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

THE PRESS.

The elders of the " Juden Strasse " flatly declare
that the peculation of parties indirectly through
officials at Constantinople and Balaklava is extreme.
There are some who will return with large fortunes,
wrung from the necessities of our officers and
soldiers. The whole pay and emoluments of the
army, according to "the people," are passing through
a few hands ; some of them no doubt have their
share through London channels ; and the outsiders,
not belonging to the subscription-list, uplift their
voices as honourable men against anything irregular.
The Austrian and Prussian offices do justice to
the suffering position of our troops, and, as gallant
and brave soldiers, decline to join in the cry against
our not being a military nation. The Austrians, in
particular, are alive to the vices of our system. But
the speech of Bernal Osborne, in disparagement of
our rank and file, as well as the Horse Guards,
together with the strictures of Mr. Sidney Herbert
in the same spirit, have drawn forth their heartfelt
anathemas. The speech of Mr. Bernal Osborne was
partially reported in the Times, which omitted the
derisive cheers from all parts of the house ; there-
fore I translated it from the Morning Herald with
all its honours, and adding a few comments upon the
antecedents of the honourable member. A Magyar
officer, on the " saal " of the Rheinischer Hof at
Mayence, on reading it with my annotations, started
up abruptly, rattled his sword on the ground, uttered
" Schwab," and spat in the fire. Those who are
aware of the value of that word, spoken by an Hun-
garian, will be enabled to estimate the value of the
compliment. As an antithesis to the Bernal Os-
borne calumny upon the soldier was appended the
reply of the Duke of Cambridge to the Mayor of
Dover. " Hah ! hah!" said a Hesse Cassel Gruf,
"he belongs to us as well."
These same Austrian soldiers read with delight
the words of Lord Derby, ever noble and chivalrous,
in honour of the personal graciousness that emi-
nently distinguishes our Queen. They perceive and
own that, with less official power than the monarchs
of despotism, the Royal lady possesses an all-absorb-
ing might of affectionate loyalty that, in her favour,
makes England move as one man.

J. E.

BALAKLAVA.—THE EARL OF CARDIGAN.
(From a Correspondent.)
ENGLAND 18 jealously proud of her heroes—she is
implacable iu her contempt• of an impotent. The
Earl of Cardigan and the Duke of Newcastle have
separate accounts to settle with the public. The
first has to receive, and he has received, together
with the valiant meu whom he led to the onslaught,
the thanks of England and France for a display of
the most cool and determined bravery. The other is
about to receive publicly in Parliament the reproba-
tion of every man whose heart beats in the right
place.
The peculiar bravery of the light division charge
at Balaklava resulted from the certainty of annihila-
tion and the known impossibility of effecting the wild
object contained in the written order. For the
chances of battle, in the heat cf action, all soldiers
are prepared even in the most desperate emergen-
cies ; but when a perilous order is coolly given, and
a " quasi" sentence of death is passed, impossible to
be productive of benefit from the very nature of war,
it is then that the qualities of true courage are made
patent in all the heroism of transcendent merit.
" C'est magnifique," remarked the admiring French.
man at Balaklava, " mais ce n'est pas la guerre."
Here was the apt distinction by a competent judge
betwixt the relative duties of soldier and general.
The peculiarities relating to the untoward order will
have to be explained elsewhere ; but the more
glaring the impropriety of that order may be proved
to have been, so in an ascending scale will become
more evident the virtue of an obedience prompt and
energetic, and accompanied by the unhappy doom of
a waste of life. It has been argued whether Lord
Cardigan would not have been justified in requiring
a further direction from the manifest futility of the
movement. When, however, the written direction,
misconceived or not, was distinctly made known, his
lordship, as a gallant soldier, together with the brave
fellows he led, took the open path of honour and of
death. Those who did not fall in that fearful and
over-matched struggle owed their preservation to a
happy star, and to acts of a personal bravery almost
superhuman. The measure of merit appertaining to
Lord Cardigan and his brigade has already been
meted out by the French allies, and particularly and
openly, and without disguise, by the Emperor of the
French himself.
The Duke of Newcastle is the Minister of War.
His ministry has been marked by the unnecessary
death of thousands of soldiers, proceeding from
ministerial improvidence, self-sufficiency, obstinacy,
obliquity of intellect, and official incapacity. With a
damaged and tattered reputation, grievously soiled
by Crimean disaster and the animadversion of the
journals of France and England, it might have been
conjectured that a desire would have existed on the