The Express.
London, England, 1857-10-09 00:00:00

LONDON, FRIDAY, OCTOBER 9.

Neetote it charity, like a mat ion's honour, ought
to be above suspicion. Immunity from just reproach
is not enough ; the very essence of its virtue, the
atiair of its vitality, consists in its being indisputable.
All creeds and all conditions, all humours and all
ways of life, are called on to contribute ; and all
expect to share, if not equally at least without in-
vidious discrimination and disparity, in the blessings
it bestows. Blessings are twofold—that of those
who give, and that of those who receive. Who
shall say whether it is more blameworthy to pass the
poison of suspicion ,nto the cup of the giver or into
that of the rev-s--leer We pause not to icquire ; it is
our part to note for aioidance every ingredient
that seems to savour of the element of bitterness, and
to give warning lest it should he suffered, however
slightly or momentarily, to mingle with the oil sod
wine which this nation is ca r willing to provide
for the victims of violence and wrong.
It is no easy matter, however, for the managers of
any public fund in these activism days to please all
parties. We had imagined that the Patriotic
Fund raised by the grateful sympathy of all classes
la the Empire for the orphans and the widows of our
Crimean soldiers had pretty well escaped the evil rye
of Suspicion. A great ado was made, indeed, about the
religious tear:thing of two unhappy children some
months ago, and the ease being one of inherent
ambiguity in its nature. conflicting decisions of
osarta of high jurisdiction were elicited by the
controversy. But as we heard no more of
alleged attempts to crimp young Roman Catholic
souls or to bribe Nonconformist widows with
Anglican lacer, we had hoped to have beard no more
of polemical imputations on the impartiality of the
dispensers of the national bounty. These public
almoners had been purposely chosen from amongst
persons of various beliefs. The Established Church
was of rune influentially represented at the bene-
volent board; but other sects had likewise their
members there, and every hue of orthodoxy was
" blended in that arch for peace." It now appears.
however, that Cardinal Wni st ist and Archb shop
lit t EV were all the time highly dissatisfied with
the partial and proselytising application of the funds.
What Mr. JOHN BALL, late Under•Secretiay for the
Colonies, could have been about to allow his (*-
believers to be robbed by wh desale of their fair
share of imperial bounty, we cannot undertake
to say ; and what the thirty-five Catholic
gentlemen who represent southern Ireland could
have been thinking of during the past session in
not having the matter fully discussed in Parliament
most, we suppose, for ever remain a mystery. But
sow that a new call upon national benevolence L.
mule on behalf of the son lines of the Indian
cruelties, the head of the Boman Church in Ireland
publicly interposes his apostolic veto until security
shall be obtained for a more equal dispensation
amongst the widows and children of Catholic and
Protestant soldiers who have fallen in Ilindostan.
Archbishop Cettex roundly taxes the Trustees of
the Patriotic Fund with sectarian dishonesty and
religious tnalversation. He says that while splendid
grants have been made to Protestant schools and
asylums, nothing has been conceded to institutions
such as he could theologically approve ; and he
more than insinuates that in the dispensation
of individual relief a system was designedly
adopted calculated to repel the members of his
church, or to wound their sectarian susceptibilities
in the very act of receiving the dole. We must say
that if half of these charges are true, it is infinitely
discreditable, not only to those who might
have prevented such abuse., Mat to those
who, knowing them to exat, have neglected
until now to expose them. Lord Sr. LEON SIMS,
as Chairman of the Board of Distribution, is
naturally much incensed at impeachment of his
equity in that particular; and he denies a
broadly as his most reverend assailant asserts, that
any unfairness was designed or practised at the cost
of the Catholic families of theee who fell in the
Crimes. The Duke of Noarote immediately comes
to the Archbishop's rescue. lime being thus fairly
joined, it is pretty clear that now at last we arc in
for it ; and a painful and profitless altercation will
no doubt ensue to due time. We shall not attempt
to prejudge the Case, but quietly await the proof or
disproof of the facts in eontroecniy.
What is of more interest and importance in our
judgment jot now, is the prompt providing, by
suitable guaraetees, against the recurrence of similar
abuses, if thi y have existed, and similar imputations
if they have not. It cannot be denied that a very
large proportion of the rank and file of the British
Army con.ect, of Itomen Catholic.; and it is but
justice to that t !intent of our military strength to
own cordially and frankly that braver or more Total
soldiers have et err been found in the service of the
Commonwealth. Their religious feelings and pre-
judiees are not matters to be questioned or
discussed—th, y are simply to be honourably
and scruptdou-ly obserif il. On the plainest
principles of and justice, the dying sergeant
of the Conneletht Rangers ought to het as much
confidence that his widow and hie orphans will be
eared for and ri.peeted, as the wounded corporal of
the Welsh Fu-i.ors or the 92nd Ilighlandeis ; and
it were an iosult and a farce to clog the promise of
respect or care with any fraudulent condition which
fanaticism would suggest. I.et controversialists
eonter.d who, else they please; their clamorous
railings must n, t be permitted to distract the last
moments of the men who have pained their lives
for the honeuro'oer common country. We have never
desired, nor —s now desire, to see the great argu-
mentative coon etion about religious truth abandoned.
But there is a time for all things ; and a reason Wee

