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742 THE LEADE R. [No. 436, July 31, 1658...
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AKHY CONTRACTS. The Committee of the Hou...
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NOVELETTES OF LAW AND THEIU MORAL. The m...
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Some Of The Causes Of The Rebellion. The...
Provinces , the principal theatre of the rebellion . We found the institution j we resolved it into its elements ; in our judgment some -were useless ( the Thalookdaree rights , for instance ) , others were essential , and we dealt with these elements according to our own ideas of what was just and expedient . In doing this , however defensible the course which , we took was , according to < mr own moral principles and economical science , we changed everything ; we superseded custom ,- in short , we made a revolution .
This is an epitome of the history of the first years of omrrule , in every successive extension of that rule . It -was not everywhere the same kind of change . "We established one system in Lower Bengal—the Zemindaree system ; another in Madras—the Ryotwaree system ; another in the North-Western Provinces—a new-fangled combination of the Talookdaree and village system ; and so on . The reviewer explains in a very intelligible manner our different revenxie systems .
Here , then , we have one set of causes of the rebellion . True it was a military rebellion , and it would appear to be difficult to connect it with , causes so purely civil as tliose mentioned . But the Sepoy army is not , like our own , raised in great part from the refuse of the population , but it is raised from ( to use a short analogy ) the yeomanry of the country who still kept up their connexion with the cultivators and landed chiefs whom they left only for a time ; and Oude was the great recruiting ground . In short , then , it was the introduction of our revenue settlement , and the apprehension of its further extension in Oude , which inflamed the Sepoy army , and was trie chief cause of the rebellion . vV ' / .. ¦ ' : ' ¦ ¦ ¦ , ¦ ¦ . ¦ ¦ ¦ : . - ¦ ¦" : /' , ¦ ¦ ¦ : .: ' ¦ , ¦ . '¦ ¦
Our readers will at once perceive that this is no mere abstract discussion . It shows wherein our chief error has been : a \ vant of proper respect for what was established and legal ; the precipitate introduction , of ne" \ v systems ; and the obvious lesson of instruction to le derived from the rebellion is , that we must , in our future policy and in Our new governmental scheme , make no violent changes in the Iaw 3 , customs , and habits of the people . We shall return to this subject on an early occasion .
742 The Leade R. [No. 436, July 31, 1658...
742 THE LEADE R . [ No . 436 , July 31 , 1658 .
Akhy Contracts. The Committee Of The Hou...
AKHY CONTRACTS . The Committee of the House of Commons to inquire into the principle adopted for making contracts for public departments , and the effect which the present system has upon the expenditure of public money , " was originally , we believe , appointed in 1856 , and continued in 1857 , at the instance of M ! r . J . Lewis Bicardo , member for Stoke-upon-Trent , who had iaken precautions to satisfy himself that charges of bribery and gross malversation could be substantiated before he would consent to lend parliamentary assistance . An' ample volume , consisting of evidence and appendical matter , taken and collected during the session of 1858 , is now before us , and although it is a matter of regret that upon the assurance of Sir Benjamin Hawes that everything should be made pleasant they have omitted to present a report , the public is nevertheless indebted to several of the members for the acumen and diligence they have exercised in unravelling a tissue of improprieties—to use the mildest term—detrimental to the fair trader , the taxpayer , and the neglected army itself . Mr . Bicardo has been too great an invalid to assist
the committee ; but the more prominent members during the present session have been' Colonel Boldero , Lord Claude Hamilton , Sir Charles Napier , all energetic against red tapo , routine , and secrecy . Mr . T . G . Baring , an old Whig official ; Viscount Duncan , an old Lord of the Treasury ; and Sir John Hamsden , an TJnder-Secretary of the Ordnance—a department much involved in the results of the in-< rairy , and already in no fair odour—all no doubt inclined to stifle inquiry and hush up evil doings . It appears that the quality of clothing and
