The Press.
London, England, 1854-10-21 00:00:00

f

OCTOBER 21, 1854.

questionable " triumphs." If people were not
much elated with "the affair" at Bomarsund,
neither would they be satisfied with Helsing-
fors being reduced while Cronstadt remained
unassailable.
The key to the inaction of the Baltic fleet is
really to be found in the policy pursued by
the Cabinet, as described by the Edinburgh
Review, in an article commented on elsewhere.
• It was hoped that the Czar would get
" frightened," and " therefore, Sir CHARLES,
" it is contrary to economy to furnish you
' with gun-boats." Just so. The Czar was to
be staggered because Lord ABERDEEN and the
Duke of NEWCASTLE had put their heads toge-
ther with Lord JoHN RUSSELL, and the martial
patron of distressed needlewomen, Mr. SID-
NEY HERBERT. Knowing what we now do of
the mismanagement in other departments, we
are only surprised that a fleet was provided at
all for " Old Charley " to command ; and cer-
tainly it would never have been forthcoming
in time but for the energy with which the
gallant admiral agitated on the subject him-
self, and the well-timed augmentation of
5,000 men to the navy under Lord DERBY'S
Ministry.
At a proper time we have no doubt that the
comparative inaction of the Baltic fleet will be
discussed on social grounds. We are con-
vinced that Admiral NAPIER will have no cause
for shrinking from that discussion, though
possibly others, nearer home, may desire to
avoid controversy about it. We have been
opposed to many of Admiral NAPIER'S views on
public affairs ; but to him, and to every other
absent officer in her Majesty's service, we shall
steadily recollect the old English principle of
fair play. To " puff" one admiral, and to
vilify another, is a course that shall be consis-
tently avoided by the PRESS.

PATRICIAN PROWESS IN THE FIELD.
WE are sorry to find that several of the brave
officers who so chivalrously maintained their
country's honour at the Alma have since sunk
from their wounds. Amongst them we observe
that the Hon. Captain HARE (of the Fusiliers)

has died. He was extremely popular in
his regiment, and is deservedly regretted by
all who knew his amiable character. At the
very time he fell, the gallant captain's nephew
(Lord ENNISMORE) was also amongst those
" severely wounded," from close contact with
the enemy. In alluding last week to " the
defenders " who, by their deeds, have repelled
the calumnies of their " detractors," we did
not intend to offer a complete list of all the
gallant officers connected with distinguished
families whose names appear amongst
" Killed and Wounded.' Such a course might
possibly become invidious ; but, when " class
prejudices " were invoked against our " aristo-
cratic" officers, we cited a long list of names
of those whose actions against the foe refuted
their vulgar calumniators.
All the accounts recently received agree as
to the cool heroism shown by many of our
officers. It is not a little remarkable that
the very first name which appears amongst
the list of the " wounded severely" is that of
a spirited young volunteer, Lieutenant T.
LESLIE, orderly officer to the Commander of
the Forces. The regiment to which Lieute-
nant LESLIE belongs (the Royal Horse
Guards, Blue) is still in England. Lieute-
nant LESLIE was riding side by side with Lord
RAGLAN, when a ball entered his left shoulder,
traversed across his back, and was ex-
tracted at the extremity of his right side.
This severe wound was got, not merely from
"duty," but from "devotion" to the service.
The gallant officer is a member of one of the
most nobly-connected commoner families in
the empire. the LESLIES of Monaghan. His
father, the late much-respected Colonel
LESLIE, represented for many years the
county for which Mr. C. P. LESLIE, M.P. (this
gallant officer's elder brother), is now the con-
sistent Conservative representative.
It gives us pleasure to observe that the
' Liberal" Globe has also directed attention to
the number of patrician names amongst the
heroes of Alma. We trust that we shall not

THE PRESS.

again be compelled to peruse calumnies
against our British officers taunted as " aristo-
cratic."

SCHOLASTICISM vice STATESMAN-
SHIP.
IT is evident we are not yet quit of the scheme
for revolutionising the Civil service which was
propounded last session under Cabinet aus-
pices. Although the proposal was, in fact,
stillborn, and the derision it was calculated
to provoke was only abated by the apathy
it encountered, it is restlessly petted in

certain quarters, and we may possibly again
see it a part of the Coalition programme as
the crotchets of each of the cliques in turn

obtain a place in the Ministerial miscellany.
On account of this contingency, it is worth
observing that a series of light scholastic ex-
ercises in support of the scheme have recently
appeared in the Time:, and to take notice of
the grounds on which it is again obtruded on

