teaching him the duties of every-day life as well as the duties of the battle-field . These changes will form the best monument to the services of the soldiers
of 1854-55 . Another thing we might do , some of us . The services of the British army have been almost officially decried by one of' the flatterers of the Ebench Emperor . All along we have keenly felt that Lord Raglan has suffered from the effects of that noble silence so becoming a soldier in the path of duty , and that our own troops have been
underrated by means of extravagant praises of our French allies . AVe might turn the tables . Let the Government give some competent and thoroughly independent man access to the documents essential to an impartial history of the war ; and let us have out in plain English a statement of what we have done , and why we were not able to do more . Justice demands that able historians should perform this service for the country and the army .
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PALMER—AS AN ARTIST . Fob ten days and more , hundreds of spectators sat scrutinizing William Palmeb at the dock of the Old Bailey in the morbid hope of discerning in him some sign of emotion . Some told how , under the anxieties of the protracted investigation , they saw him grow visibly thinner ; others told how , as the strong-minded Chief Justice demolished , point by point , the defence set up for him , the wretched man buried his face in his hands , and presently the passion of his
countenance revealed the horrors of the silent struggle through which he had passed . No sooner was sentence pronouced , than the bulletins as to his personal conduct began . The traders ia gossip are now fully occupied . They are eager to , know how Palmer lookswhat he eats—whether he eats at all—what he says—what he does—what he feels—what he thinks . It seems so strange that the man , if he is really guilty of the enormities laid to his charge , should not betray more emotion . But in truth it would be stranger if he did .
Consider the man . In the eyes of his fellow townsmen this country surgeon had acquired a character for respectability . To most people he seemed an agreeable personto many even gentlemanlike . He lived in his native town of Eugeley ; he was admitted to its leading official society . He had soothed the pangs of many a youthful mother , and watched the sick-bed o £ many a first-born infant . Latterly , indeed , he had withdrawn from the practice of his profession , having betaken himself to Tattersall ' s and the turf . But the society of such men as the Earl of Derby and General Peel did not diminish
his position in the society of Rugeley . He was still regarded as respectable . And yet at the very moment when ho was enjoying the good-will of his neighbours , living apparently an easy , careless life of enjoyment , he was inwardly distracted by all the passions of the gamester . Under the jovial expression of these rubicund cheeks , who could have imagined the secret history which was being transacted ? For this jolly fellow was racing , betting , winning—more often losing —and encumbered with debt . To rolieve
himself from bis obligations he was contracting more debt—soiling himself body and soul to money-lenders—using the hand of his own wife ( ho himself confessed it ) to forgo
the name of his own mother on bills of acceptance for thousands of pounds , knowing at the very time that nothing but a luck y cast could make him to discharge those obligations which , nevertheless , if not discharged , must prove passports to prison . Nor was this all . Other means were needed to satisfy his wants : and Palmeb was not the man to hesitate . He had a wife and a brother . Money must be had . He insured their lives . His brother was fond of liquor . He hired a
wretch to lead him on to fatal excess , and death soon overtook him . His wife was his slave—to be coined into cash . As a medical man he might himself minister to her ailments . She must die . Her husband—so will the legend for ever run—will himself conduct her to the gates of death . He seats himself by her bedside—with his own
hand he tenderly administers the poisonous drug—writes down his grief in his private diary—watches the vital power of the poor creature slowly evaporate under his fatal skill—consoles his wounded spirit for her fortunate loss at the very steps of the altar—and then gathers in the golden harvest of deliberate crime . This surely ia not the man who would reveal himself to the
thousand eyes of a crowded Court of Justice . He had played the stakes of life and death too often and too successfully before he stood within that dock . In the last momentous scene—the crisis of his life—no weak emotion was to disturb the serene apathy of this consummate artist . In the character of William Palmeb there is , indeed , a sort of dramatic monstrosity . He was no common-place villain . The bludgeon and the horse-pistol—the knife and the centre bit—were not his weapons . Like C ^ esab Napoleon , his pawns were men . His instruments were mortal . He turned
everything to his own use—his personal appearance—his professional knowledge— -his mother—his brother—his school companions —his friends—the friends of his friendspostmasters — money-lenders — coroners — profligate attorneys . Xea , he could even deceive scientific doctors , and an experienced counsel of the degree of the coif and a member of Parliament . They pitied him ; they laboured for him ; they would fain have sacrificed their very means of living for his benefit . The man had read nature with
infinite sagacity . He knew precisely what oug . it to be done—he knew the sort of man who would suit his purpose—he knew where to find that individual . One incident ia enough . To administer poison to your friend in the bedroom of a public inn , after having once failed , needs a steady hand . But Palmeb did more . For surely it was a surprising feat to summon that young surgeon JoKJES , the confidential friend and companion of the unfortunate Cookein order that ho might
, witness the poisoning . But Palmeu had studied him well . He had fathomed his weakness . Jones knew Cooke well : there is no taint of suspicion on hia character . His presence at the bedside of his dying friend would surely disarm suspicion . Ho is the companion of Cooke , and , moreover , a medical man . Palmeb summons him by letter— - satisfies him , against his will , that his friend is suffering from bilious
diarrhoea—administers the strychnine pills to the poor patient in his very presence—leaves him alono in the sick-room where ho purposes to paas the night—lots him witness the horrors of tho last struggle—and , indeed , ho would liavo had tho murdered man enclosed in a strong oak cofiin , and quietly depoaitod in ltuguley churchyard , without one whisper of sqandal or remonstrance . Tho unsuspecting Jonbs was fully satisfied . It waa only tho shrewd old stop-father Stevens who broke in upon
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KAA THE LE . ADBB . [ No . 324 , Saturday , OwU ___ .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), June 7, 1856, page 540, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2144/page/12/
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