accoutrements issue * to her Majesty ' s army prior to 1854 , althougli in many respects too low to bo economical , was nevertheless fair at the price . The *\ clothing colonel" system had been pursued from time immemorial . The allowance for each outfit was fixed by the Government , and the colonels were at liberty to purohasc of whom they pleased . Tho contractor was bound by scaled patterns , and was only paid upon the certificate of tho purchasing colonel and a " clothing board" of regimental officers to asaiat him , after tho articles had been subjected nofc merely to inspection but to the test of a lengthened period of wear and tear . There wns , il ; is true , an avowed and . discreditable fictionconnected
with this system . A sum . m excess of the known actual cost of his regiment ' s outfit was regularly p laced by the departments at the credit of the clothing colonel , who was allowed to retain it in addition to Iris regimental pay . Farther he could not go , unless by forfeiting his character as an officer ana a gentleman , throwing overboard entirely that esprit de corps which has led officers on some occasions to expend , upon the comfort and decoration of troops entrusted to them , not only their entire quota of the estimates proper , plus the off-reckonings , which while the system , obtained they might fairly look upon as lawful gain , but also considerable sums froni their private resources . The colonel , aerain , as
the actual dealer in the articles , was more accessible to the complaints of men and of good officers , and a regiment Whose pay had been stopped for articles of clothing had some chance of redress in the event of those articles proving defective , through the mere sense of shame which might be brought home to its commander by the reports of its officers , and through its discreditable appearance upon inspection . On the 6 th . of June , 1854 , public attention having been very repeatedly turned to the miserable quality and hygienic unfitness of our military uniforms , and ha ^ inglieen , led on to the abuse of clothing
colonelcies by way of a raise scent , a royal warrant suppressed the practice , put an end to the profit of those officers , gave them compensation , and continued the rest of the system . But when Lord Panmure , in February , 1855 , succeeded Mr > Herbert , under whom the last-mentioned alteration had taken place , it was arranged , in order that right men should be in right places—for that was the slang of the day- —that Mr . Thomas Howell , an army packer and merchant of Mark-lane , who was the more eligible , perhaps , from being in partnership with a near relative of the then Treasury
whipperin , and Mr . George Dalhousie Ramsay , a cadet of the Fox Maule family , should reign , Instead of the colonels of the army , over the whole military clothing- contract system . In the same year the Weedon establishment was mounted on a vast footing as a contract store depot ; Mr . James Sutton Elliott ( since levanted to the United States under the travelling name of Brook ) was appointed to be principal military storekeeper . Active preparations were then , set on foot , if we ctn trust at all to the inferential fabric we have in our own minds constructed upon the mass of evidence before us , for a
misappropriation of the most magnifi csr > t calibre , A nice man was Mr . Elliott , and a persuasive . He was called as a witness before this committee , and how soft and balmy was his sweet reply to an interjectional query of Mr . Roebuck ' s , " whether , uuider certain circumstances , he would admit dishonesty or incompetency at Weedon P" "I would not say dishonesty , " he answered ; '' there might be incompetency , or there might be error . Human nature is not perfect . " But the bland Mr . Elliott ,
who thus threw oil upon the troubled waters of Mr . Eoebuck , is by this time out of all harm ' s way , beyond the . scope of the extradition treaty , enriched at the public expense—there is too good foundation in the Blue Book for the inference—by highly favoured contractors , and bearing with him , it is to be feared—for his accounts arc of course in inextricable confusion — the key of the many official and non-official persons who must have been privy to the organisation of which he was the head ana front .
We have no space at our immediate disposal to enable us to savour this announcement of progress with some of the piquancies we could gather from the pages of the Blue Book . Many ot them were given to the publio in anticipation of the report by a contemporary ; and the story of the rejected and resold boots , as related in the House of Commons , and there questioned by the administrative Tories , has made the grand tour of tho press . Suffice it , however , for the present to say , that on the 28 th of June , Colonel Boldero moved in formal terms .
