The Sun.
London, England, 1855-12-18 00:00:00

banished from mechanics' institutions. But all would
admit that it was very essential, especially in a country
like this, that every man should, as far as his opportuni-
ties allowed, make himself acquainted with those things
and measures which were advantageous for the country;
so that if at a public meeting or elsewhere he had to ex-
press an opinion or to exercise an influence, to give a
vote, or even to express an opinion to a neighbour—for
that was actually to influence the conduct of Govern-

ment—he shouldbe able to throw all his influence into

the scale of that which was truly best for the country.
He was afraid that in this country we were in this un-
happy transition state ; we were in a state of twi-
light ; not absolutely dark upon political affairs, but
a long way off full daylight. In a country where
one man ruled, such as Russia or France, it did not
very much matter, as to the direction taken by the
Government, what the people happened to know or
what course they took. One man did everything ' • and
all went right or wrong, just as he was a good or a
bad ruler. But in this country it was not the mo-
narch—notwithstanding that the monarch must neccs-
sarily have great influence—who decided the course
Government should take ; but the people themselves,
partly through their representatives, partly through pub-
lic meetings, and partly through the influence of the
press, which reflected to a great extent the opinions pre-
valent amongst the people. Therefore, although a
people like that of England could never have any selfish
interest in going wrong—as a monareh or a Prime Mi-
nister might have occasionally—they might still go
wrong, and did, quite as much as a monarch or a minis-
ter ; hut if they found out that they were wrong, they
had no interest to prevent their turning back, checking
their course, and reversing their policy. In this country
it was more important than in any othr, except the
United States, that we should as far as possible make our-
selves acquainted with public affairs • and so bring them
up to some true and just standard, and there decide upon
them. He knew of no standard with ird to publicaffairs
—the principles of law and the principles of policy—except
that true standard of Christian morality which a man ap-
plied, or ought to apply, to his own conduct. He did not
in the least believe in grand schemes of policy advanced
by kings, queens, or cabinets, which flew in the fac3 of
all the most ordinary rules of Christian morality, as ap-

Was there not seen a great increase of pauperism and
beggary all over the country. Look at the assizes—the
brutality, the crime, the severity of the punisments.
Look at the efforts made to get up reformatory insti-
tutions in different parts. All this only showed that
there was a world of work for our benevolent men, our
Government, and our statesmen to do in this country,
which never could be done so long as from 50 to 80 mil-
lions a year should be abstracted from the industry of
the country, more than would be necessary if we pursued
a different policy. He was certainly of opinion that every
1001. taken from the people in taxes, more than was ne-
cessary for the Honest and faithful rood management of
the affairs of the country, provided for the country a
pauper or a criminal ; and until we could keep more
within ourselves the vast products of our industry, and

plied to our own conduct ; and there was no greater evil
that came from the state of twilight to which he had al-
ludeJ, than that we were always getting into a state of
panic. A man wholly ignorant or half informed, was
not only the most ignorant of real danger, but be W 3,3
the most likely to be alarmed where no danger existed.
Such was very often the condition of this country.
Every three or four years we had a rattle, at which four
or five years afterwards all the world laughed. About
1350 there was immense alarm about a gentleman re-

pu!ed to wear red :-4..)eking9. Ho did not-mean to Pay
that that gentleman was not a very alarming personage
—perhaps he wai ev..in a man whom many people
wou!d have been afraid to meet in the dark

apply them to our own advantage, he saw no sort of re-
sult that could come—or at least no considerable result
—from all the efforts made to improve the condition of
the country. We sometimes spoke harshly of our fore-
fathers, and thought that if we had lived in their days
we Vbould have been wiser than they were—that we
should never have stoned the prophets—and that we

should have at least avoided burdening our posterity to

a degree from which they never could extricate them-
selves. But we appeared to be following the same
course, burdening our posterity, looking after every de-
scription of vague and visionary advantage, and actually
protesting, almost becoming violent with, anybody who
thought it hia duty to call in question this policy, and
asked the peorple to be moderate. At this very moment
there was not the smallest doubt that every power in

