The Press.
London, England, 1855-12-29 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

SATURDAY,

The Marquis D'AzEomo has replied with dignified asperity to an
address presented to the King of SARDINIA by the inhabitants of Edin-
burgh. Protestants in this country do not, perhaps, always distin-
guish sufficiently between what is old, catholic, and venerable in the
Church of Rome, and what is new, heretical, and despicable. The
people of Edinburgh, with whose views in the main we sympathise
warmly, must have forgotten at the moment what the Sardinian
Minister so pointedly reminds them of, that VICTOR EMANUEL is the
descendant of an ancient Catholic house, reigns over a nation of
Catholics, and is himself, in the better sense of the term, a true son of
that Church. The vile superfluities which Popery has grafted on
Catholicism the King has manfully shaken off; but, like our own
Reformers, he is by no means ready to proceed from correction to
destruction—not at all opposed to the stability of the Piedmonteso
Church. They fo..get, too, that the principle of which the King of
SARDINIA is in this case the representative, is that of toleration, not in-
tolerance ; and though it is impossible that Protestants can just now
be too much on the alert, yet we are, on the whole, sorry that the
address to our excellent Ally should not have been couched in more
guarded terms.

The intelligence from the camp is not altogether pleasant: Our
new roads, which were to rival the Appian way, have failed under the
first few hours heavy rain, and resolved—or rather dissolved—them-
selves into their original mud. The French roads have given way
altogether; and, to judge from the amount of extra traffic thrown
upon our own, have become for the time utterly impassable. Our
Land Transport Corps, organised with so much care and at so vast an
expense, has broken down; the mules and horses are dying off by the
hundred a day ; the pack-saddles and carts, of little use at the best of
times, have turned out utterly worthless now they are really
wanted ; and the carriage of hutting and stores to the front
is suspended, so that many thousand men of our army will
probably have to pass this winter under canvas, and run the risk of
being occasionally half-starved into the bargain. If this is the result
of a few days wet weather, may we not anticipate a repetition of the
worst horrors of last winter? It is really incredible that an army,
stationary and enjoying so ample a period of rest, should not have
been better provided against the bad weather. Everything hitherto
has been favorable ; the finest weather continued fully a month later
than the best average seasons led us to anticipate, and yet, in the
second week of December, we find the army, in point of preparation
against the winter, little more than a week in advance of their pre-
parations last year. The break-down of the Land Transport Corps
will be a serious loss to the army. No measures can possibly put it
into an effective state this winter. It has failed simply from want of
strength. Admirably organised in every department, it has yet on the
first pinch failed to carry out the object of its organisation. Lord
PANMURE has now enjoyed the best part of the year for the perfection
of all those admirable plans which we were told would render our army
the envy and admiration of the world. But what has he done when
we come to the facts of the case ? We find the army well clothed, and
with good boots on their feet, because they have no trench-work to do ;
but only partially hutted, with no stables for the mules and horses, no
forage in store, bad carts, worse waggons and harness, and everything
over which he has had the more immediate control, showing a lamen-
table want of discretion and good management and an amount of
ignorance perfectly incredible.

It is the season for pantomime, and the Lord Advocate of Scot-
land, Mr. MONCRIEFF, has been amusing the public by a most divert-
ing speech at Leith. It was an harangue about everything in general,
ani nothing besides in particular He commenced with an announce-
ment of " a few words," and he proceeded to fill three columns of
small type, and passed from topic to topic with a facility that would
have caused envy in the breast of a London auctioneer—equally rap-
turous on a ribbon or a Raphael. A hint on reticence is much
wanted for talkative Scotch lawyers. He opines that the House of
Commons is a peculiar and moat remarkable assembly.
" Other characteristics might he struck off," continues the
learned humorist, " if I had the pencil of DICIENS, and if I had
" malice sufficient." We leave Mr. Boz to digest that sentence, and
to look for a new specimen of the grotesque under a wig and gown.
" Little Dorrit " will before long, probably, make the acquaintance of
a walking whimsicality, with a mouth full of intended truisms, to be
estimated as taunts. It would be a new character, and we should
have to look far north for " the original." Poor Mr. MONCRIEFF !
only fancy a Scotch lawyer put into pantomime and monthly num-
bers ! After praising Lord ABERDEEN, this fluently-incautious tongue
of the Lord Advocate dashes out encoimums on Lord PALMERSTON and
Lord PANMURE. " The state in which the troops now find themselves
does entitle the Noble Lords to the gratitude of this country." But let
Mr. MONCRIEFF answer how Lord PALMERSTON can be entitled to
" gratitude," when our Premier was a powerful Minister in the Cabinet
which intrusted the war to inexperienced officials ? What did Lord
PALMERSTON do when the troops were starving, and perishing miser-
ably ? Did he not even oppose every inquiry into their condition ?
Mr. MONCRIEFF forgets that the public is not entirely without a
memory, and that other persons beside himself can refer to the Annual
Register for 1854. The whispering of the short monosyllable ought
to make the Premier's professional panegyrists desist from their hazard-
ous eulogies. That one syllable is the name of a town in Asia Minor.
The word is a short one, but there is a long story about it ; and as
inqui►;y followed the mischance at Sebastopol, the same indeed must
be applied in the case of No ; we will not print the little word for
the benefit of the retrospective Lord Advocate. Let him open his ears
to what people are talking and thinking of in the year of 1858, and he
eanuot fait to timid it out.