we presume as mouthpiece of tho reticent committee , that an humblo address bo presented to her Majesty , praying that sho would issue a commission of inquiry into the Wcedon establishment . Tho gallant gentleman observed , that the accounts ot tho dcp 6 t wore more than thirty-clerk power in arrcnT ; tho grossest irregularities had prevailed there ; tho facts which jind transpired had been olicited from unwilling witnesses ; grave suspicion wns entertained of malpractices with reference to clothing and accoutrement contracts ; and that tho inquiry should by rights be extended to other p lnocs- General Peel , who had committed himsclt in the earlier part oi
the evening to an official warning that " the less « n » Horse Guards were interfered with by Parliament the better they would perform their duties " while promising the royal commission , assured the House that evidence would be forthcoming at the proper time to rebut much of that already given That commission is now sitting , and we watch its pro gress with anxiety . In reply to the gallant Secretary-at-War we arevglad tol ) e able to state that if the forms of the tribunal are not so arranged as to exclude them , there is an array of rods in pickle for officialism more than equivalent to the defence it has spared no pains to organise .
. Unluckily , some of the " unwilling witnesses " before the committee will not be again Jorthcoinb" - We have already hinted at the " abest" th ° e Weedon " Lieutenant-Colonel , " Mr . Elliott . "We full y anticipate more than one " segrotat . " Onesubordinate who could have given useful evidence has melted away to one part of the world , one to another . A person connected with another store dep 6 t has painfully- disposed of himself . Sergeant Brodie , who , after being court-martialed and persecuted for his interference in the affair of the Baumgarten duel at Canterbury , was provided for , under pressure of public opinion , by a kind of
transportation to the Weedon zn / erno , is now a shaky witness . Some curious revelations are in our possession . "We believe the gentleman sent down to make up—not to cook , oh no—the accounts has returned , and has declared the thingimpossible . The public will very likely not know how much it has been robbed of . The struggle of the Bureaux concerned , if not to gain , at least to save some character and prestige , is natural enough ; but her Majesty ' s Government would be ill advised indeed to throw their weight into the scale against Parliament and the public
Novelettes Of Law And Theiu Moral. The M...
NOVELETTES OF LAW AND THEIU MORAL . The many stories that have come out through our law-courts this week give so many proofs how thoroughly true is the boast of the Englishman , that the meanest in the land can attain to justice . There are many anomalies in our social state , as there are in our opinions , and therefore in our Iaw 3 ; but , taking those broad principles in which all of us are agreed , referring those wider laws which are meant for the average run of men , it is literally true that there is no land compared to that of England for the facility with which the meanest can invoke the law , and the perfect certainty that in the end justice will be rendered . It is true that , hi civil cases , justice is sometimes expensive , and so far unjust ; but that is an anomaly less of law than of taxation . We shall , perhaps , some day find out the economy of rendering law absolutely free and uncharged ; the difficulty , meanwhile , being how to discover the proper check upon a wanton and useless appeal to the interference of the law . The v tales with which our law reports constantly supply us are interesting-, not only as proof of the general equity which we have described , but also as evidence that the law itself is not complete . The basis of these anomalies , we have said , lies in the anomalies of our own op inions ,
the mixture of conviction upon ascertained facts with experimental problems and dogmata , subjected neither to experiment nor reason . We have not yet determined amongst ourselves what are exactly the bases of morals ; the consequence is that our law is shifting , and in the meanwhile society , not quite certain what ; to do , wanders into the troubles whioh bring its inner life to bo anatomised before judge and iury , before the most merciless and not always the most delicate of anatomiststhe counsel , who differ from their medical brethren in applying the reckless knife to the living creature . l * rom this point of view the stories oi our law
courts are interesting as studies of society , and are practically useful for the student of social philosophy and of legislature . Take the case of Mrs . Turner , which wns gone into before one of the Commissioners in Lunacy and a jury the other day at York Castle . Tho lady is tho wife of one of tlio official assignees of the Liverpool Bankruptcy Court . Almost from tlio outset of her marriage she has been violently jealous of her husband , ana has constantly persecuted Mm with accusations of infidelity . To such a degree was her mind affected upon this subject , that , nt home , at hotels , in fyct wherever she happened to be with her husband , sho accused him oi hnpro-
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), July 31, 1858, page 742, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/ldr_31071858/page/14/
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