the pry v nt of national humiliation, evoking as it has
done a practical spirit of comprchen.ivo and un-
wctarian national charity, is not the fitting occasion
for disputes which are liable to degenerate into an
infamous scramble• between rival creeds fur the pro-
ceeds of public benevolence. Anything more odious,
disreputable, or nil/eh:crow it is impossible to con-
ceive; and we contideutly Croat that those who may
be entrusted with the dispensation of the Indian
Relief Fund will see the propriety of not losing au
Lour in taking steps to preclude the possibility of
such an evil.

IN cur natural impatience at the slow progress of
Recruiting—and that it is slow is unhappily too
notorious, whatever the organs of Government in
the pass may be instructed to say to the contrary—
we must be careful not to do injustice to the
lower ; lasses of this country. It is not from apathy
or want of patriotism that the youth of these
Islands are found slack to enter into the military
service of the State; nor could any greater mistake
be committed than that of supposing that the ill-
success of the 14 eruiting Sergeant is owing to the
spread of a sordid or unwarlike spirit among the
great mass of the British population. The fault is
in the System, not in the People. We have already
dwelt on one of the more obvious causes which un-
doubtedly renders the Army an unpopular service
with the middle and lower-middle classes in an
industrious, aspiring, and energetic community like
our own. Except agricultural labour, =Witty ser-
vice is almost the only calling which for the pour man
can never he a career. Accordingly, as long as our
present military system remains unaltered, it is
from the peasant class that the rank and file of our
army must principally be recruited. Until the Pur-
chase System be swept away, until a fair prospect
be opened to all of rising by merit, assiduity, and
skill in this calling as in others, there is manifestly
no chance of alluring into the ranks of the service
those already engaged in civil pursuits, whose auc•
maul proseetr ion may lead to advancement and to
fortune. It is plain, however, that this class of
motives will :. ,t alone account for the reluctance
which the peasantry and the lower order of operatives
undoubtedly manifest to enlisting in the ranks of
the British Army. Make every reasonable allowance
you please for the comparative inertness and apathy
which may always be expected to prevail Among
the uninformed inhabitants of remote diS-

tricts ; take into account that clingivx to
localities which is ever stronger in the hamlet than
in the town ; concede its fall force to that
ignorance which alike incapacitates for t full
appreciation of the gravity of the nisi', and mag-
nifies into tenfold proportions the terrors of distant
service and a tropical clime--and yet, after you have
done all this, there will still remain a somethi tg be-
hind, which more than any other feeling is now de-
terring the youth of the peavant and operative classes
from donning the (aril-N.l uniform and lighting
their country's battles.

