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Leader (1850-1860), 13th January 1855, Edition 1 of 2, Page 41, Untitled Article

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      Untitled Article

      vanced and developed their strength , until they would have found themselves inferior to the enemy . The best counsel , therefore , and the most prudent , was that to re-embark before the season of the equinoxes and the storms in the Black Sea . And they . have not yet been able to disembark all the materials of war and of siege for the army . ' The moral of the soldier , raised by the battle won on the Alma , would not have remained affected by retreat ; nor could the

      enemy , in retreat and beaten , have been able to boast of any success . In the coming spring , under the best auspices , a new campaign might have been undertaken . A good and opportune retreat is equal to a victory . Wellington , who is reasonably reputed the most fortunate among the great and prudent generals , in spite of having won the battle of Fuentes de Onoro , in Portugal , as the enemy had preserved order , did not wish to follow him when he retreated behind Agueda ; and instead of

      doing so , he better fortified his line of battle on the heights of Fuentes de Onoro , raising redoubts and batteries . And why so much prudence ? Because a battle lost would have compromised his army , which drew its reinforcements from the sea ; and because the French being ill -provided with victuals and ammunition , to gain time was of great use to the English army , which secured its defences and augmented its forces by the Portuguese

      troops that were opposed to Massena , who , m proportion as time lapsed , consumed his provisions , and thus daily fell into a worse position . And however Wellington may have fortified the celebrated lines of Torres Vedras , and fought in a friendly country , nevertheless he carried on war on the Fabian principle , because he justly thought the sea not a bad base of military operations . Even now the Anglo-French , in a hostile

      country , choose the stormy and inhospitable Black Sea for the base of operations , and hazard the rashest operations against the enemy , who to bravery adds " superiority of numbers . Nevertheless , by some it-is objected that rafter the battle of the Alma it was necessary to undertake the siege ; otherwise , in the coming spring , the Russians would have much increased the fortifications of'Sevastopol . But I ask if , with the siege , that object is secured ? On the contrary , the Russians would have been compelled to fortify all the points of the place ; as they would have done , if and had

      they had not known the front of attack , been thus permitted to fortify only those that are now attacked . In this deplorable state of politico-military affairs , what remains to be done ? To be logical , you must patronise liberty , civilisation , and independence . Well , are you with the oppressed peoples , and not with the oppressors ? Are you with the Gospel and iiot with the Koran ? In fine , would you be with Justice ? Do you want to combat the Russian ? Well , march to encounter his army and fight 'him in open field . Arrest the reinforcements that you send to the Crimea , because these arrive there in a decimated conditionand in the spring you will not find so much

      , as half available for the campaign . Shut up the army of the Crimea in a strong camp , enclosed so that it is to be regarded as a citadel capable of sustaining a siege ; suspend the siege of Sebastopol ; concentrate a strong Turkish army of reserve at Varna , reunite the cavalry and artillery in the plains of Adrianople , and quarter the English and French infantry at Constantinople on the shores of the Bosphorus , where you will reunite a strong army , which in the next spring will enter into line with the Turkish army on the right of the Pruth , and will bestride the Lower Danube . Hence , if the Russians , without taking account of the concentration of formidable armies in

      Turkey , were to continue to send reinforcements to the Crimea , and were to resume the offensive there , besieging the allied army in its enclosed camp , send them only thoso reinforcements that would suffice to sustain the siege until the good season . Moreover , the wet season and the infamous state of tho ground render attacks difficult ; besides which , tho licet offers a powerful

      support to tho defence . As to tho equivocal attitude of Austria in the Principalities , there is no occasion to take thought of it . This power has many vulnerable points , and it is an easy thing to make a diversion of their forces . To enter into that question , however , would be beside the present subject , while France and England persevere in their fatal nnd unjust policy . Jr . Jr .

