The Express.
London, England, 1866-10-30 00:00:00

HOLBORN.

TRW EVENING, at 7, LARKIN'S LOVE LETTERS. Mr. Bei-
ra we and Nils& C. Saunders.—And FLYING SCI'D. Messrs.
Neville. Bellmore, Blake, Vallaire, fie. ; Mesdames F. Josephs,
C. Saunders, Bessie Foote, Mae', Lennox, Raymond, &e.

OUR CONTEMPORARIES.

(THIS DAY.)

IV 4..
$ A'
every purpose, alike of attsEk 04 defence. gge 200,00*-er
of ' 'ties h
is never s battle, scarce 4e a ilifigish, in '
d it mes eredib y when
there comes not a period when to save buts ew
venue exceeds 100.000,0001., that the army is re-
minutes in a formation is almost decisive of the sac • dam& to 30,000 man, that no navy is req for the pro_
sass of the movement. To be able in the shortest tection of distant colonies, and that the entire current
pessibielspaoe of time to urge an attack against s expenses ot.the goversment at. thus brought walla
weak point, to take advantage of an error on the "000,0001. It the present rate of reduction be con-
tinued, the debt of Aunt" would be actually paid off in
part of the enemy, or to remedy a blunder that
has became apparent on his own side, gives less than ten years-
to a general an overwhelming advantage. I
It carries into the field of battle that celerity of
operation by which, when directing the move-
nents of his army in the theatre of war, NeroLzow
routed the far larger hosts opposed to him. And
abroad, long before the needle-gun was taken into
account, such considerations have led to the encou-
ragement of rapidity as an essential element of
military drill. We should have found ourselves
some time or other beaten through our neglect of
it, had not the triumph of the breech-loading
principle forced our authorities to think that it
might be not only judicious, but inevitable, to
allow the occasional acceleration of movements
beyond the venerable parade pace ef three
miles per hour. For it need scarcely be observed
that if rapidity is not practised in the drill-
ground it cannot be improvised on the field of
battle, and that the attempt to do quickly what
had been only done slowly before would have
produced the worse evil of utter confusion.
It is tolerably clear, however, that the modifi-
cation now sanctioned is only a beginning of
changes. 'When soldiers are to be called on to do
above half a mile in five minutes in marching
order, it is quite certain that the days of stocks,
tight jackets, padded breasts, and heavy knap-
sacks, are drawing to a close. Just possibly, the
exercise may be got through in winter without
many deaths from apoplexy, though these elements
of manly grace are retained. But the first warm
days of spring will decimate the troops, if they do
not, as is most probable, break out into a wise and
wholesome mutiny against the tyranny of tailoring
ere the sun gains power. For it is not to be con-
templated that the Horse Guards will, to save
stocks and buttons, restrict "running drill" to
the cold months. It is a fact which that este-
blishment cannot overlook that campaigns are
usually prosecuted in summer, and by far most I
frequently in latitudes where the summers are
much hotter than in England, and that to clothe
the soldier in such a garb that he cannot be asked
to do in drill what it is essential that he must do
in service, is a comedy with too tragical an ending.
And, consequently, we may congratulate the
British soldier, that, in return for the exercise
which will brace his muscles and strengthen his
lungs, he will be relieved, by medical urgency, of
the present strait waistcoat that binds him said
the torture strap that chokes him.
The knapsack question also will by the same
means be brought into more pressing need for
solution. For some years past the Horse Guards
have been fully sensible of the call for some change
in the way in which the pack is carried, of which
nothing more need be said than that a parade with
knapsacks is one of the recognised punishments :or
minor offences. Several patterns have been issued
to different regiments, and favottrab'e reports have
been made respecting more than one of the in--
provements under trial. But, in spite of the un-
nnestionable evil of the present form and un-
doubted advantages Of tertattt of the alterations
proposed, the army is still compelled to carry the
old packs in the o'd way—a way which in a short
time benumbs the arms and galls the back,
even when no pace beyond a walk is
attempted. Nor has there been any suggestion for
diminishing the weight which is thus to be carried
by relieving the soldier from the load oe m Licles
which ought to be carried for him in the train,
since he cannot have occasion for them during any
of the short periods when he is actually on the
march. Our military chiefs are sufficiently con-
versant with the mysteries of hand. capping to
know that a pound more or less carried by a horse
will make the difference between winning and
losing a race, and they ought to remember that
an ounce is to a man what a pound is to a horse.
"An English Garibaldino" has in fact lately
pointed out in the columns of the Daily Neal that
the success of the force of which he was a member
in penetrating the fastnesses of the Tyrol was made
possible only by the lightness of the burdens the
men were required to carry. Such occasions arise
in regular warfare as often as in irregular, and the
power of traversing mountain paths, or the com-
parative freshness of the men at the end of a long
and hot march, have over and over again proved
the elements by means of which great generals
have won great victories. Let us hope that the
Horse Guards, now that they have acknowledged
that the soldier must make all the use of his legs
which Nature enables him to make, w:11 not over-
look that he has also lungs, which cannot do the-r
part under compression, and s back which ought
not to be put to the service of carrying a year's
outfit on every day's march.

