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probable that the Czar will thus yield ? Not at all 1 His last act is absolutely to refuse those conditions , without which France and England have declared that they will not treat at all . He retires behind the Pruth , onlv to protect himself from being outflanked , ana declares that he waits for overtures of peace or attack . The attack is coining .
Austria bas throughout said that she approved of the objects of the Western Powers , would not make separate treaty with Russia , would lend a negative assistance , but would not join in active warfare . To that rule she adheres , still waiting- to see whether we conquer at Sevastopol . Austria , therefore , will consent to follow in . the rear of Prance and
England while they are victorious . Prussia scarcely pretends that her neutrality is more than a timid yet treacherous alliance with . iR-ussia . The next great event , therefore , will be the taking of Sevastopol ; until that be accom * plished speculation is useless—after that we shall know better how we stand with . the Grerman IPowers and Kussia . 3 ? or our own
part , while we do not expect the Czar to give in , we do jiot expect that Austria will heartily join to beat down JSussia ; we do expect that during the conflict -which Eussia will be able to sustain , Prussia will abanddn her neutrality toside with that Power ; The conflict , then , must ; extend ; and in the carnp at -Boulogne France and EJngland have shown that they possess instruments for acting as well upon Prussianas Russian forces . We believe that hitherto the purpose of official ^ Engiand" lias expanded with the occasion , that it has never been framed' in
anticipation of thei occasion . larst * it was to free Turkey from Itussia ; next to make -Russia admit the supremacy of European law thirdly , to reduce the power of ^ Russia . But ¦ we ibeliera that official England , has no object for the next :, stage of , the war , and that the enthralled nationalities ate likely enough to assert their presence . Happy will it be for England if a party can consolidate itself , with a sufficiently distinct purpose , and a sufficient hold on public confidence ; to prevent the Government from betraying English honour . i , , « . .
It is from JSTeweaatle that ? this position has been most distinctly foreseen . The men of Newcastle are prepared for the future , as well as the present . ; ~ We jfanoio that they are not in the hands of foreigners , ; we know that they are moved by no party spirit against this or that Ministry , or non-Ministry . We know that their feeling is thoroughly English , and that fchey are prepared to stand
up tor the good name , the flag , and the influence of England on the Continent . If they stand firm to these principles , they must gather adherents from other quarters ; and for our own part we hail the day when " the Newcastle party" speaks to the Government in the name of the English people . Such a meeting as that at Newcastle is not of difficult organisation ;— 'why not more such meetings in such towns ?
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James Edward Perry was arraigned for " scandalous infamous conduct , unbecoming an oificer and a gentleman , " on these grounds —that he had described Colonel Garrett as meeting his report with the remark that " he was a fool for his pains ; " that he had threatened Colonel Garrett to report to the General of the District , and that Captain Nicholas had ill-treated other officers on . joining ; all statements being false . Now there is no positive proof that this description of Captain Nicholas is untrue . The remarkable
similarity in the negative replies of the officers on the point is excessively suspicious , especially when coupled with the letter of Lieutenant Waldy , who equally denied the charge , ¦ whi ch nevertheless he had made in writing . There is strong collateral evidence that Lieutenant Perry did tell Colonel Garrett that he should write to the General of the District , and that lie did actually write a letter , but withdrew it at the request of other officers . The oblivion of the colonel ,- —an old gentleman who did mot know when a subaltern was
dragged into the same room in his night-shirt , ¦ ,-rris no counterproof ; and if great allowances must be made tor the excessive laxity of the evidence against Perry , exactly similar allowances ought to be made on his behalf ; The judgment should be given upon the charges ; and the charges are but partially sustained . It is an excessive stretch of partiality to dismiss Mir . Perry from the service for a want of exactness in his statement , while for a direct untruth proved under his own handwriting , another officer is punished by nothing more severe than a reprimand .
