The Press. — London, England, 1855-02-10 00:00:00

128 "remarkable discretion ;" and then comes the most singular part of these disclosures. When the public dissatisfaction was begin ning to make the Coalition quake, " they " wrote me (says the Admiral) the must goading " letters," and not long after Sir JAMES GRA HAM'S lecture on discretion, there came the " most meriting and degrading letter ever written to "an oflicer." Here is a case at once for in quiry. Who wrote that letter? What were its terms ? At whoa() instance was it sent? These questions must be answered. Either the statement is false or true. If it be false—Sir CHARLES himself anticipates what should be done. " I ought to be scratched off the list if " lam not telling the truth." And if it be true, severe should be the sentence passed on those administrators who chose a brave Ad miral, overloaded him with caution, dinned into his ears to " beware of stonewalls" — then praised him—next " perverted his " words " afterwards joined in a clamour against him, and finally sent him the " most " degrading letter ever written to an officer!" Now, in this grave and truly serious case, we shall refrain from assuming the truth or falsehood of the charges. But an investiga tion must be made, and that at once, even at the risk of shocking the sensitive nerves of the gentleman who " lost a place, and found a " constituency.' The charges are now patent to the world. Independent of the two cha racters at stake, the facts must he investigated for the sake of the Naval Administration. On the one hand, the laurels of a British Ad miral are not to be snatched from him by a vacillating Minister; and on the other, a Naval Officer must not on light grounds ac cuse the Executive. Silence cannot be main twined on such serious charges. The speech of Sir JAMES GRAHAM at the Reform-Club dinner still rings in public recollection. The present Premier was at that dinner, which seemed to some persons like a tempting of PROVIDENCE to confound its reckless revellers. Then and there Lord PALMERSTON also spe cially lauded the " discretion" of the Admiral, and the question must be tried in the present ' instance—" which is the real culprit ?" On the 7th of January, 1779, the brave Ad miral KEPPEL wan arraigned on several charges, and, after a long investigation, the indictment recoiled against his accusers. Sir CHARLES NAPIER has dared a similar ordeal, for he closes his charges with a sentence, which will be read by every seamen in the Navy—" If Sir James Graham has one bit al " honour in him, he will never again take his " seat in the Admiralty until this matter is " cleared up." STATISTICS OF WAR. DURING the recent debate upon Mr. ROEBUCK'S motion Mr. SIDNEY HEnBERT and Mr. GLAD STONE both dwelt emphatically upon the in evitable waste of human life in war. We are sure that not one of their hearers was disposed to question the truth of this proposition ; but when these gentlemen proceeded to compare the losses sustained by this country in former wars with those of the Crimean expedition, with the view of showing that the present complaints of the public were groundless, they raised an issue upon a matter lof fact which it is of the highest practical importance should he thoroughly investigated. If they are right, the public and the press, and an overwhelming majority in Parliament, are all egregiously wrong. The losses and sufferings of our Crimean army are not greater, Mr. SIDNEY HEKIIRBT assures us, than might have been anticipated. He alluded to the condition of the Duke of WELLINGTON'S troops in Spain upon two memorable occasions, viz., after the great battle of Talavera, and during their re treat from Burgos ; and he left it to be inferred that, even under the eye of that experienced chief. the destruction of life was quite equal to that which is now taking place before Sebas topol. Let us see how this startling theory is supported. The Registrar-General has, since it was propounded, supplied us with the means of testing its accuracy, and the following are the results : In the latest quarterly returns published by that officer he states that of our force in Spain iii THE PRESS. " 225 per 1,000 were on on average upon the " sick list, and their annual mortality Wad at the " rate of 161 per 1,000." Do these figures bear any proportion to the frightful consumption of life which we have lately witnessed, and still witness, in the Crimea? Is it not notorious that whole regi ments have been swept away by disease since the siege of Sebastopol commenced ? The 63rd