WS;

TuTADAY
~

-

ich liciaic

AUSTRIA.

The alleged attempt upon the life of the Emperor of
Austria and the appointment of Baron von Bend to the
post of Foreign Minister lead our contemporaries to com-
ment on the troubles in which the empire is placed. In
Baron von Banat's appointment the Tinw sees an open
defiance hurled at Prussia, and thinks that the Emperor's
own subjects are not likely to share his confidence in •
man who, whatever may be his abilities, has invariably
ruined every cause he took in hand. Baron von
Ballot will be looked upon as • stranger even by
the German party at whale head he will be placed;
but his appearance in the cabinet can hardly fail
to be received as a declaration of hostilities by the
rival nationalities of Czechs, Magyars, and Sanwa',
now so irreconcilably arrayed against the government.
The flame of civil discord threatens the empire on every
side ; and, as if there were not enough of Magyar and
German, &lave and Saxon, and the whole confusion of
hostile races, the runaway Jesuits from Venetia have now
come for a refuge to the Emperor, and have roused among
the people of Vienna and Prague the enmity which that
holy militia seldom fails to excite in European coinumnities.
It may be questioesd bow long our age will admit of each
a state as the Austrian empire. The battle of Barlow&
has revealed the existence of another "sick man" in
Europe. Sick men, it is true, do not always die at once ;
there are chronic and there are even curable infirmities ;
but all the symptoms exhibited by the new patient seem
to point either to the necesaity of violent remedies or to
inevitable &immolation.
The Daily Noes finds it difficult to imagine any motive
that could impel a mind not wholly bereft of reason to
harbour designs against the life of the Emperor Francis
Joseph. There is nothing in his personal history or cha-
racter
to make him a mark for vengeance. At no time
has the rigor of Austrian rale been intensified by the
action of the Emperor, whose prerogative has often
been exercised to pardon. The one great fault of
the Emperor—and in an Austrian Emperor it is
my great indeed—is want of decision of character. In tbe
attitude assumed towards the Emperor by the citizens of
Frague we are not to see, it is plan, • manifestation of
personal feeling, but the sign of the dissolution of a
political bond. Although, regarded from • political point
of view. there is :gm* folly in the policy, it is clear that
the Czechs have regarded the contest between the two
C xman powers with supreme indifference. It would
seem that among possible political connexions none would
be so serviceable as a federal union with Austria,
but it is 41 Iraqi to reason with strong na-
tional sentiment, and it may take some time
for limited populations of common blood and speech
to find out that the separation from foreign oon-
nexious to which they aspire can in their case lead only to
isolation, and thence to dependence and subservience.
-willing to the Herald theEuiperoFof Austria has
not called Von Benet to his counsels because the ex-Saxon
minister is popularly supposed to passionately desire the
overthrow of Prussia, bat because, in the dearth of states-
manlike abilities in Austria, a man of Von Beast's un-
doubted experience and abilities promises to be • great ac-
q-u-isitim. The real importance of the appointment will
be found in its influence upon the internal policy of Austria,
and in this respect the Herald is very much afraid that
igi--imperor will findihis annexation of the Saxon pre-
mier has proved a mistake.