The Press. — London, England, 1855-05-05 00:00:00

16 officials throughout India, natives equally with Europeans, as amenable to the supreme courts for any illegal act or abuse of authority as are the Company's officials at the Presi- dencies at present, and the public may take our word for it that the Crown judges of those courts will do their duty, and the first case of torture proved to the satisfaction of a jury will be the last that will ever be perpetrated by au official in India. WHO IS TO BLAME? THERE could not be a greater fallacy in die cussing our present evils than to suppose that Government has been brought to its present lamentable state by the incapacity of " subor dinate " officials. The lower posts in the civil departments are now filled by exactly the same class of clerks that occupied them when the West Indian islands and the Canadas were torn from the House of Bourbon, and a mighty empire founded in the East. But it is the recent and present chiefs of our public departments who are of an infinitely lower capacity than their predecessors. The fact can be made evident to any person who tries to conceive the Duke of NEWCASTLE, or Lord ABERDEEN, or the " Whig families," ruling England in the perilous period of the seven years which preceded and followed Waterloo. It is new men, we assert, for the principal Ministers of State, and not a fresh relay of clerks and underlings, that are required to save the State. It is because we had nothing but mere clerks as Cabinet Ministers that our disasters have been so severe. Red tape and routine have been deified, and bold energy of design and promptitude in action have been despised. Incompetency was installed in the very highest post of the War office. A Minister was employed who never had given any signal prJula of public capacity, and both our mili• tary and naval services paid an awful price for the vanity of the Duke of NEWCASTLE, and the servility of the Whigs iu deferring to his pre tensions. If all the subordinate departments had been perfectly manned, still, when they were put upon the wrong cue, how is it possible that t teir chief clerks and various subalterns could have proved efficient? It was well said by Lord DERBY several months since that " Ministers had never considered the great " ness of the undertaking upon which they " were encering;" and that is really the tersest and truest mode of stating the real source of the evils which have occurred. floe fonte derioata clatter. The departments are blamed, w ten the statesmen at the head of them are the real culprits. Was it, indeed, the clerks and the commis• s tries, the Filders and the Boxers and the Chriaties, and the rest, who committed the enormous blunder of sparing Odessa, thus • nailing the Russian foe to victual his troops from its vast granaries, while the British soldiers were left in the state which makes the blood run cold to think about? Was not that gigan tic blunder perpetrated deliberately by the Cabinet ? They (lid it upon humanitarian reasons. They made war sentimentally in rose-water fashion against the enemy, and con• trived its direst horrors for their own troops. For that enormous blunder are " subordinates" to be held responsible ? Again—look at the tremendous recklessness of " the leap in the dark" to Sebastopol. Our , readers recollect the stringent terms used by Lord LYNDHURST in describing the folly of sending an expedition against a stupendous fortress without ascertaining its resources, ald the number of trocps by which it was dofended. Well, let them turn to the despatch of the Duke of NEWCASTLE, on the 10th of April, read by his Grace in his first day's evidence, and they will see that the military men were really left no option as to the pro priety of making the " leap in the dark." It was a mandate, and not a discretionary order. Any candid person reading the whole despatch, with its intimation " that the Government was " of opinion that the difficulties in thee way " the siege of Sebastopol ware to be increasedof THE PRESS. " by delay," must see that Lord RAGLO had nothing else but to advance, even without transport or adequate support It wound up with reminding Lord RAMAN (as if in a taunt), that it " was to the gallantry of the troops " under his command that the country was " looking to secure the result of a just war." It is like a " leap in the dark " to blame the subordinates. And will any one tell us that for not organising the Irish and Scotch Militia in time, and supplying a reserve, that " the subordinates " are to be blamed, and not the Cabinet Ministers? Our present Premier has often winced under Mr. DISRAELiS well founded strictures upon this grave charge and upon such an enormous oversight ; it is worse than ridiculous—it is dishonest—to direct blame against "the subordinates." And, lastly, are we to be told that it was " the subordinates " who appointed his Grace the Duke of NEWCASTLE to be the War Minister of England ! Why, this miserable cant about the " subor dinates" is absolutely sickening, and scarcely less so is the hollow cry about reforming the departments. Yes ! they do want to be re formed, but not after the fashion of the hot and hasty clamorers for mock changes. They want to have able men placed at their several heads. Men of energy and commanding qualities would give a tone and vigour to the public service which it greatly needs. CANNING said well, " that in times of difficulty " and danger men are everything, measures " are comparatively nothing. Kingdoms rise " and fall not by well-meant endeavours, but " by the commanding talents of able men." COLONEL PARLDY, of the 10th Hussars, an officer of nearly forty years' service, now commands the cavalry division in the Crimea. Lord George Paget, who had from his seniority held temporary command of the division, commands the light cavalry. THE Cologne Gazette states that the object of Lord Stratford de Redcliffe's visit to Balaklava was for the purpose of taking Lord Raglan's evidence, to be sub mitted to the parliamentary committee on the state of the army before Sebastopol. Is addition to Aldershott, which is to accommo date 10,000 men, several other encampments on a minor scale are to be formed, namely, one at Haver fordwest, capable of accommodating 1,034 men ; one at Exeter, for 2,453 men ; one at Gloucester, for 3,895 men ; one at Colchester, for 3,322 ; and one at Shorncliff, Kent, for 3,313 men. These encamp ments will be appropriated principally to the militia that cannot be accommodated in barracks. THE court-martial, sitting under the