was not, we believe, the strength of the enemy's works, ,
but the danger of extending or dividing the army
in any such operations, during which the Russian
General might have passed down into the valley of
the Tchernaya, cutting through the allied centre,
and exposing that portion of the force which still kept
the heights above Sebastopol to an unequal cmtest.
Marshal Pelissier declined to move, in short, until
he could do so with his whole army—that is till
the plateau of Sebastopol was cleared of its artillery
and stores ; till Kamiesh was fortified, and the cap-
tured Own itself left in such a state as to afford no
advantage in its re-occupation. Sir George Brown
had predicted that its capture would set 90,000 allied
soldiers frae. Sir George was utterly wrong. It has
kept 90,000 still occupied, busied, and encumbered
aroun I it. By the fault of whom, or whether by the
fault of any, it is now idle to inquire.
The only strong portion of the defence of the Debats,
therefore, is where it describes the Allied army as
not in a state to permit of its entering upon a campaign
immediately after the fall of the town. Great and
laborious tasks chained it for the most part to the camp
during the rest of the autumn. After being kept un-
moved for more than a year in the same place, it
had need of reorganisation to pass from the sta-
tionary to the moveable condition. It had not even
sufficient transport. The siege batteries had to be dis-
mounted, and 700 large guns brought back to Kamiesh
or Balaklava ; 4,000 Russian guns, with immense stores
and ammunition, had also to be removed ; and, finally,
the fortifications of Sebastopol, as well as its docks, had
effectually to be destroyed, on the resolution being taken
not to keep the place. Two months were insufficient for
such tasks, and when the two months elapsed the armies
were in full winter.
We bays recapitulated the chief points in the defence
of the French military writer, and we must hold it, with
his one exception, to be inadequate and unsatisfactory
.n its reasoning.

Europe, except England, would - wi,•ll now, after two
years of war, to restore traugnillity to Europe. It was. a
fact which he stated, he was sure, from information that
could not be mistaken, that if there should be now a
great probability of the war being carried on for another
campaign or longer, it was owing to the zealous, and al-
most violent, advocacy of further war by the press and by
a portion of the people. Every nation concerned, but En-
gland, would be in favour of making peace ; but somehow
or other we were so very pugnacious. We were like a
horse that "can't stand corn"—we had had too much
corn for some years, but there was little enough now
—we had grown fat—we hod kicked, we had thrown
all the lessons of prudence to the winds ; and while
at this moment he supposed that in France there
was hardly to be found a man who would lift up his
hand in favour of a continuance of the war, yet in
;this country,. he would not say the majority, but a very
large number no doubt, would be very much disgusted
if it should i-:ease. He thought that one of the objects of
a mechanics' institution should be, not only to teach men,
women, and children all that which was very useful t
them in their own homes—however beautiful and excel-

Spirit of the Public Journals.

(Prom the Timez of this day.)

We have at length obtained, and that with no
little difficulty—and exactly four months from the
day on which it is dated—the memorial of the
Colonels and Lieutenant-Colonels commanding the
Guards to her Majesty. It bears date the 17th of
August, is bedecked in a brilliant cherry-coloured
cover, as becomes a document signed by two Field-
Marshals, and subscribed by Prince Albert, Lord
Strafford, the Duke of Cambridge, and Colonels
IVood, Upton, and Moncrieff. We should say that
the composition, on the whole, is rather superior
to the usual style of such things, and that the tone
is sedulously moderate and inoffensive.. Many and
eai nest are the protestations that the officers of the
Guards have no wish to oppose the accelerated
promotion of their comrades of the Line. All that
is asked is that they may not be treated with less
favour than their brethren. We will give to our
readers a brief analysis of this memorial, both that
they may be better able to understand the merits
• of the case, because we have here, for the first
time, from unexceptionable authority, a key to
that mystery of mysteries, the organisation and
promotion of the Household Troop 3. The Brigade
of Foot G uards—for the Life Guards are content
to he governed by the same rules as other cavalry
regiments—the Brigade of Foot Guards, we say, is
composed of three regiments the Grenadier
Guards, consisting of three battalions, and the
Coldstream and Scotch Fusiliers, having each two
battalions. Each regiment is commanded by a
Colonel ; each battalion by an officer called a Regi-
mental Major, who has the rank of colonel in the
army ; each company by a Captain and Lieutenant-
Colonel, the twu senior of whom command the bat-
talion in the absence of their superiors, with the
title of "...A.cting-Majors or Mounted Officers." The
Lieutenants have the rank of Captain, and the
Ensigns, in consideration of their good conduct at
Waterloo, where we suppose no other ensigns did
anything respectable, received the rank of Lieu-
tenant.