has disappeared altogether; the 46th, which left this country in November 1,000 strong, had okily by the last accounts some thirty men fit ?Or duty. But we need not multiply details with which the whole world is conversant, although we must express sur prise at the bold attempt of the late Secretary at-War to impose upon the credulity of his hearers by citing an historical precedent which tells so fatally against himself. The boldness of Mr. GLADSTONS is still more remarkable. He asserts not only that the reports as to the condition of our army have been grossly exaggerated, but that we still have an effective force of 30,000 men before Sebastopol. Another Cabinet Minister, Sir WILLIAM MOLESWORTH, has since deliberately repeated this statement. How are we to re concile this estimate with a late report of their own chief medical officer on the spot' Dr. HALL states that the one-half of our sol diers now doing duty ought to be in hospital, and that there are actually in the camp but five or six thousand effective men, the remnant of the finest army that England ever pos sessed. It will require all Mr. GLADSTONE'S ingenuity to reconcile these startling dif ferences to the satisfaction of the country. OUR SICK IN THE CRIMEA. IF anything were wanted to convince us of the utter state of misery and prostration which enfolds our brave soldiers in the Crimea with such deadly grasp, it would be the reported letter of Dr. Ham., the chief medical officer in the camp, to the principal medical officer at Scutari, stating that he is to speedily expect an additional 5,0(X) sick from Lalaklava, with the prospective augmentation of fully half the men who are under arms at present in the camp. To meet this alarming increase of sickness, they are, of course, forced at Scutari to every shift and con trivance : new hospitals are being hastily erected, convalescents are being hurried off, and every pre paration is being made to obtain covered rooms for the reception of these additional five thousand wasted bodies of poor sutferers. However hasty such preliminary preparations must. necessarily be, we should yet have hoped to find thnt the internal organisation of the hospitals was in a more efficient state after four months' trial than at the commencement of the campaign. But where is the Use of any longer glossing over the fact or speaking of it mildly in the hope that improvement is daily going on' The arrangement in the Crimea for the transport and hospital care of our sick and wounded are in the same deplorable state of miserable mismanagement and disgusting neglect as they ever were. With only one exception (the steamer Melbourne) the vessels employed for the transport of the sick, are still—weeks upon weeks after the thing has been pointed out to the Govern ment by every journal in the kingdom —are still, we repeat, without beds, blankets, medical stores, or even medical care, for those unhappy men who are thrust on board, and laid side by side, wrapped in their one regulation blanket, covered with filth and vermin, and left., on the average, to a week of hor rible suffering that no words can depict, no expres sion can convey to the mind of those not present any adequate idea. So far for the transport of sick and wounded. In our hospitals, what is the state of improvement in affairs, which commissions, in quiries, and references to higher authorities tbr the last two months, have educed? A Blank, my Lord." Things are just as they were three months ago—if possible a trifle worse. The medical staff, insufficient as ever, are overworked as ever, and the result is seen in the one case of recovery out of sixty capital cases of a peculiar opera tion, against the one failure out of a similar num ber of similar cases in the French hospitals. The deputy inspectors of one week are in valided, or exchanged, or removed in some way or other the next; nobody has any responsibility, nobody will accept it, as nobody is sare of his place for twenty-four consecutive hours. The consequences of such a want of system, induced solely by the niggardly means which the Government provided, are obvious. The hospital, fetid and fevery, will require a hospital for the cure of its own inmates. Typhus had already s shown, the patients are dying at fifty and sixty a day, and the next thing SATURDAY, that we may prepare to hear is that, breaking out in a malignant form, it has swept those poor, wan, wssted heroes by hundreds, ay, by thousands, from off their infected pallets. Of the state of the stores-- of which there are none on hand—of