The Express.
London, England, 1855-05-14 00:00:00

THE ROYAL ENGINEERS.

Tan COMMABDER-11(-011B7 gave it u his opinion
before the Sebastopol Committee, on Friday, that an
"increase of Sappers and Miners in the army was
preferable to that of civilians, because Sapper! and
Miners could work as well as fight." Lord Has-
toms is no doubt rather nervous about the continued
despatch of navvies to the seat of war. Arrange-
ments are in progress for the shipment of 3,000 of
them, at high rates of wages and the fear is Wand
that discontent may be engendered among the make
troops. Their employment, however, is a nesessary
evil, and the dead of its possible effect cannot war-
rant a large permanent addition to the Sapper force.
It would be highly impolitic to maintain Devises bri-
gades °Emcee earth-workers in time of pesos, sada" the
moles of the army in time of war the navvies can ba
no competitors for the soldiers' triumphs, while they
mar be a vast relief to the rank and file. They have
hi wages it is true, but only for the job, and with-
' int prospect of glory, advancement, prise money, or
pension, which an the consolations of the soldier
under all the trial, of war at sixpence a day.
The real evil is the limited number of Engineer
• ofiloers,to which we find no allusion made by either the

COMMAIIDER-IX-CUlgl or the Pll.lllO MINISTER, the
letter of whom proposed inter alio, on Friday night, to
effect a fusion, "as to disciplaw only," of the Royal
Engineers with the rest of the army.
Lord RAGLAN notices that in 1862—having ob-
served, in common with the public, the low state of
our artillery establishment—he procured an addition
of 300 guns and ammunition waggons. This was a
step taken in time. Its results have been satisfac-
tory ; the consequences of its omission would have
been dreadful,: but the increase of the Engineers
since that epoch has been in no way commensurate—
in fact, has not exceeded two companies, established
on the Ist of last month.

Probably nine-tenths of the public are nnao-
vitiated with the organisation and duties of the
Royal Engineers. They are beard of at the annual
siege of the lines of Bromptoo, and they acted as
military secretaries to the Exhibition of 18.51; they
have been supposed by many to be connected with the
Commissioners of Sewers; and are often found per-
forming mystic rites on grassy knolls throughout the
country in the name of the Ordnance Department,
the taw:lima of which, according to Lord HAR-
DINGE, are mainly financial. They may fairly
divide the geographical honours of the country
with the Tithe Commission, and have earned the
thanks of the railroad schemers and pedestrian
tourists, who are the great buyers of their maps.
These are their apparent pursuits, and in other mat-
ters they are rarely dreamed of. For, thanks to the
" inviolate see," bearing on its bosom the walls of
wood, the Englishman knows few of those miles of
masonry and acres of earthworks that the rulers of the
European mainland are wont to raise as stumbling
blocks in the way of their enemies. Here and there on
our shores a mild terrace of greensward, or a stolid-
looking Martell*, shelters a few veteran pieces of
ordnance, the honeycombed survivors of the rage of
kings. We have no used of an enesisile coninsue,
to threaten while pretending to protect our capital.
The Briton can have ingress and egress of his native
; town without a challenge or a drawbridge, and the
Cocksey may sum up the defences of this city in the
. historical Tilbury and the Tower of London.
But ancoospicuons as are the labours of the Eogi-
..

neers in time of pease, these are by no means light.
Our foreign colonial possessions require the service
of the corps at about 40 stations, which comprise
some of the most important fortified posts in the
world. Although we have no Strasburg, Mayence,
Antwerp, or Paris, we have Malta, Gibraltar, Quebec,
and Alderney ; and even where the progressive art of
war demands no additional defences, the hand of time
mast be perpetually withstood.
The strength of the corps en disponibiliti is about
290, inclusive of the last batch of young officers, the
sick, and those occupied in permanent appointments-
-60 in all. There remain, then, 240 officers, of whom
the forty foreign posts occupy close upon 100. Of the
snood remainder of 140, fifty are at or on the road to
the Crimea ; and our last remainder gives for home
service 90 officers, of various ages and capacities, whose
duties are as follows :—They are posted at forty-five
stations, including Portsmouth, Pembroke, Plymouth,
the Tyne, the Money, the Frith of Forth, the Bristol
Chrissel, D Alin, Cork, the Shannoo, the Medway, and
Chatham, where some are necessarily in charge of the
lop& They ars responsible for the deftness not
surely of these forty-five pleas. but of the whole
eoest line. They survey the United Kingdom for civil
and the coast for military purposes. They have the
supervision of all warlike constructions, from the
&allying an island to building a barrack or • wash.
house, facetiously termed going through a course of
tuabiteoture.
' They have the studies ,of juniors to super-
based, the czarism of companies, and the training
of lane men. They are supposed, after receiving their
esmitiesiass, to gain a vast amount of knowledge,
which boys seldom can or will acquire, and to keep
up an acquaintance with the literature and practice of
the profession, having an eye to the march of their
owe mimeo, and the general art of war both at home
end abroad. These duties mays not, on paper, appearez-
Imarting,bstpreetially they have been found in time
of parfait peace se disproportionate to the number of
able-bodied alone, that every thoughtful man in the
service adinits that not half of them can have been
as efficiently performed as he could have wished.
Aire yet this is not a lacy eorps. They are not
faahisas:ble loungers, nor do theyUstaloady strive for
the dlitinotioan of rnflianims, or the canwava dealt to
'chaos' Woods,. Leave of absence is hardly knows,
aid 'a men may consider himself bias off who hie
hr.d three or fear mouths' leisure in twice as many
'pan, while in many mess the aggregate of lore
lwaeld lts lowa km.
Thu koferestar. we weed data' horn them heti
and remarks is, that the functions of the' Repel
Engineers being miens end sasses is tine' et