lent that might he—but to enable all those who had
stronger hearts and some leisure, to go further into the
exemination of questions which affected their interests.
For all the 6ollies of statesmen came home to the hearths
of the labouring classes : and every man, let him talk as
he would of glory, and reputation, and empire, if he at.-
etracted the money of those classes, and spent it on ob-
jects which were not moral in themselves, and which
were note :seeitial to the safety of the country, whatever
he called hinteelf, it might be depended upon that he was
a much greater enemy to the comfort of the labouring
classes, and to the prosperity of their children, than the
Russian, the French, the American, or any foreigner
whatsoever. He (Mr. Bright) thought therefore that
whenever working men read in the newsroom or
library of their mechanics' institutions, they
should study, as far as they were able, these
public clue and especially such as referred to what
might be called national wealth ; for the waste of na-
tional wealth was the pauperization of a nation. Tne
description of literature which treated on those subjece3
would be funnel very advantegeous to guide the people
when amongst rocks and shoals, as at present. They
must beware, of this—that newspapers as a rule were not
guides absolutely to be followed ; because the naajerity
of newspapers were matters of business, and the editors
and preprietore, of courac, wanted to offer to their read-
ers that which they thought their readers would like to
purchase. But putting aside any supposition that editors
and newspaper writers were any worse than other people,
it was quite clear that they had the temptation alluded
to ; and therefore it was far better for people to take
the facts of a newspaper and reason from them for them-
selves, or if they read the reasoning of au editor, they
should never for an instant take it for gospel truth, un-
less they had themselves worked out the question and
male it clear to their own minds. He would men-
tion one point as an illustration. There had been
nothing more common these two years than fur the news-
papers to speak of Russia as "a barbaric empire"— as
" that colossal barbarian of the north"—of " those
savages coming froin the north to overron Europe," and
so on. Would it be believed that in the city of St.
Petersburfe—a city built in modern times—there was a
library—a public library which had in it 10,000 volumes
more than were in the British Museum I (Hear.) He
gave this on the authority of a work he read not long
since—that this library in St. Petersburg was the third
largest in Europe. Take the port of Odessa, which some
queer sort of Christians had been begging the Govern-
ment to destroy—a city only founded 60 years ago. In
1343 that city sent to this country more than five mil-
lion bushels of wheat ; but the country, if it produced
all that, could not be barbarous, could not be savage.
It would be much better, if nations did get to war
with each other, that at any rate those who wrote
a ,d spoke upon the matter should not exaggerate with
malice the shortcomings of their opponents, or at least
should not excite the animosity of their own fel-
low-citizens by statements which were abso!Utely de% old
of truth. That bad been the case to a very great ex-
tent ; but if the working-classes would make themselves
acquainted with the real facts connected with Russia,
they would see, probably, that the alarm about Russia
was just as well founded as those about France and toe
Pope. Those who lived 20 years longer would probably
find the young fellows of that day pushing them in the
ribs and sayirg, " Why, you were excessively foolish
20 years ago. You went into a war quite as bad A 3
that French war and you added 200 millions to the
national debt. We shouldn't have done that."—(Hear,
hear.) Let us, at any rate, bring up our children so
that they should read and think ; and that, if they ever
get into a war, they should know its definite object,
cost, probable result, and whether the things to be ob-
tained would at all ply for the charges of blood and trea-
sure that would have to be incurred. (Applause.) Many
present might say that he had no business to go into
this question at all ; but if you had to talk to people, it
was no use talking about what they thought they under-
stood as well as yourself, or about things in which they
felt no interest. He was a politician, unfortunately, and
was obliged to pay attention to this subject as much as
the surgeon to anatomy, or the physician to medicine ;
and that which he bad examined and thought be under-
stood, and in which his audience had a deep interest,
could hardly be a question that he could be blamed for
touching upon at some length. If they did not Consider
the facts he had stated as to America, it would be found
in a generation or two that a prolongation of this kind
of thing might leave the country in a state of anarchy
and chaos, such as he should not like his children or
grandchildren to be partakers of. (Applause.)
. The meeting was afterwards addressed by Capt. Hare
rieon and other gentlemen ; and votes of thanks to Mr.
Bright and the chairman were passed.