That feeling is a suspicion (unluckily only too
well founded) that when once enlisted they will find
themselves to have been duped and tricked, that
they won't get fair play, that their country won't
keep faith with them. The recent reduction of the
Line and disembodiment of the Militia at the close
of the Russian war have filled every town axed vil-
lage throughout the country with those who know
by personal experience how the State rewards the
military service it no longer requires. The recruit-
ing sergeant can hardly enter an alehouse which has
not already been thus prepared against his
assaults. That munificent bounty of 21., which
he is empowered to air in the name of
Queen Vlrruni t to any British lad who will bind
himself to 10 years' service in the wars, might per-
haps tempt many a rural stripling, if he had not
beforehand been let into the secret that the so-called
bounty war all a fi.un. Tow PlrEct iv, who, having
gone through the Crimea without a wound,
was disbanded at the peace, and now loafs
about the village picking up any odd job
he can find, has told him all about it. What
they call 21. bounty means only about 10s. of
cash down ; the rest is all taken up in " free kit,"
in supplying " necessaries" not provided at the ex-
pense of the country, which thus cheats her brave
" recruit" at the very first outset of her dealings
with him. Bad enough, certainly; but then at all
events there is pay at 13d. a day, which, with lodg-
ing, &e., makes a geed exchange fur Os. a week at
the tail of the plough. The village alehouse knows
better than this ; the village alehouse has learnt
that this 13d. a day is a worse sham than
the 2.1. bounty. It is sweated down by
deductions till, as the late ('ommander-in•Chief
once told a Committee of the House of Commons,
no private can get more than Id. out of it, and he
mast be a very careful man who gets more than 21d.
.Idmitting that things havo somewhat improved
since this evidence was given, and that the British
private by extreme economy may contrive to net a
reel sixpence per diem out of a nominal 13d., yet the
matter is not math mended. Nothing disgusts
Englishmen so much as want of f•ir-play. The
knowing clown and the self-opinionated artisan are
especially annoyed at the notion of being "done."
Captives &dg, dungaree coact., might have been a
good motto for the recruiting sergeant in the wars
of ANNE; but the world has grown somewhat wiser
since the days of Captain PUMP., and honesty, even
in recruiting, is the best policy in the age of
VICTORIA.

There is another thing not yet forgotten in the
country, and that is the thankless manner in
which, when their services were no longer required
for the war., the disembodied Militia were turned
loose upon their villages. The but Celtic blood, as
we all rememle r, blazed up on one melancholy occa-
sion into sudden mutiny when the order wee given
to the men to strip themselves even of the uniforms
in which they had acted with so much military effi-
ciency, side by vide with their brethren of the Line.
The quieter British temperament was not stirred to
such excesses ■s this, but the feeling with which
hundreds of these temporary soldiers rejoined the
ranks of their fellow-countrymen was anything but
one of gratitude for the mode in which their ser-
vices had been requited.
These are not things to be overlooked and for-
gotten. There is no mistake so common among the
wealthy and powerful as to ignore the sensitiveness
and under-estimate the acuteness of the poor. The
Smooths make no due allowance for the feelings of
the Roughs. It ie a dangerous error—if persevered in
too long it is mores: than dangerous. Surely it is high
time that the authorities of this great country should
at all events deal in a spirit of perfect honesty with
those of whose services they &clue themselves to
have such urgent nerd. We want no profligate ex-
penditure—we desire nothing more than fair remu-
neration, but we do desire fairness and truth. Let
the transaction between the State and the Recruit
be a bargain—aye, a hard bargain, if you will ; but,
at all events, let its terms be faithfully and rigo-
rously observed. if you only mean to give 10s.
bounty, July so ; but if yon promise to give 2!., pay
it down to the uttermost Lathing. Let there be no
delusion, no subterfuge, no ►ham. The British Army,
dominated by the twin incubi of Money and Con-
nexion, is sufficiently unpopular already with one

large class of the community ; it is surely unwise to
hare made it sow itb another, by adding the suspicion
of unfair dealing to the certaintyduttenual competi-
tion. If determined to cling to the Purchase system,
at all events do away with the Deduction system. Let
a bounty of 21. mean a real gift of a couple of sove-
reigns ; let thirteenpence a day mean a shilling and
a penny, free from hocus-pocus and clear of sham.
It is well to have lowered the standard of height and
age, but there is another standard which it will be
still better to raise, and that is—the standard of
llotse•Guards honesty.