The Press. — London, England, 1856-12-27 00:00:00

1230 He believed that there never was a commander of more noble or generous spirit or cooler in the hour of danger than was Lord Raglan. He knew that sootier or later justice would be done to that great man, but at the same time he was persuatled that the position of Lord Raglan was not _generally understood in this country. He made a remark to Admiral Lyons, after coming from a con oerence, that he did not believe, if even the Duke of Wel lington had been in Lord ltaglan's place, he would have been able to do more. It was a difficult position for a man to occupy the command of merely a portion of an army. The great Napoleon himself had said, better one indif ferent commander than two good ones. No action, how ever brilliant, could be conclusive in its results unless it was vigorously followed up. The armies of England and France on first landing in the Crimea were nearly equal, perhaps that of England was superior. Marshal St. Arnaud and Lord Raglan were of the same mind as to tactics, but it was to be remembered that the French generals were changed three times, and as the war pro ceeded the French army was greatly increased. The peculiar circumstances which thereupon arose would be understood without his dwelling upon them. He gave every possible credit to the honesty and perfectly bona fide alliance the Emperor of the French wished to main tain with us ; but it was not to be expected that with an " army of 200,000 men every officer and man would be of the same opinion ' • indeed it had been a marvel to him that the alliance had been so well preserved, end it was a credit to both armies that it had been. Then it was to be recollected that, according to etiquette, the French general commands the French admiral, and the French admiral was senior to our admiral; and this, together with other arrangements, served very much to complicate matters. lie had the greatest respect for the French, and be be lieved they had the same for us; and one result of this struggle in the Crimea would be that it would be a long time before they had their slumbers disturbed with the idea of a French invasion. If they went to war again, however, each must have his own part to play—a single commander with a single corps. Sir Houston Stewart then touched upon the gallant behaviour of our men under their sufferings, and con cluded by reading a few extracts from his private letters at the period. Sir ARCHIBALD ALISON, in an eloquent speech, which was much cheered, proposed the next toast, " The Army and Navy." He was proud that the city of Glasgow had been the first to acknowledge the services of the Crimean heroes by a public banquet, and it was to the honour of Greenock that it had taken the lead in according similar honours to the navy. The Duke or ARGYLL gave " The memo i y of the heroes who fell in the last war." He coupled with the toast the name of Lord Raglan, and said I was grateful, I must confess, to my gallant friend for his well timed remarks in connection with the services of the army and of the navy. He recalled to your recollec tion the character of the late Lord Raglan. I need not tell you that, in now mentioning him again, I do not wish for one single moment to touch upon those questions which have been matters of controversy in regard to the conduct of this last war. Suffice it for me to tell you, and I think I can tell you safely, that the history of that war has not yet been written, and that it will be for another generation to judge entirely of the conduct of the late Lord Raglan. As far as my own means of observation can go, I can sincerely say that there was no nobler speci• men of a British soldier ever born than the late Lord Raglan. I mention him now not as a general, because on his capacities in that respect I neither seek, nor do I care to pronounce any opinion whatever. I mention him simply as a soldier who tell at his post of duty ; not, indeed, by the bullet of the enemy, but by the pestilence that walked at noon day among the gallant ranks of the British army. The toast was drunk in solemn silence. The re maining toasts including that of " Miss Nightingale," and others of a local and personal character, were most warmly received; MR. JUSTICE WILLES UPON TRANSPOR- TATION. AT Warwick assizes, on Monday, two men named Tombs and Parsons were convicted of burglary at Birmingham ; and it appeared they had been old offenders, and sentenced to four years' penal servi tude in 1855 at the Birmingham sessions, but the officers of the prison were ignorant of the reason for their being set at liberty before the expiration of their period of punishment. In passing sentence Mr. Justice Willes said : This case has to me a very extraordinary complexion, because in the year when an act of Parliament was passed by which certain periods of penal servitude were substi tuted for certain periods of transportation, the ol.lject was said to be to substitute imprisonment in this country for transportation to a penal colony. The act was passed in 1853, and a great deal of uncertainty has since pre. veiled concerning its operation. Myself and many per sons interested in the administration of justice have anxiously inquired what is the difference between penal servitude and transportation? No one reading the acts of Parliament can understand other than that persons sentenced to penal servitude and transportation will be treated precisely in the same way. There is no difference specified in the act, except the shortening of time with reference to the term of imprisonment in