The Express.
London, England, 1849-05-30 00:00:00

THE EXPRESS,

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LONDON,WEDNESDAY MA 17'3 0
Tan English army is like the English church.
The officers of the one, and the clergy of the other,
consist of two clause:, the working, the subaltern,
and the ill-psid, on the one hand, the wealthy and
well-connected, purchasers of rank and monopolisers
of good things, on the other. Nothing ran be more
miserable or underpaid than the lower ranks of the
army or the church. Nothing can be more parapeted
or worthless than the man of connexion, who leaps
into his prebend or rich living in the church, or than
the same person who gets his pair of epaulettes with-
out service, and qusliiie4 to b 3 governor or C3M-
louder of garrison or colony.
Nothing can be more convenient for the defence of
these unequal and abusive systems than this contrast.
Attack the wealth of the church. and the number and
poverty of its curates are flung in your teeth. Talk
of the accumulative salaries of generals, and the per-
quisites of clothing cohnels, and you are referred to
the subaltern, who lives on seven shillings a day, far
which perhaps he may have paid even six or seven
hundred pounds. It would be more fair to divide
Sias into three classes—the poor and working
stelishsrn, the highly-connected officer who runs up
the leader by po3tical or aristocratic interest, and
the officers well, bat not highly-connected, who make
the army an investment, who purchase as far as their
majority, which they nevertheless spend a life in
obtaining, and who recite with that rank. This monied
military class does certainly not derive any very
great profit from her Majesty's treasurT. Considering
their risks. one cannot say that the interest which
they get for their money, joined with a salary for
their services, is too much. We think, indeed, that
both classes, the drudge officer and' the purchasing
officer, have much to complain of—all the prizes of
the service riming from them, with very few excep-
tions, to officers blessed with aristocratic or political
soonexios.
When reformer?, therefore, complain—as they have
every right and justice to do—that the army is a
nursery for the younger sons of the aristocracy, they
by no means pretend that all the officer are of that class.
Far front it; there is work to be done—work not to be
expected from such tender striplings. Then as only the
top places of the military establiah meat are worth look-
ing to by such a class, of course no greater number
tr the army than may be pretty sure of getting up
Soso lofty roosts. The eons of the aristocracy do
net emstitute the tu 'must of the army. There are
the eempiternal and stationarysubalterns, the adjutant
deft mask worm off than their fellows in any army
sf Imps. And there are year men of wealth,
who pay their way up to the rank of field
Ours, but who having no connexion or chance for
a higher stride, retire to their club or their watering-
OM at last to grumble, when the twentieth Lord
Tow NODDY his walked over their heads.
Such is the system by which the English govern-
ment sapplies and advances its officers, a system the
most aristocratic, the most inefficient, the most ex-
pensive, and the most unjust, that it could enter into
any man's mind to imagme. Were it not for the high
and gallant qualities which compose the staple of the
English mind, such a system could not fail of pro-
ducing perpetuall ineptness and disgrace. And it in
impossible to imagine anything more unfavourable to
the development of military talent
It is easily conceived how very reluctant govern-
ment must be to reduce a corps of officers thus com-
posed. Perhaps not one third of these officers are
really of the working officer class, and they cannot be
dispensed with. Then, the TOY NODDIES cannot be
checked in their career, whilst that portion of the
officer body which represents capital, it is for
other reasons inconvenient to reduce. Is it to be