It-may be truei that Mr . Perry is not proper company for officers , and there is something calculated to excite at least prejudice against him , in the very nature of his defence—his profession of quietude , his study of fortification and the cornopean , while submitting to the immoralities , the grumblings , and the indignities ' , put upon him by Greer . But all this has nothing to do with the specific charges ; and ' it is an outrageous irregularity in judicial proceedings severely to punish
a man for collateral improprieties , respecting which he was not put upon his defence , while glancing over defects in the evidence agaiusfc him in order to declare him guilty on unproved charges . The spirit of partiality which dictates this sentence is indicated e converse ? in the disposal of Greer's case . He was acexised of having struck Lieutenant Perry and of having used provoking and insulting language , and convicted , except upon that part of the charge
which accused him with using the words " swindler" and " blackguard . " The Court , however , only sentenced tho man really convicted to be reprimanded and placed lowest on the list of Lieutenants of the 46 th . The Commander-in-Chief , with a juster sense of equity , dismissed Greer from , the service , but permits him to sell out . Some of tho evidence , perhaps true enough in fact and letter , was false in spirit . Oqjptain Campbell declared in Court , that lie declined to associate with Perry because that person was the associate of disreputable women ; but the same witness
declined to answer the question whether he himself did not associate with the same class of women . There is , then , some all-provailiug hypocrisy in tho treatment of such oasos . Perry is dismissed from the service on a charge of falsehood unsustained by the evidence ; and he is sent to Coventry by Captain Campbell for offences against morals , which Captain Campbell does not deny in his own instance , and which ia notoriously in tho instance of many officers . There must then have been some reasons "which moved officers to these actions , but which they , < lo not lileo to avow . Mr . Perry was not wealthy ; and it has been
evidently the custom in the Forty-sixth to play for high sums , to go to expense in the way of " drag-a , " to cultivate society of the female sex more lively than regular , and in short to indulge in those vivacities which socially are not thought to be " unbecoming an officer and a , geutleman . " The new order from the Horse Guards does not touch that
subject of expenses , or the painful position in which a young officer is placed who has not the means of competing with his brotherofficers in the purse . Again , Mr . Perry rose from the ranks ; we all know to what painful trials that circumstance leads ; but the Horse Guards has done nothing to check the social cowardice which enables men of wealth or
birth to oppress the man who possesses neither . Tet the Horse Guards cannot at this day sustain the opinion of the great Captain . He declared before a Parliament commission , that there are difficulties in promoting officers from the ranlcs , because it tends to remove the distance which there ought to be between officers and men ; and . because those who ris& to be non-commissioned officers do not
possess , that steadiness of head which is rendered necessary by the wine-drinking habits of gentlemen in eoinrnission . The Duke , it se « ms , thought the decanter an essential institution , and it constituted for him an effectual bar to the promotion of non-commissioned officers , who cannot be guilty of debaucheries and riotous living like that which prevailed in the Forty-sixth . Beforethe Duke departed from , the chief command , it was , we believe , a practice at the Horse Guards to receive his orders , but out of consideration for
him to abstain from fulfilling thein . It had been discovered that the Great Captain could err even on inilitary matters . He was wrong oh the subject of promoting non-commissioned officers . Since the memorandum which Lord Harding © made , on the Fiftieth regiment , its discipline has been greatly \ mpioved , and that improvement must , we believe , be ascribed to the Colonel commanding : hut vrho is 7 ie ? He is an officer who has risen from the ranks—and if we are nob wrong he has known what it is to rise fro in the-. ranks among " officers and gentlemen . "
The disclosures which have been made respecting tlie haunts of vice in the metropolis , exhibit all classes as partaking the same depravities— " without respect of rank " —and if wo consult the history of the country on its better side , we shall find the same community of action . "Who were the great improvers , for example , that created our manufacturing- system ? If Cartwright , who introduced the spinning jenny , was a clergyman and a man of position , Hargreaves was a working spinner , Arkwright was a barber ,
Watt a working mathematical instrument maker . Oook , who rescued our navy from its sanitary abominations , was a collier's boy , The last Indian war gives us lords and plebeians equally fighting in the van . And why should the army "be an exception ? Tho qualities required for an officer &re > bravery , p robity , and , the capacity for organised action in subordination—the qualities of Englishmen in nil ranlcs , whon the character ia brought out . It is because we take the test of wealth , which is worse than that of birth , that wo
introduce so many ua-ofueorlike , un-gentlc / - manlike , un-English men into that profession , which ought to be open to the competition oi all Englishmen . Throw open commissions to tho ranks , abolish tho system- of purchase , lei ; promotion always bo earned by servico in tho barrack if not ; ia the field , and wo shall Ihwo tho oilcminato race of idlo cadeta , who arc supported by tho ostentatious generosity of their relatives , replaced by a genuine working corps of olucers .
THE GREEK AND PERRY CASE . The Ota-eer and Perry case has forced tho Horse Guards to make a general demonstration on the subject of thoso jocpsities in the army winch , coarse in their " nature , become blackguardism , or in tho periphrasis of tho Horse Guards , " conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman . " If wo accept the inatitutioa of the army oxactly aa it is , much might bo said for the apociea of comproiniso in which tho triulo caso has ended . It is not justice , but justico is inconaiatont with thp framework of the , army . In the second court-martial Lieutenant
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848 THE LEADER . [ Saturday ,
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 9, 1854, page 848, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2055/page/8/
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