this country, it being doubtless considered that this imprisonment would be more likely to reform criminals than the more serious punishment of being transported to colony where SATURDAY, not stand a siege. The other towns in the principality are lioudry, Travers, Motiers, Valangin, Le Lode, and Le Chaux-de.Fonds. The soil of Neufchatel is generally rich and well cultivated, and the inhabitants who dwell in it are laborious and peaceable. Court anb Her Majesty and the Royal Family have spent the week at Windsor. His Royal Highness the Duke of Cambridge on Tuesday visited her Majesty. His Royal Highness returned to town on Wednesday. Lieutenant General Sir Cohn Campbell had the honour of visiting and dining with her Majesty on Wednesday. Viscount Palmerston is at present at Broadlands. Lord Stanley left town early in the week for Knowsley. Volitlral. MOST OF THE MEMBERS OF THE CABINET have left London for the holidays. The Duke of Argyll and Lord Panmure are in Scotland. Lord Palmerston is at his own seat at Broadlands. Lord Harrowby is in Paris. The Marquis of Lansdowne is at Bowood. Sir G. C. Lewis and Mr. Labouchere are at their country seats. Sir Charles Wood and Mr. Vernon Smith are also out of town. Lord Granville and Sir George Grey returned on Saturday to London. Lord Stanley of Alderley and Mr. Baines remain in the metropolis. A TREASURY COMMISSION has been issued, appoint ing Lord Portman, H. Ker Seymer, Esq., I K. Brunel, Esq., C.E., Robert RawlinAon, Esq., C.E., Professor J. T. Way, J. B. Lewes, Esq., and Southwood Smith, Esq., M.D., to inquire into the most effectual means of distributing the sewage of towns and of applying it to beneficial and profit abl• uses. THE INCOME TAX. A PUBLIC meeting of the inhabitants of Cirencester was held at the Town-hall this week to consider the oppressive and inquisitorial manner in which the assessments of the income tax are made; the High Steward, Mr. Bevir, in the chair. Mr. Mullings, M.P., made the speech of the day. He suggested that the meeting should not ask for the total repeal of the tax, but should adopt a prudent course. It was but fair and right to expect that the war tax should cease on the sth of April, 1857, and if any lawyer were to do whet had been done by the Go. vernment in inserting the words in the bill which carried on the tax in its present form until April, 1858, after an arrangement for the tax to cease a year after the conclusion of the war, he would sub ject himself to be struck off the rolls. He thought the entire repeal of the tax totally impracticable. They must recollect that the tax produced 10,000,0001. a year. Sir R. Peel only asked for 8,500,0001., and it was quite as much as they had a right to expect. He did not think the tax would ever cease altogether. He believed it would cease as regarded precarious incomes, but not otherwise. He spoke entirely inde- pendent of any Government. He thought that trades, professions, and precarious incomes ought not to be taxed the same as realised property, and he would do all in his power to oppose it. Mr. Brown, in moving a memorial on the subject, expressed his opinion that the war tax should cease with the war, and that the Government should have acted within the spirit as well as within the letter of the law. Other speakers followed, and the memorial adopted prayed that the war tax of 9d. in the pound he abolished from the sth of April, 1857, and that further inquiry be made as to the practicability of substituting a bona fide property tax in lieu of the present income tax. Another meeting, in consequence of the: receipt of a requisition numerously signed, assembled on Monday evening at the Town-hall, Devonport. The Mayor, Mr. Watson, in taking the chair, stated that he quite agreed in principle with the present movement against the additional 9d., which was a war tax, and which ought not to be continued at a time when the people had a right to expect the blessings of peac?. The tax bore heavily on the civil servants of the Crown, so many of whom resided in the borough. Dr. Rowe said that, although the country had hitherto submitted to the burden cheer fully, the time had arrived when it became necessary to show the Chancellor of the Exchequer that they were impatient. He moved— That it is the opinion of this meeting that the increased income tax now levied has greatly aggravated its previous inequalities, and that it therefore should be lessened at the earliest possible period in accordance with the pledge given by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Mr. Moses Jeffry having seconded, and Mr. Symons supported, the resolution, it was carried unanimously, as were others for the drawing up a petition, dm., proposed by Mr. Clark, banker, Mr. Ors.m, Mr. Rat- hI I I I I •ra • • •• • I ••• • • • Imi••••• THE PRESS: they could make themselves new men. It was understood that when a sentence of penal servitude was passed it would be a certain thing. Up to this moment I will frankly confess that, notwithstanding all my efforts to get information on the subject, I was under that impression, having always thought that penal servitude was to be a fixed and settled thing, of course subject to the high prero• gative of mercy which may be exercised by her Majesty the Queen. That prerogative is, however, a different bort of thing from the official sort of mercy extended to prisoners in the shape of tickets of leave. I make these remarks be cause I find that in 1855 you were severally sentenced to four years of penal servitude. If Government intended to be merciful to you, I should