The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1855-12-18 00:00:00

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TUESDAY, DEOEMB_ER 18, 1855

FROM OUR LONDON CORRESPONDENT.

MONDAY MORNING.
Orr Monday last the Court removed from Windsor to
Osborne, where HER MAJESTY and the Royal Family will
remain till the middle of the present week, at which time they
and the Royal Household will return to Windsor Castle, there
to celebrate, in good old English style, the Christmas festival,
and spend_ the season's holidays. Arrangements have been
made for having MEHITL'S grand Oratorio of Joseph per-
formed at the Castle on New-Year's-Day, on a scale of courtly
and musical magnificence rarely equalled in this country.
Madame GOLDSCHMIDT will, it is understood, take part in
this performance.
For some little time past, great commotion has been shown
at the Military Clubs and places of resort, and within a few
days gossip has been unusually busy in relation to certain
movements connected with the army, in which the name and
alleged interference of the PRINCE CONSORT have been freely
mixed up. Intended novelties in the art of tailoring and
batting, not hutting, the army form grounds of discontent and
sarcastic remark among all ranks and grades in the military
service. So much has already been said of the infantry hat
and the cavalry coat skirts, that simple-minded men and the
ordinary run of civilians- fondly imagined the inventive facul-
ties of an army clothing artist had been gratified if not
satiated ; and that the spirit of pragmatical innovation had
been effectually rebuked. Such, however,_it appears, is not
the case, and a new regimental hat is prothisfd to the officers
of the line, of such rare beauty, that it is supposed they will
deem theinselyes happy men in being allowed each to acquire
one at the moderate charge of five and twenty guineas, and
the superannuation of their present costly though inelegant
" golgothas." Everyone who has attempted to cater for the
public knows to his cost the ingratitude which pervades all
classes of that many-headed monster; and it is said that
even royal designers of military coat-flaps, buttons and jack-
boots do not meet with more than a compensating amount of
thanks from .subalternsrith -attenuate-d purses, and field-
officers who are stupid enough to prefer decorations awarded
for meritorious service to the filagree ornamentation of coat
sleeves with recondite designs in gold lace. Such an extent
of obdurate ingratitude as is implied in the last-mentioned
suppoiition is indeed distressing, nevertheless

'tis true, 'tis pity,
And pity 'iis 'tis true,
a head-thatch of marvellous form and surpassing :esthetic
proportion&is_threatened-to-the army, and its members are
greatly apprehensive of the consequences.
Another, and a more important matter-than the "hat," has
unloosed the tongue of gossip, and made scandal, oral and
typographic, busy with the name of Prince ALBERT, and his
distinguished position in relation to the army. The recent
army warrant, enacting that an invidious distinction, existing
in favour of the household troops, giving to their officers an
ipso facto superiority of grade, shall cease, and that actual
service in the field shall be the future ground of grade pro.
motion, has given dire offence to the officers of the three re-
giments of Guards. These officers have prepared and for-
warded a urembriai to the QUEEN, which the Times says was
secretly proposed and secretly presented, demanding that the
warrant shall be rescinded because a few officers of the Line
will by its provisions receive a temporary priority of rank.
This memorial has, it seems, been signed by the colonels of
the three regiments of Guards, including the Duke of CAM-
BRIDGE and Prince ALBERT. The interference of Prince
ALBERT is looked on with extreme dislike and much jealousy
by all military men. His individual influence with the QUEEN,
his exalted position in the State, his personal inexperience in
military affairs, are, each and all, cited as conelusive reasons
why he should have stood aloof from any such movement,
which is loudly condemned as at variance with the spit it of the
time. This matter has given rise to much comment, and
when it is remembered how many meritorious officers have
been left behind in the competition for employment and pro-
motion, simply because they could bring no influence to bear
upon the authorities at the Horse Guards, it ceases to be a
cause of wonder that this interference on the part of His
Royal Highness should re-provoke criticism on the influence
he has exercised in reference to the highest military appoint-
ments. JOHN BULL, though patient towards accused parties,
and ever-meMirifin the interpretation of questionable facts and
ex-parte allegations, is exceedingly jealous of anything bearing
the semblance of self-seeking and shabbiness, and doubly suspi-
cious upon the subject of military abuses, to which, of late, he
has had his attention most painfully directed. At this particular
juncture, the interference of the oldest field-marshal, though
one of the youngest generals, in the British army, is felt to be
particularly ill-timed and indiscreet. It has opened up the
channels of rumour and suspicion, as to the exercise of "a
power behiUd the throne," and singularly infelicitous allusions
to the predominance of German policy, which is said to
dominate and thwart the constitutional advisers of the

crown.

