The Express.
London, England, 1867-03-29 00:00:00

HIGH WATIN AT LONDON BRIDON.

T® DA1715i.rng,71;:17.--74re7.7.1, 811. Mk
TO-Nomow—Mornlng, lih. 6s..—..Attersoon, 911. 460♦.

LONDON, FRIDAY, MARCH 29.

PF.RHAPS it is not the least of the public dis-
advantages arising from the present form of
government at the Horse Guards, that the chief
of that government is by his rank and position, so
considerably beyond and above discussion. There
is no flattery in acknowledging that His ROYAL
lIIGH NEM is zealously devoted to the interests of
the service over which he presides, and practically
versed in military affairs. But there are those
who will consider it an impropriety to remark that
on some occasions the present COMMANDZRAN-
CHIEF has spoken of the House of Commons, with
respect, no doubt, perhaps with a secret awe,
but as ho might speak of some inevitable malady,
as an insurmountable obstacle to military irre-
sponsibility and military expenditure. Certainly
he has never said that fifteen millions of
estimates were a mere pittance ; he has never
imputed stinginess to Parliament ; but as a
soldier, and a soldier of royal siege, he takes a
doubly professional view of the service, and
cannot easily understand how representatives
of the people can have the right to do anything
but find the money for the establishment. Of these
royal ideas Sir Joux PAKINOTON is now, by the
mockery of fate, become the chosen interpreter to
the House; and last evening he distinguished him-
self by explaining how anxiously " His ROYAL
" Hiainsass " had hesitated between deference
to the House and his own judgment on the
question of the abolition of capital punishment
in the army. It was the general opinion
among the supporters of Mr. Orwar's resoluLion
that Sir Joutt was not at heart among its oppo-
nents, but that, after having by the strange inver-
sion of respoillibility to which we have referred,
taken counsel at the Horse Guards, be had come
down with the best compromise he could obtain
from "the military authorities."
At all events Sir Joax's reign in Pall-mall will
have been inaugurated by one most desirableinnova-
tion. The Mutiny Act has positively been debated,
and the " military authorities" have been em-
phatically reminded that this Act is an annual
one, and that the precedent of this year will not
be lost sight of in a new Parliament. So unusual
was the circumstance of a debate on the Mutiny
Act, that the Committee fell into confusion,
from which it took all Mr. Doosow's clear-
ness and acuteness to rescue them, in attempting
to get at the flogging clause and its amendments.
Although the result of the division may not
be all that the most ardent army reformers
could desire, or all that they may con-
dently anticipate in some future session, it was
sufficient in itself, and preceded by a debate
which was more than sufficient, to convince the
" military authorities "—we believe Sir JOHN
PA IC INGTON is convinced already—that the
considerable minority, and even more con-
siderable in character and in weight than
in number—in a full House, which de-
clared last evening for the abolition of capital
punishment in the army—represents an actual
and increasing majority out of doors, who are
resolved that the British army shall no longer
be alone among the fighting armies of Europe to
submit to the infliction of a punishment which de-
grades the man who suffers it to the infamy of a
convict, and hardens the man who witnesses it
against the nobler shame of honour and self-
respect. The question was treated last evening
with excellent tact and judgment, and in the best
public spirit, by the member for Chatham,
not as one of weak, soft-hearted huma-
nity to criminals deserving punishment, of
cruelty in scourging and scoring a vagabond's
back, and sending him into hospital to repair his
skin, but as one affecting the spirit and morale of
the entire army, repelling the good, brutalising
the bad, assimilating good and bad alike to the out-
casts of civil life, not to juvenile delinquents—for
a soldier is a man—but to the most irreclaimable

ruffians in the gaols. It was on the efficacy, as an
example, of this infamous punialunent for mere
military offences, that Mr. Omar and the other
speakers on the same aide, whether civilian or mi-
litary, Mr. HORSMAN, Major Jaavia, and the rest,
dwelt with a force of argument and a warmth
of feeling that could not be resisted,
except by appeals to the good old reason of
routine, and by the invariable assumption that the
discipline of the army would go to the dogs if
the punishment of Hogging were not held in krru-