      Untitled Article

      THE COMING PEACE . ( To the Editor of the " Leader . " ) Sib , According to the latest rumours , the Ministry of all the Incapacities will meet an impatient and bewildered Parliament with head erect and ready tongue . In the aristocratic chamber , Lord Clarendon ; in the ho use of the landed gentry and the trading classes , Lord John Russell , will confidently place upon the table a treaty containing the four guarantees . In various forms of ministerial equivocation they will inform an enthusiastic and indulgent nation that a glorious peace is about to be signed . To the disinterested and patriotic opposition of Lord Derby and Mr . Disraeli , those natural enemies of despotism , the Ministry will say triumphantly : — " If this be not a desirable peace , what more would you desire ? Turkey is saved , we have gained two signal victories , Russia is humiliated , the Black Sea and the mouths of the Danube are open to every flag , the supremacy of Russia in the East is destroyed , her exclusive Protectorate is annulled . " And Lords and Commons will hear I hear ! and so the curtain falls upon the tragi-comedy of mystifications , and another entr'acte of " European tranquillity " begins . So much for the balance of power . But you have another duty to accomplish : you owe to the intelligence of your readers , to the political

      faith you serve , to the cause you represent , plain words of truth and sincerity . I assert , then , that the Czar , making peace to-day , comes out of the contest stronger than before . It was not presumed that Russia could make head against Prance and England united ; it is now proved that without Austria , France and England do but court disaster . It was imagined that Cronsta dt would fall at the first gun of the British fleet in the Baltic . It is proved that shallow waters protect the Russia n forts even more securely than granite , while the 14 th of October has convinced EuroDe that Sebastopol can resist the combined

      attack of the or strongest . powers of the world , Russia now knows ~~ that Great Britain alone is powerless against her , that a fleet without an invading army is a show , and that Great Britain is henceforth co mpelled to cleave to Prance against their common rival . The campaign began with sympathy for the Turks , it closes with contempt . The Protectorate of the Four Powers will weigh as heavily on the Ottoman Porte as the ambition of the Czar , and Turkey is more " sick " than ever . The cure is fatal . How the Sultan shall become a Christian is still the question . Russian diplomacy fought the battle of Navarino in concert with Prance and England : a little more shuffling of the cards , and she will give the coup de grace to Turkey with her allies of Nayarino , whose vigilant jealousy will notallow her"alone to despatch-the sick object of so much solicitude .

      The expedition to the Crimea was undertaken not merely to destroy Sebastopol , but with the afterthought of cutting out of Southern Russia a separate kingdom . Now , "it is purely a political war we are waging : we never entertained the idea of humiliating the just pride , nor of dismembering the territory of Russia . " If Sebastopoi is already stronger than it was last October , what will it be when the Allies have retired , and how will the preponderance of Russia in the Euxine be subdued ? The destruction of the Russian fleet is a secondary consideration : the first is the rescue of the wreck of the British army . How grateful should England be to a Ministry so sagacious , so economical , so imperial I And tho Circassians who were to be delivered ? They live too far from the coast .

      But your conclusion , tho impatient and mystified Englishman demands . Would you repudiate the peace and continue the . war ? Certainly not . The Ministry of all the Incapacities cannot get beyond the Four Points : it may go down to posterity as the Ministry of the Four Points . No more of this dull comedy of war without a purpose . Kings and Emperors fight with buttoned tyils and courteous grimaces . How should Louis Napoleon be in earnest against despotism ? When the nations have recovered their rights , they will fight tho battle of principles—by shaking hands . I remain , Sir , Your obedient servant , Tins AuTHon of " The Nations of Russia . ANuTlTUKKY , AND THEIK DeSTINV . "

