The Press.
London, England, 1857-09-19 00:00:00

THE PRESS, SEPTEMBER 19, 1857.

" advanced to within one day's march of Lucknow, had been obliged to
" fall back upon Cawnpore." There is apparently no confusion of
places or dates here. His advance upon the road to Lucknow is
recognised, his retreat definitely stated. And yet there is an
inexplicable mystery about this retreat. Why, if within twenty
miles of Lucknow, should he retreat more than thirty to Cawnpore?
If the rebels were too strong for him to advance they would
have been close upon his rear when he retreated, and if he
had cholera amongst his troops the stimulant of a battle was to be pre-
ferred to the depression of a retreat. We confess that we wait with as
much hope as anxiety for some explanation of this telegraphic state-
ment. But whether he has retreated to Cawnpore or relieved Luck-
now, his position is equally perilous. The outbreak at Divapore
and Benares will effectually prevent the advance of reinforce-
ments to his aid, so that, wherever he be, we fear his recent
glorious successes will prove so to have exhausted his resources
as to compel him to act strictly on the defensive. However, be
that as it may, he has not lost his honour, nor is he less
deserving of the admiration of his countrymen. A groat opera-
tion directed to an important object, though it fail of success,
marks the genius and elevates the character of a general Nothing
can be more certain than that the failure of a military operation is in
itself no disgrace. A town may be besieged and captured after the
most heroic resistance. Circumstances may defeat the most obstinate
valour, the most enduring fortitude, and the most noble perseverance ;
but what brings disgrace with it is that such noble efforts should be
paralysed, and that the worthy sustainers of a country's honour,
after incredible efforts and glorious successes, should be forced to
capitulate or to retreat from want of resources. The infamy and the
disgrace is for ever fixed upon those in office, who, underrating
the danger, but boasting of their power and of the nation's resources,
neglected their obvious duties, and sacrificed our interests by their
folly and their incapacity. These are they upon whom the terrible respon•
sibility rests for the shambles at Cawnpore, the retreat of our hero HAva
Loot, and, we fear, the too probable massacre at Lucknow.

We are given to understand that Recruiting for the Army does not
advance with as much rapidity as might be desired in the grave emer-
gencies of the present crisis. Whether it is that the pressure upon
the labour market, in all its various branches, is unusually severe, or
that the enrolling of the militia corps, either for embodiment or fur
training, has lessened the supply of that class of men who are avail-
able for the military service, or that the inducements to enlist in the
form of bounty, pension, and similar advantages, have not been raised
in proportion to the exigencies of the occasion—whether one or all of
these causes conjointly and in their several degrees have contributed
to the result, we know not. We are inclined to believe that. enough
has not been done to render the profession of arms an object of ambi-
tion to the industrial population. We cannot see the use of the restric-
tions as to height and age which are now in force. The order
of his Royal Highness the Commander in-Chief, offering
free commissions to gentlemen who have enrolled a hundred
men for service, does not seem so promising as it appeared at first.
It is clear that, regarded merely as a business transaction, it would
be the interest of any one who was anxious to enter the army to pur-
chase his 100 men, as he could do so at a rate which no recruiting ser-
geant could offer, and yet obtain his commission at a cost below regu-
lation price. In this way the usual channels for reinforcing our.
army would be partially closed, and it is to be feared a very
inferior stamp of man to the ordinary recruit would be enlisted. in
an emergency of this character expedition is everything, and we are
still of opinion that if our standing army must be increased, the
quickest and most effective mode of doing so would be to form an
auxiliary corps of such regiments of Militia as are willing, with their
officers, to be enrolled in the Queen's army. It would be easy to make
them distinct, if it should be thought necessary to do so, and the in-
ducemnents of half-pay pensions and widows' allowances might very
properly be held out to them.

We warn the public against the sophistries and falsehoods
attempted to be palmed upon them with reference to the speedy arri-
val of reinforcements in India, and we du trust that the people will no
longer permit themselves to be lulled into supine inactivity by the
"cheerful" views and gratifying assurances of the Ministerial journals.
We need not detail here those veracious assertions which for weeks
past have been paraded in prominent type that we have seen " the
worst phase" of this terrible rebellion now raging from Cape Como-
rin to the Punjaub, and that because the telegraph tells no tale of
sickening massacres its intelligence may be accepted as" cheering, as
" consolatory," and as proving " the neck of disaffection" to be definitely
broken, and that "each day must bring fresh succour" to our worn-out
garrisons. We protest against these gross misrepresentations
made use of to screen the criminal neglect of Mi-
nisters who refused in May last to despatehi reinforcements to
our struggling countrymen. It makes one writhe with impatience at
the flippancy with which these journals put forward their plausible
sophistries. Dates, and localities, and numbers are suppressed, a coin- c
pany is magnified into a "force," three hundred men into " powerful
reinforcements," and au entire regiment into "an army of reserve.'
According to them, so speedily are reinforcements being
collected at head-quarters, that ordinary language fails to convey to
us a notion of the rapidity of their arrival. They are " streaming up
the Ganges," and " pouring into Bombay," and in a few weeks will
" sweep the treacherous rebels before them" from Cape Comorin