have thought they would have transferred you to prisons in which you might have been instructed in a trade, and been enabled to get your live lihood afterwards. You having been convicted so many times, I see no reason why you should have been set at large, nor any hope that, when set at large, you could gain employment and abstain from doing wrong. I think it is a great hardship upon men who have lost their cha• racter by being sentenced to penal servitude to let them loose in a country where persons will not employ them. I cannot understand why, either for the sake of the public or the sake of yourselves, you, having been sentenced to four years' penal servitude in January, 1855, should be let out to commit fresh depredations in the same town as before, in August, 1856. Those who did that act may justify to themselves the proceeding, but for my part 1 cannot justify it, nor can I follow the example set by those persons, for facts have proved the proceeding to be falls• cious and injurious to criminals and to the public. You two young fellows are well able to earn an honest livelihood, and I heartily wish that you could. I hope, for the sake of the convicts themselves, that we may return to a system which sends them out to a colony where labour is in great demand, and where they may (as many transports have done) regain good characters and become useful members of society. In order to give you a chance of being sent to such a plac.l in the event cf the former system being re newed—as many persons, together with myself, fervently hope it will be—l will sentence you to be transported for twenty years. MILITARY STATISTICS OF SWITZERLAND. THE Moniteur de VArm4e gives some details, of interest at this moment, with reference to the military resources of Switzerland : The strong interest which seems to have been awakened in the affair of Neufchatel renders it very desirable that, at the present time, the situation of that part of Switzer. land in a military point of view should be correctly under stood. The canton of Neufchatel has formed since 1815 the 22nd canton of the Federal Confederation. It is situated between France, the canton of Vaud, and that of Berne. Its population amounts to about dO,OOO souls, and its area to 725 square kilometres. It consists of the so-called principality of Neufchatel proper and of the county of Valangin. The public are now acquainted with its political organisation, and with the causes that have given rise to the present difficulties, upon which it would be needless for us to enlarge. By the terms of the Federal compact each canton of Switzerland is bound to furnish to the army a contingent proportioned to its population. In case of war, the aggregate numerical strength of these contingents is 33,758 men, who form part of the first levy; in this particular instance the quota due from the canton of Neufchatel is NO men, of whom 734 are for the infantry. Independently of the troops composing the first levy, the Federal army has a reserve of the same numerical strength, which, in the event of a serious emergency, would raise the forces of the Confede ration to 07,515 combatants, not including the landwehr, or militia, which consists of all the men capable of bearing arms, who belong neither to the contingent nor the reserve. The Swiss are brave and intelligent, but, notwithstanding their merits, we must not shut our eyes to what is the real strength of an army constituted like theirs, comprising as it does men with families, men taken from their business or work, and who do not possess, like tie soldiers of perma nent and regular armies, the instruction or the halls acquired in military life. Nevertheless, it is necessary to take into account the patriotic sentiment, the profound devotion to the independence of his native land, to which the Swiss in every age has been indebted for suc• ceases otherwise hopeless. In fact, looking at its actual condition, the Helvetic army is fully adequate to maintain order within the sphere of the Confederation, and to cause the Federal pact and the laws of the country to be everywhere respected ; but abandoned to itself it would evidently not be able to sustain a serious con• test against one of the great military powers of Europe. When Switzerland is engaged in any mili tary contest the Diet forms the supreme military autho rity. It is that body which publishes military orders, determines the general organisation of the army, calls the citizensjto arms, and appoints the general commanding in chief, the quartermsstergeneral, and the commissary. general. It presides over the instruction of both officers and men, as well as the purchase and custody of the muni tions of war. The general commanding-in-chief receives from the Diet his instructions and powers, and he alone is responsible fur his acts. His office may in no case con tinue longer than the duration of the term for which the forces are embodied. The canton of Neufchatel, pro. tected by the lake of the same name, which extends from Yverdun towards the north-east as far as St. 'liaise over an extent of nearly thirty-two kilometres, with an average breadth of seven kilometres, is accessible through the canton of Vaud and that of Berne, and the mountains of the Jura chain, which traverse these districts, contain many defiles of a nature greatly to assist the defence. The city of Neufchatel, the chief town of the principality and the seat of its Government, lies close to the Seyon, where it debouches into the lake ; its inhabitants number about 6,000 souls; it is incapable of defence, and could