While military clubs have been agitated by the subject
above mooted, and the matters collaterally arising out of it,
the political clubs of the Metropolis have been the arenas of
an activity unusual at this season of the year. Everybody
supposes that during the few days of December, which pre-
cede the advent of Christmas, legislators, forgetting their
senatorial anxieties, are busied in preparation for duly cele-
brating the festivities of our great annual holiday time, and
everybody believes that they are, at present, doing so. In
this conjecture, everybody, as is not unfrequently the case, is
grievously mistaken—'frue;-here and there we find a rural
M.P. presiding over the annual bucolic celebration of his dis-
trict, stimulating the patriotism, and sympathising in the con-
tentment and rejoicing of his hearers; but this is no faithful
index to the real state of affairs. For some time past the
political clubs of London have had an unusual attendance of
members. What adds to the seeming importance of this
unseasonable congregation of political somebodies, is the won-
derful fact that each seems surprised at the presence of his
fellow, as if all had secret missions of their own to fulfil, and
believed that no one else even dreamed of a probable coadjutor.
From this state of matters the knowing ones profess to draw
very conflicting inferences. By one set the conclusion is held
to be obvious that a dissolution of Parliament is imminent ;
another, and these are looked upon as the better informed
upon the subject, infer a " staggering state " of the minis-
terial omnibus. Theoretical and practical disagreements
on many points of vital :policy are known to exist among
the members of the recently patched up cabinet. The posi-
tion and prospects of the war are fertile themes for anything
but friendly discussion. The PREMIER and Lord CLARENDON
are said to have agreed to differ on some very important
affairs of foreign policy. Other members of the Cabinet are
likewise known to entertain views on the question of peace
very different from those expressed by Lord PALMERSTON.
Since it was first jumbled together, many screws have become
loose in the Cabinet, and fair reason exists for believing that,
in even the, most recent accessions to the Ministry, round
men, to use the simile of Mr. DRUMMOND, have got into
square holes,-aud-feel most undeniably that they are not
" the right men in the right places." These and other
"coming events" throw the shadows of a ministerial break-up
strongly before the eyes of a sorely puzzled people. Ministers
and their abbettors maintain that the PALMERSTON Cabinet
is a "strong government," yet, singularly enough, it seems
completely paralyzed whenever it attempts to move ;—they
represent it as united in purpose and combined in operation,
yet, at every turn it is threatened with dismemberment—
every indicated action becomes the signal for revolt among
some of its members. Numerous individuals, deeply versed
in the science of political straw-throwing, maintain that the
'" signs of the times" are portentous in their indications of a
.ministerial break-up before the re-assembling of Parliament.

The commotion about peace, which still agitates the public
mind, is held by many to be a mere device forklirecting at-
tention from the ministerial squabbles ; while others, with a
greater show of probability on their side, maintain that these
rumours are in reality stock jobbing artifices, concocted with
as much skill and as little foundation in truth as the late
alleged scarcity of sugar in the British market had its origin
in the fortuitous amount of the sugar imports. Both affairs,
these parties affirm, had their origin in a fertile imagination,
and an unscrupulous appreciation of individual profit. On
this particular subject, the game is still pertinaciously main-
tained by the Morning Chronicle, the hazy oracle of the
GLADsToNIAN policy. This astute political organ, only a
day or two ago, drawing on the authority of that
Mrs. GAasP with which it is in correspondence in the
Austrian capital, says :—" From Vienna we receive as-
Frances that the prospects of peace grow brighter every
day, and were never so sure as UM." The value of any
guarantee held out by so mythical a diplomat as the author
of the Chronicle's Vienna correspondence, will, of course, be
taken by the initiated quantum valeat but any reference to
that journal, and its " foggy morning" foreign news,. impels
a reminiscence of the recent conduct of its political idol, the
Right Hon. WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. That gentleman,ffi.
it will be remembered, having possessed himself of
suent
courage to assist in tying up the rudder of the good ship
Britannia till she " drifted" into a war with Russia, had al so
the further bravery to undertake the prosecution of the war
on the ready-money principle. He was to make each year's
taxation defray the cost of each year's hostilities, and indig-
nantly repudiated the idea of a loan. He was, however, in
doing so, the financial ruler of the war ; and in that capacity
he adventured upon a project denounced as the reverse of safe