      Untitled Article

      POLICE ! POLICE 1 ' ( To the Editor of the Leader . ) Sib , —Tho exposure of Detective Policeman Charles King , and his band of trained pickpockets , has been followed by such general exclamations of surprise

      and disgust , that a foreign student of the manners and customs of the people , might easily fall into the mistake of supposing that this relationship between the officer and the thief is not the natural result of our police system—a result , too , which is perfectly well understood by all who give . themselves the trouble to think about the matter . N 6 thing can be more clear than the fact that the existence of a police at all is . nothing but a choice of evils . The public prefers suffering injustice and robbery in a mitigated form at the hands of a small body of men , rather than be at the mercy of a large criminal population , just like a gentleman tolerates the gamekeeper who robs liim moderately , but who keeps at bay the rest of the

      poaching fraternity . This is so well understood , that some of the predatory habits of * the police have passed into a joke , and every householder laughs at the picture of a policeman emptying the larder by connivance of the cook , provided he does not find its realisation in his own kitchen . The fact is , there is no magic in a blue coat with letters on the collar ; a policeman is human after all ; he is endowed by the same instincts , moved by the same passions , and guided by the same appetites as he was before he entered the service of the law . The routine duties and ostensible emoluments of the policeman are not very tempting , and unless we are to suppose that patriotism prompts men to join the force , there is a difficulty in believing that the average policeman is not rather under than above the average

      of Englishmen , in morals , intellect , and education What the consequences of this system are may be demonstrated from its history all over the world . That execrable book , the Memoirs of Vidocq , goes to show that , as the best poacher makes the best gamekeeper , so the best burglar makes the best policeman ; it also shows that self-conceit and a sort of hideous liking for his art , led the French policeman into fostering , instead of repressing , crime , in order that he might enjoy the supreme felicity of checking the ingenious villain at the critical moment bjr some still more ingenious piece of cunning . This is the inevitable consequence of the detective system ; for so long as the craft and cunning of the policeman is trumpeted to his praise , he has no object in suppressing crime , but the reverse .

      Perhaps Mr . Charles Dickens has something to answer for in making the detective ^ an object of public admiration . The Nights with the Detectives QJVoctes 3 fercuriales ) began the business , and Inspector Bucket , with his mysterious forefinger , completed the apotheosis of the policeman ; henceforth he became the most virtuous , the most sympathetic , as well as the most astute of mortals . " Nights with the detectives" became the fashion , and many is the silly

      swell who has been goose enough to pay golden guineas for the high privilege of accompanying Inspector Bucket in his peregrinations through miasmatic neighbourhoods , where in some jeretched lodging-house he has gazed upon a mass of humanity in the last state of filth and weak degradation , and has gone away under the belief that he has penetrated some inner sanctum of crime , and that his own knowledge and views of life have been infinitely extended thereby .- - - - ¦ ¦¦¦ - —

      If Inspector Bucket got no more than the fees paid by these knowing students of manners , we should leave the matter where it is ; but he is not so easily satisfied . We will venture to say that there is not a beat in all this great metropolis the exact value of which is not accurately calculated by the Bucket fraternity . In many , perhaps most neighbourhoods , this value may be expressed in legs of mutton and those indefinite rights and interests classed under the name of cook ' s perquisites ; but it is an indisputable fact that there are some districts in which a more iniquitous black-mail is levied . What we refer to is matter « f notoriety to all who know ^ anything at the Westend

      of the nightly status of the streets - . How is it that you will occasionally see an unfortunate girl dragged oft" for walking the streets , whilst hundreds more are committing precisely the same offence within sight ? How is it that the policeman keeps a certain distance of pavement sacred to one or two promenaders ? How is it that the law is openly and notoriously infringed < ra certain houses , and the police can ' t for the life of them , astute as they generally are , find evidence to . convict ? Simply because Inspector Bucket is at woric , and because he has not only a finger , but also a palm , and when that palm is properly operated upon , the active , mysterious , justice - working finger is

      EHSSS ^ SS thrt ? o loneashey doify and applaud the rnarnfe * . SSSsfrf&sssSS species than h a rat-catcher in the abolition of rats . I am , Sir , your obedient servant , J . L .

      Untitled Article

      1 IX THIS DEPAKTMENT , AS ALL OPINIONS , HOWKVEH EXTREME , AR » ALLOWED AN EXPRESSION , THE EDITOB NECESBABILY MOLDS HIMSELF BESPONSIBLK . FOH NONK . 3

      Untitled Article

      January 13 , 1855 . ] T H E LEADE B . ' 41

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  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Jan. 13, 1855, page 41, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2073/page/17/