presidency of Rear-Admiral Plumridge to investigate the recent stranding of H.M.S. Hecla, has given its decision. The commander of the Hecla, Captain H. S. Hawker, is found to have been culpable, and is adjudged to be severely reprimanded. The master, Mr. J. H. Tucker, is sentenced to lose two years' service, and to be dismi> sal the ship. The prisoners produced numerous testimonials. MESSRS. Loses, WILSON, ♦ND BELL, iron manufac turers on the banks of the Tine, have received an order from the Ottoman Government for the manu facture of 35,000 bombshells ; each shell will weigh sixty-five pounds, and nearly 1,000 tons of metal will be consumed in their manufacture. A large quantity have already bean sent off. About 500 are made a week. The same firm have an order in hand for some large 38-cwt. mortars for the same Govern ment. NEARLY 150 Poles and Fins wbo for some time have been in the barrack at Millbay, Plymouth, with the other prisoners taken at Bomarsund last year, having volunteered for servicu against the Russians, have been temporarily removed on board the Royal William ordinary guard-ship at Devonport, Captain J. Kingcome. This was a necessary precaution from the hostile feelings evinced by their Russian comrades on hearing they bad offered to serve against Russia. FROM a return to the House of Commons issued on Saturday, it appears that the land force , - in I loia amount to 281,940 officers and men, b. sides w.iieh the subsidiary native troops number 31,004. The police corps numbers 35 officers and 24,015 men. Wa regret to learn the eyesight of Lord Charles Wellesley is considered irretrievably lost. His lord ship is brother and heir presumptive of the Duke of Wellington. A SINGULAR RESULT OF THE CHEAP FARES between Glasgow and Edinburgh wa- exemplified last week, when a firm at the former city received a considerable remittance by the hands of a clerk, whose fare, first class, was considerably less than the commission charged by a banker. SATURDAY, BY CONTINENTAL TELEGRAPH. VxmiNA, Thursday evening. The departure of General Hess is deterred to the 6th inst. VIENNA, Friday. It is asserted that the reason of the postponement of Boon Hess' departure for the army is the hope still entertained that the last Russian proposals will lead to peace. HAMBITRO, Friday. Admiral Dundas has left Kiel in his flag-ship to commence the campaign in the Baltic. Constantinople letters of the 23rd ult. announce that the first detachment of Piedmontese troops arrived there on the 21st. The ?hocks of earthquake have not ceased at Broussa, and were even felt at Constantinople, where all the European inhabitants of Broussa had sought a refuge. Some cases of cholera have been reported in the French catnip of Maslak. The trial of Pianori is fixed to take place on Mon day next. The prisoner has a wife and two children, who are at present living with her father in Italy. Miss BURDETT COUTTS offers three sets of prizes, which in value will amount to 501., for the teaching of common things. Miss Coutts proposes to school mistresses in schools connected with the Church of England who have pupil-teachers apprenticed to to them, under Government inspection, in the county of Middlesex, one prize of the value of 51.; four prizes of the value of 41. each ; five prizes of the value of 31. each. To the pupils in the Whitelands Training Institution who are in their second year, and have passed a Government examination at the end of their first year, ten prizes of the value of 1/. each. To female pupil-teachers in schools connected with the Church of England who are apprenticed in the county of Middlesex, who have entered their third year, and not completed their fourth year of apprenticeship, eight prizes of the value of 10s. each. The examination for these prizes will be held on a Saturday in June or July, at the Whitelands Train ing Institution. The Bishop of London and the Committee of Council on Education sanction the scheme. THE ROYAL. SOCIETY has lately received a valuable addition to its collection of manuscripts by a present, fr an Mr. Edwin Canton, of a series of autograph letters from Dr. Franklin, Priestly, Sir Joseph Banks, Howard, ttc. Ma. BAILY has finished his statue of the Lord Chief Justice Mansfield, and it is now in Westminster-hall, preparatory to its erection among the other statues in the vestibule of the Houses of Parliament. THE English Protestant church at Alexandria was to be opened on Wednesday the 25th ult. CASTLE MENZIES AND SHOOTING, according to the Glasgow Daily Mail, have been let to an Indian prince fur two seasons. His name is Dhuld Sing, and he is a convert to the Christian religion. AFTER years of deliberation, it is at length decided to introduce gaslights and waterworks into Copen hagen. The corporation have for this purpose con cluded a loan of three millions of dollars, to he amor tised by yearly annuities of the value of 150,000 dols., terminable in about fifty years. M. Bu.Lstivr, the French Minister of the Interior, has refused to authorise the introduction of bull fights into Paris during the time of the Exhibition. Such spectacles, he says, are repugnant to French ideas. "NATURE-PRINTING."—A splendid work, entitled the "Ferns of Great Britain and Ireland," is now in course of monthly publication by Messrs. Bradbury and Evans. The novelty of the process consists in transferring the surface of the plant to a copper plate, whence any number of impressions can be taken on paper, so as not only to delineate these beautiful species of vegetation with general accuracy, but to re present, with the most literal fidelity to nature, the hairs, veins, and other minutiae of superficial structure. From the plates given in the first nuntbere of the work, we can testify to the extreme delicacy and exactitude with which the forms of the various species of ferns are represented, so as in fact to convey the impression that the plants th mselves have been transferred to paper rather than that they have been printed from the copper-plate on which they were first represented. The descriptions are, it may readily be imagined, excellently written, as the work is compiled by Mr. T. Moore, whose admirable " Handbook of British Ferns " 24 well known, and edited by Dr. Lindley. The E kl.l with which this novel process of nature-printing as bees executed by Mr. Henry Bradbury cannot be too highly praised, and from his complete success .D this instance we look with toatidence to such an ex tension of the process as will eff. et a revolution in the art of representing botanical forms. . •