The Sun.
London, England, 1855-06-23 00:00:00

(From the Times of this day.)

In our impression of Thursday last we gave a description
of a new body of men which, under the denomination of an
" Army Works Corps," is about to take its departure for the
seat of war. The organisation of this special battalion is of a
very notable character. It is to be 1,000 strong, its bulk
consisting of 800 " navvies," formed in " gangs" of 25 each,
to which are added as accessories smiths and carpenters, to
the number of 70, and general artificers, such as shoemakers,
harnessmakers, tailors, barbers, &c., to the number of 65.
The colonel of this industrial regiment will be a civil engineer;
majors will be represented by " superintendents ;" and clerks,
foremen, gangers, &c., are to figure in the places of captains,
lieutenants, and ensigns. The duties of the Army Works
Corps will comprise, we are told, the construction of siege or
field works, roads, bridges, huts, and so forth; besides which
they will aid in the preparation of places for encampments, in
sinking wells, in executing works of drainage, in repairing
damages dome to materials, and generally in relieving the
fighting portion of the army from the extraordinary duties
arising out of an active campaign. That a corps like this,
representing in a manner the excellences of civil enterprise as
opposed to the traditions of military routine, should be ad-
mirably fitted out is n• more than we might expect, and it is
stated accordingly that the tents, carts, and equipages of the
battalion are all models in their way. Whether they will be
practically suitable to the rough work of war remains, of
course, to be seen,

Some remarks which tiro recently offered on the corps of
Royal Sappers and Miners will perhaps prepare the reader for
the observations now subjoined on the new attempt thus
made to improve the general efficiency of the army. In a few
words—the problem is to make a soldier-labourer who shall
not be too much of a labourer nor too much of a soldier—not
so completely civil in his character as to be out of place in an
army; and not so completely military as to lose the special
aptitudes of an artisan. Hitherto it has been found that the
civil element in these amphibious establishments, whatever
might have been the propmderanco originally designed for it,
has been absorbed by the irresistible encroachment of the mi-
litary element, and that the soldier-labourer in the last stage
of his development has become something very like a pure
and simple soldier. The present Sappers and Miners, for in-
stance, were at first almost exactly such a body as that now
raised. To be sure, they had a uniform, and perhaps more
care was used to make them resemble soldiers than to
keep them civilians, but they were nevertheless embodied
specially as workmen. They comprised in their ranks the
selfsame capacities of smiths, carpenters, harnessmakers, &c.,
and, if there were no barbers among them, there were ac-
tually gardeners—a class of men included, we suppose, for
the chance of raising vegetables in aid of the ordinary rations.
In short, they represented the identical idea new carried out
anew, nor is it easy to discern any real distinction between
even the names of the two corps—between the " Soldier-Ar-
tificer" Company of 1772 and the " Army Works Corps " of
1855. Yet these soldier-artificers are now smart-looking fel-
lows in red coats and yellow worsted epaulettes, nor can they
be readily distinguished from the men of the Line, except,
perhaps, by a carriage even more military than usual. It
seems, therefore, as if, having worn or worked out the civil
character of this original corps of army workmen, we were
trying the experiment afresh, and raising a new body of men
who should be really labourers, and not soldiers.

The truth of the matter is simply this, that in practice it is
found exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, to avoid in-
vesting such auxiliaries with a military character, to a greater
or less extent, or to stop short in such a process when it has
been once commence& As a matter of necessity they must
be under the control of the Commander-in-Chief, and under
the provisions of the Mutiny Act. These indispensable condi-
tions have been already satisfied in the present instance ; so
here are two points of the law. Again, though the men, as
we understant the programme, are not to be armed, they are
engaged to work under fire. This -presumes that they must
have an escort, and that every workman, being unarmed and
helpless in the presence of the enemy, must have a soldier
under arms to protect him. What more natural under such
circumstances than that by-and-by the artificer should receive
his short sword or his carbine for the exigencies of self-defence,
not to mention that occasions may arise on which it may be
absolutely indispensable that every able-bodied man under the
• General's command should take up arms ? Yet if a man is to
carry arms he must be taught their use, —that is to say, he
must be drilled ; if he is to have a carbine, he must have a
cartridge-box ;if a cartridge-box, a belt ; and so on through
all the articles of military equipment. But after he has been
thus equipped, trained, drilled, and placed under military
law, what in the world is he except a soldier ?
The conclusion naturally arising out of these remarks would
seem to be, that as the Royal Sappers and Miners already re-
present such a body of men as that which an " Army Works
Corps" would eventually become, our purpose might have
been answered by adding 1000 rank and file to that very dis-
tinguished regiment. On the whole, however, we are, for
several reasons, of opinion that the right course has been
taken in the formation of the new corps. To begin with, it
is hardly probable that the requisite augmentation could have
been made with the promptitude desired, if the offers held
out had been simply those of the ordinary recruiting sergeant,
whereas by the plan now referred to the whole battalion
seems to have been levied without difficulty. The enormous
railway works of this country have called into being thou-
sands upon thousands of " navvies," ready for any job in the
way of their calling, and in no degree likely to flinch from
any personal danger. Tell these men that good work in their
own fashion is offered them in the Crimea, and they will take
it, with perhaps a spice of satisfaction rather than otherwise
at the peculiar nature of the service, while a regular recruit-
ing sergeant, with his sword and sash, might bid for them in
vain, notwithstanding all his assurances about the truly
"scientific" character of his corps. Moreover, the chief
works to be executed aro now of such a kind as even Sap-
yers and Miners have never been effectually taught to
perform ; whereas these are the very matters in which
" navvies " are supremely skilled. Our experience be-
fore Sebastopol has shown the great importance of earth-
works in the science of fortification, and earthworks are the
identical works with which "navvies" have all their lives
been concerned. In duties of this description they labour
with extraordinary energy and effect, and we remember once
to have seen a species of estimate which represented the
<, navvy" in this respect to be as much above the 'Sapper and
Miner as the Sapper and Miner was above the ordinary sol-
dier. To take a practical illustration, we doubt if Sappers
and Miners, in whatever strength they might have mustered,
could have made the Balaklava Railway as it was made by
Sir Samuel Peto's corps. These, then, will be the duties of
the new battalion ; and, though we doubt not that the ope-
ration of circumstances, aided pperhapsbiyea
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A. MISSING VESSEL.—The Clarendon, Williams,
sailed from Valparaiso Deo. 13, for Mauritius, and has
not since been beard of.

VACANCIES, APPOINTMENTS, AND PROMOTIONS tN
THE CIVIL SERVICE.—The appointment of Junior Clerk
in the Registrar-General's-office, Somerset-house, is
vacant, caused by the death of Mr. Robert Gray, one of
the senior clerks in that establlishment. Mr. Henry
Smith, Chief Clerk in the Cash Account-office of the
Ordnance, has been appointed to the newly created
office of Accountant-General to the War Department.
Dr. Walter Lewis has been appointed Medical Officer at
the General Post-office. Customs—Mr. F. W. Chaplin
has been appointed a Clerk in the Long-room, in Lon-
don. Mr. A. J. Tyte has been promoted from Third to
Second-class Clerk in London, Docks. Mr. F. Therell
has been promoted from Fourth to Third-class Clerk in
London Docks. Mr. S. Harris has been promoted from
Fourth to Third-class Clerk in London Docks. Mr. C.
A. Badcoke has been promoted from Fifth to Fourth-
class in London Docks. Mr. R. Neville has been pro-
moted from Fifth to Fourth-class Clerk in London
Docks. Mr. W. Prophit has been promoted from Fifth
to Fourth-class Clerk in London DockF,—Oivii service
gazette.