The Sun.
London, England, 1855-03-23 00:00:00

IE NATIONAL FAST.

(From the Times of this day.)
We have had ocr Fast. It was rather against the
grain, but we thought it right, and we did it, as we do
many things for which we have not exactly a taste,
though we have the religion or the good sense to submit
to them. We did not fast after the manner of antiquity,
from all food, in sackcloth and ashes, but on salt fish and
egg sauce, or on cold or boiled mutton, in our best coats
and clean linen, abstaining from our houses of business,
and, as the sky so willed it, from our ordinary walks or
rides. It was a dull day and a long day. It hung
heavily on hand, and had not even the quality of making
one ready for bed. Those of us who went to church,
and for the present purpose we will assume that we
all did, heard a considerable variety of doctrine ;
some preachers being of opinion that war is a
good thing, some treating it as an unmitigated
evil ; and some, on the latter supposition, tracing
it to one national sin, and some to another. Such
was John Bull's Fast, dull at all events, and a thing
one is glad to have got over—just as people are glad
to get Lent over, though Lent or no Lent is all the same
to them. At all events, we congratulate ourselves that
there is no hypocrisy here, no taking out abstinence in
murder, no present denial with a view to future indul-
gence. The author of " Eothen" says that in a state of
protracted bodily inanition the mind is liable to crirainal
imaginations of a, monstrous character, and that more
crimes of an abnormal and hideous type are committed
during the fasts of the Greek Church than at any other
period. Well, we have nothing of that sort in this
country. But, stop, candid reader ; just reflect for a
moment. There may be hollowness, insincerity, and
weakness of purpose in the best Saxony cloth and the
finest. Irish linen as well as in sackcloth and ashes—on
roast beef as well as on an empty stomach. After all,
the result is the test of a Fast. If we continue in the
sins which have humbled and chastised us, we have done
our modest Parliamentary fast to very little purpose,
and are as great hypocrites as the rude Muscovite pea-
sant, who fasts all Lent and is dead drunk by 3 o'clock
on the afternoon of Easter-day. And this, we are sorry
to say, is our case. We very much doubt whether the
Fast has made any difference in the ways of office. Job-
bery is still triumphant—nay, we are assured that at
this moment worse jobs are going on than any in the
course
tseo say.
of the whole war, which appears to be a good
deal
At this moment the nation may be excused if it does
not attempt the reconstruction of an existing army.
It so happens, however, that we are making a new
one—not a new one for ourselves, but a sort of
model army for our ally—the Turk. We are about to
teach Turkey how to set about making a real army.
Now, how is this done, now that we have bumbled our-
selves and repented of jobbery and other sins ? A
letter with a well-known signature opens the question.
A body of twenty thousand Turks is to be formed and
maintained, fed, clothed, and armed, at the ex-
pense of this country. There can be no objection to
this, excepting that in the event of failure we shall cut a
very sorry figure by the side of Omar Pasha, of the
Danube, and now of Eupatoria. We undertake to officer
and train this army. How do we begin ? We give the
command to General Vivian, who, it is said, is without
any actual war experience, and whose only service has
been as Adjutant-General of the only Indian army which
has seen no service. This is to meet the cry for Indian
officers, and it does meet that cry, for we are not like y
to hear it again. We then invite the services of Indian
officers by a public notification, and have seen a list of
some hundred names. Among others that respond to
this timely appeal is Brigadier Mayne. lie is a man,
if ust of teropean, of Asiatic reputation. There is no
one in all India more thoroughly up to the enlistment
and management of irregular horse. Such a man, two
centuries ago, tied by no allegiance, ‘%ould have carved
out a kin:2:doin for himself anal founded an Indian dy-
nasty. Wherever he might happens to be employed, if
within reach of India, he would find his Indian friends
flocking to his sts ndard. Wed, he applies at the Horse
Guards, and finds that he would have over his head
Colonel Shirley,' who has never commanded anything
else than a British Dragoon fresh from his barrack-yard.
Why, even in India, with the light native cavalry before
everybody's eyes, it is quite a speciality to be able to
manage them, and if one English officer can, another can-
not. At all events, nobody is supposed capable of com-
manding them till he is tried. In this instance we have
a wholly untried man—a man whose experience is con-
fined to a force of the most contrary possible character,
and who has never taken that force into action—se-
lected to command an unknown force in an unknown
country under unknown circumstances; and when an-
other man, to whom all these things are known,
who knows fighting, wilts knows the nature of the
irregular cavalry of the East, and has obtained the
greatest reputation therein, asks to be employed, ke
finds he is to be under a man whose inexperience must
inevitably neutralize all' 'big own experience. Yet,
all this is known to the authorities. Brigadier Mayne's
services are history ; Colonel Shirley's are comprised in
the following line in the Army List :—" Arthur Shirley,
Lieutenant-Colonel Unattached. Ensign, 1830 ; Lieute-
nant, 1833 ; Captain, 1836 ; Major, 1816 ; Lieutenant-
Colonel, 1847 ; Colonel, 1854. Placed on half-pay
1851."

This was enough to damp the ardour of Brigadier
Mayne. Atiother Indian officer, successively on the
staff of Lord Hardinge and Lord Dalhousie, happening
to be here on sick leave, puts down his name and attends
at the Horse Guards; He finds that he would have to
serve under two officers whose connexion with the Indian
army was brought to an end by sentence of court-martial
for conduct unworthy of officers and gentlemen. Now,
General Vivian and Lord Panmure may or may not
think these the sort of men to form, to discipline, to
Europeanise, a Turkish army. They may or may not
think it an object to exalt the morality of the Turk, and
to give him English gentlemen for his officers. We really
cannot answer for them, after what has reached us of the
formation of this new corps. Bat what we ask is,
" Where is the promised reforni?" Where is the working
of our new Government ? What is to come from the
Fast, and how are we to expect the blessings of Heaven
if we begin by setting aside not only the ,mandates of
Heaven, the instincts of virtue, and the suggestions of
common. sense, but the findings of our own courts-
martial and the public opinion of our armies ? To all
appearance, we are going on as we began. Heaven will
never help those who will not help themselves. What is
it, indeed, that we want ? Do we want to assist the
Turks and humble the Russians ? To all appearance,
nothing of the kind. We only want so make places for
General This, Colonel That, and Major So-and-So.
That is all, and to this paramount object Turk and Eng-
lishman are alike to be sacrificed, with just a chance of
I Our doing some little harm by the way to the Russians.