The Press.
London, England, 1855-11-10 00:00:00

1064

could interfere with effect. The British public
may, or may not, be goad judges of siege ope
rations, but they understand something about
books and education, and would, we are cer-
tain, be delighted to contribute to the intel-
lectual requirements of our army.
Supposing, however, that neither of these
plans is feasible, there is yet a third, which
might, perhaps, prove more effectual than
either. This has been hinted at by the Times
already, but it has not yet been stated what
good authority there is for its success. The
Duke of WSLLINOTON in the Peninsula—and
this is a matter which no interval of time can
affect—established a head-quarters bank, with
a savings-bank attached to it ; and his troops,
though certainly quite as viciously disposed as
our own, were found to patronise it exten-
sively. At all events, any experiment is worth
trying to mitigate the unfortunate propensity
to drunkenness—a propensity which, when
indulged, is fatal alike to the discipline and
the hardihood of our men, and must prove
in the long run most injurious to the opera-
tions of our Allies.
There is one other point in connection with
this subject that we must not entirely pass
over. The Times of Thursday has the following
observations :—But if the boasted regimental
" system is worth anything, it ought to be
" available against a social evil. The influence
"of the gentleman ought to tell." We would
merely inquire whether that influence has in
the present war been allowed its fair play. We
cannot experimentalise in the face of the
enemy. What our regimental system is, that
substantially it must continue to be—at all
events, until an interval of peace recurs. It is
inwoven with the system of English society,
and in consonance with the spirit of English
institutions, and cannot therefore, we hope,
be pronounced wholly bad. Let us, then, do
the most we can with it while we have it, and
try our utmost to increase the feeling of re-
spect which it engenders between the privates
and their subalterns, which it is to be feared
that recent unmerited strictures have gone far
to undermine.

SIR CHARLES WOOD AND HIS JERSEY
IMITATORS.
WHETHER the deportation of the Jersey refu-
gees be strictly constitutional or not, is a
subject upon which we should like to have the
opinion of the First Lord of the Admiralty.
The Radical organs are taking great liberties
with HAMPDEN'S name upon the question ; and
the case of ship-money is brought to bear upon
the crime of those who were sent off much
faster than if they had been gun-boats. One
dismal hiss of execration has followed the
persons who, at such a time, and in such
grave emergencies, dared to use language
against the Queen of ENGLAND, which reflected
disgrace only on themselves. What does Sir
CHARLES WOOD think of them ? He is remark-
able for his opinionative mode of affecting the
oracular. There is a smart, snappish manner
about the First Lord in replying to an oppo-
nent uhich is rather characteristic of one of
" the Greys." In this instance we do not
think that the First Lord would join in the
hiss against those who, if they had been at
Halifax two years ago, might have vehemently
cheered the indecorous harangue of a British
Privy Councillor and Minister, who vilified
the ruler of a great neighbouring State. Sir
CHARLES, we are sure, would scarcely be for
dealing severely with such persons.
On the contary, we should suppose that he
would rather talk of " freedom of speech," of
" a tyrant," of " destruction of the liberties of
" individals," with a variety of other intense
expressions. Doubtless the Jersy refugees
were puzzled by the distinctions of our
constitutional law. Some of them must have
read the outrageous language applied by Sir
CHARLES WOOD to the Emperor of the FRENCH,
and they might have thought it strange that
they should be compelled to " cut their stick,"
seeing that Ministers abstained from that
operation upon their own inutile liynum. They
were all told to ge to Bath, while Sir CHARLES
has not yet been desired to go to Jersey, where
b would have found some unexpected ad-