the purveyor's department, of the cooking arrangements, of the washing place, why waste words? They are bad as bad can be conceived. Our men, coated with filth and vermin, lie for days without a rag of clothin. , on them, because there is none in store ; their food, by turns, is parboiled, or boilod to rags, or sent up raw ; their washing is seldom done at. all, and theta they lie, in filth, in misery, and in wretchedness, and there they rot, and there they die. And the Ministers at home are paying each other delicate complimeete, and Mr. Smiler HERBERT gets up in the house and tells us that Dr. Cummins is now appointed to the head of the hospitals, and that every arrangement for the beneficent care of the sick and wounded would be fully carried out. liow often have we heard this before from the same quarter ? THE MINISTRY. Yesterday it was definitively announce d that Mt. Sidney Herbert was to be appointed Colonial Secre tary, and Sir G. Grey to undertake the Home Department. The resulting changes in the Ailmi• nistration will consequently he as follows, all the other Ministers retaining the posts they previously occupied : Lord Palmerston Premier. Lord Panmure Secretary of War. Lord Granville President of the Council. Sir G. Grey Home Secretary. Mr. Sidney Herbert Colonial Secretary. The office of Chancellor of the Duchy of Lanni:ter, vacated by Lord Granville, is not yet filled up. No new election will be required in the case of Sir G. Grey, whose appointment only amounts to a transfer from one Secretaryship of State to another. Mr. C. Cavendish Clifford, who was Lord Palmerston's pri vate secretary at the Horne-office, continnes his lordship's private secretary. Lord Hobart also accom panies Sir G. Grey from the Colonial to the Home Office in the same capacity. Lord Panmure has ap pointed as his private secretary Mr. George Dalhousie Ramsay, of the War-office, who has been acting as private secretary to Mr. Sidney Herbert. Lord Elcho, it is expected, will succeed Sir John Young as Chief Secretary for Ireland. Mr. Edward Francis Maitland, Sheriff of Argyll, will be the new Solicitor-General for Scotland, in succession to Mr. Mackenzie, appointed one of the Lords of Session. The new writs for Tiverton and South Wilts were moved on Wednesday in the House of Common 4. No opposition is expected in either case. Mr. Sidney Herbert, in his address to the electors, says : Lord Palmerston has been called upon by her Majesty is a great public emergency to form an Administration. I have felt it my duty to accede to a proposal he has made to me to become a member of his Government. I believe that the Government which ho has constructed is determined to use every effort for the active prosecution of the war in which we are engaged, and for the attainment of that durable and honourable peace which it is the object of the war to secure. The elections will take place on Monday next. The navy estimates for 1855 50 will, it is stated, not exceed 14,000,0001. sterling. PORTIMOtTIf, FEB. B.—The screw-ship Crtuit embarked about 900 officers and men for the Crimea this morning. She sails tomorrow, calling at Ply mouth for drafts of regiments waiting there. , Much sensation was occasioned in Berlin by the depeoure, on the 4th inst., of Count Esterhazy, the Austrian ambassador, from that capital. On the tith, however, in pursuance of instructions received from Vienna, the Count returned to his post. Accounts from Bucharest assert that the Russians, in attempting to cross a river in the Dobrudschs, had met with a serious repulse from the Turks, after a contliot of some hours. The French police at Bayonne arrested on the 17th inst. fourteen Carlists, upon suspicion of being concerned in an attempt to invade Navarro. A private despatch, received in Paris front Turin, announces the adoption of the treaty of alliance by the Chamber of Deputies on Wednesday morning. The London and North-Western Railway dividend for the past half-year will be at the rate of five per cent. per annum, with a considerable surplus to be ri cared to the credit of next June account. The dividend on the Great-Western Stock will be the same as for some time past. There is to be a ball in aid of the funds of the French Benevolent Society, in the Hanover square Rooms, on the evening of Monday next. The New Philharmonic Society has announced that its first concert will take place in Exeter-hall on Wednesday next, the 14th of February, under the patronage of her Majesty. The proceeds are to be given in aid of the funds of the Asylum for Idiots.