the public.
It is premised that the proposed exami,
nation may be of no value with respect to
the qualifications deemed most necessary.
" Integrity of purpose, singlemindedness,
" goodness of disposition, facility of tem-
" per," and, we will add, intellectual as well as
moral aptitude for the work to be done, can-
not be gauged by any such method, as its
apologists tell us. And yet we are asked to
employ their test on the ground that it may
be accompanied by essential qualifications in
the same proportion as among those it would
exclude. On the nurse's plea for an insipid
remedy, that if it does no good it will do no
harm, we are asked to tie up the discretion of
statesmen, and to limit their choice of service-
able subordinates. In other words, as the
certificate of the Rev. Hippolitus Pump does
not imply the absence of the requisite qualifi-
cations, we are invited to restrict our choice to
his pupils.
In the next place, the suggestion is ventured
that the examination test must imply some
advantageous adjuncts, though it does not
amount to a criterion of fitness. To this it may
be answered that at some time 3r other, to an
extent we cannot appreciate, any information
may be useful. But its value to a man in a
given profession varies as its relation to that
profession is immediate or remote. A. tide-
waiter, for instance, may save hiznself from
wet feet by recalling au incident in the life
of CANUTE as well as by the light of nature.
But this would be a poor reason for requiring
for that office an acquaintance with Scandina-
vian history, as it would limit our choice of tide-
waiters generally. In all such arguments there
is no clear and tangible estimate of the advan-
tages contemplated from imposing similar re-
quirements. The standard to which all candi-
dates are expected to attain may be useful in
some cases and ridiculous in others. At the best
it can add little to the different qualifications
required for the various vacant offices that
the candidates have all passed the same
examination on the same system, and have
satisfied the ideal of the same board of
examiners.
Assuming that the incidental advantages
were greater than they could possibly be, we
recur to the question, are they equivalent to
the free discretion which patrons have exer-
cised hitherto with admitted practical success ?
The sudden reduction of possible aspirants to a
very small proportion of those who now approve
themselves, on an intimate acquaintance with
their talents and worth, must exclude many
who are capable of the highest employments.
The opportunity of securing their services
would be so far lost to the State, while their
entry into a sphere for which they might be
pre-eminently adapted would be barred by
their having enjoyed no early facilities for
that university training which the promoters
of the scheme contemplate. Such an ex-
clusion is unjust as well as impolitic,
and should be steadily resisted until some
more cogent reason is adduced for it than the
mere hypothesis that, in virtue of a narrowed
competition, the average of candidates would
, be higher. An improved average upon numbers

largely reduced may be so easily compatible
with a lowered average among the candidates
selected, that the public will scarcely accept
the scheme upon this ground. It may, in •
deed, commend itself to minds impressed by
scholastic habits with an undue notion of the
importance of examinations generally, hut it is
not likely to furnish practical men with a key
to the science of government on the system of
question and answer. It is popular, we believe,
among some junior members of the University
Common rooms, and naturally so, as it would
render the entire Civil service complementary
to their Great Gos and Little Gos. But it re-
quires something more than its peculiar !im-
portance to them to render its academical ex-
clusiveness acceptable to the country.

OUR ARMY AND ITS " ALMONER."
ALTHOUGH none can have a greater aversion
than ourselves to damping the efforts of bene-
volence, we feel compelled to observe that
even in obeying the noblest impulses of
humanity the exercise of discrimination is
imperatively required. Excellence of inten-
tion is often counteracted by rashness of
design, and foresight is specially demanded
in all those cases where our present conduct
may be taken as forming a precedent for the
future.
There is certainly something extremely
novel, and not a little questionable, in the
sight of a great London newspaper taking
upon itself the extraordinary office of almoner
to the afflicted members of her Britannic
Majesty's forces. Even if it be admitted as
quite right and proper that the British public
should exonerate her Mikjesty's Ministers from
all care of the sick and wounded, and should
apply their eleemosynary aid to the high-
spirited soldiers of the Queen, still, for a
variety of reasons, it is most improper that
a newspaper, no matter how powerful or how
widely circulating, should give itself a com-
mission to place her Majesty's troops under
the weight of charitable obligations to itself.
In the first place, to the military body such
an imposed obligation must, more or less, be
suggestive of what is derogatory to the
scarlet cloth. In profiting by the relief given by •
the Times' almoner, there will remain a sense
of personal obligation not compatible with
those noble feelings that make military men
proud of serving their Queen and country.
The more that we reflect on this matter the
more certain are we that it is likely to prove
invidious, and to become eventually the souree
of feelings the reverse of pleasurable.
That the sick and wounded should be suc-
coured in all their wants is ono of the very
first duties of the Government ; and severe
should be the retribution on the Cabinet, or
on the Medical Staff, if their specially-assigned
duties have in this case been neglected. But
we do strongly insist upon it that, even if the
public must step in with aid for the wounded, •
no single newspaper should arrogate to itself
the office of almoner to the British public.
Such a plan degrades both the public and the
military, and is quite unworthy of a free and
spirited people. Newspapers should be pur-
veyors of news, not " alms ;" their office is to
criticise and record the deeds of Government,
and not to substitute themselves for Ministers •
of State " unattached." With a " Secretary of
War," and another " Secretary at War," what -
a bitter reflection on our Ministry that t ;
duties of a military department are to be u
dertaken by a London daily newspaper !
We object, on broad principles, to any pu
lic journal stepping out of its proper course
and assuming an office which should be
conferred, and not grasped. Why should a
newspaper be thus allowed to clothe itself
with an assumed mission of benevolence, '
any more than a great London brewery, or
one of our railway companies? We shali not
echo the invidious comments that we have
heard in society, made at what, to some per-
sons, looks like an enormous puff of the
" G. V. B." kind, but on this point content
ourselves with saying, that, if the Queen's •
soldiers aro to be systematically taught to
look for help to a literary and not a medico-
! military staff, the whole journalism of the

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