(laughter)—though ho (Mr. Bright) did not know
that he should. (Hear, hear.) But people did not
in the least comprehend what they were alarmed about ;
arid they hold meetings, got into a fever, and stirred
up strife and religions discord which one hoped had
gone to sleep for ever. Then Parliament passed a little
Lill, not worth a single straw, and which was laughed at
by everybody who had anything to do with passim it ;
and so ended that great panic. A year afterwards, there
was a great panic about the French. Lord Aberdeen,
who was then Prime Minister, talking to a friend of his
(Mr. Bright's) said, "You know that such is the state of
public feeling, that if we chose to go down to the Howe
of Commons, and ask for a vote for 20,000/. more men
for the army, and all the thousands of pounds consequeest
thereupon, the house would pass it without a division,
and unanimously ;" although he (Mr. Bright) believed
that there was not a single man in the Howe of
Commons who bad the slightest ilea that there was
any danger. But Bcighton and the whole eouthet n
' c ast were alarmed ; the pre:ent Prinae Minister hinted
that 60,000 mea might be lauded on our shores in a
light; the neweeaners talked about the alarnewe
rate at which the French navy was increasing, about
railways being laid to Boulogne and other poitsts on
the coast, by which vast bodies of troops could be
brought down by express trains and shipped on board
vessels that did not exeet, and that so this c nintry would
be invaded. Why dbl the people believe all this? Be
cause of the twilight in which they were. If they had
known (what be knew) that those men in London
who were making much noise were also making a profit
by the panic—that there was not only no increase in the
French fl.,•ele but that a smaller sum had been voted for
it year'y, from 1818 up to that time, than had been voted
in any year during the reign of the peaceable Louis Phi-
lippe ; if they had known that Louis Napoleon was most
AUtiioU3 to make an alliance with this country upon any
terms, and at any cost—which lie had now made, at the
cost of a war into which he did nr t want to go, and which
he was now said to be most anxious to get out of--if the
people had known these things they would never have
gone into a panic about a French invasion. But what
was the result ? The Government re-established the
militia—increased the regular forces—added a million
and a pelf to the expenditure of the country, which
must be raised by taxes ; and all on account of this
foolish and ridiculous notion, which bad no founda-
tion whatever. Then there was another panic abut
Prussia---a most alarming one, that was. He wished he
bad a map of Europe there, just to point out a few things.
There were 3,000 miles of country and 50 or 60 millions
of people between Russia and this country. There was
the Black Sea at the top, and the Baltic at the bottom ;
and "Russia abutted upon them. She had a fleet in each
sea. About 1834, there was a panic lest the Russian
fleet should appear in the Thames on some fine day ; and
our fleet was increased upon that ground. Tncre was
r.o foundation for the belief, but the increase of the fleet,
and the cinsequent taxation, remained. At that meet-
ing was neither the time nor the place to go into any
question about the origin or principle of the unhappy
war in which we were now engaged. But there were
two or three facts which were so imprrtant, that if they
could be fixed in the minds of the people, he believed
there would soon be more interest taken in matters of
foreign policy. Look at the United States. Their in-
habitants were the same people as ourselves ; the popula-
tion war about equal oars—at the next census it would
probably be a little more. They had large manufac-
tories, although not so large as ours—they had a greater
tonnage of merchant ships, he believed, than we had—
twice, or perhaps three times, as many newspapers—and
representative institutions more complete. They had
vastly more miles of railway—theirrivers were traversed
by gigantic steam boats—and the country presented alto-
gether a pietist.° of life, activity, and energy, such as had
never before been witnessed on the face of the earth.
America had. at this moment certainly not more than
one, if any, line-of-battle ship afloat ; she had two or
three frigates ; and there were 10,000 or 12.000 soldiers
in the country as the nucleus of an army. These were bar
materials for offence and defence. Yet nobody ever
thought of insulting the United States. An American
was as free from violence anywhere abroad as an English-
man; and it was by no means certain that he was not
much the more sure of redress if insult or violence was
used. There were no people to whom greaterattention was
paid anywhere in Europe than was paid to Americans.
But the policy ef the United States was one of never med-
riling with any of the wars or quarrels of Europe. It was a
legacy of their great and illustrious chief, that they should
keep themselves free from all the entanglements of foreign
policy in that respect ; and, almost entirely, they had
done so. We had taken exactly the opposite course. Look
at the condition of the two countries. America had no
national debt whatever; we had an enormous one. Peep' e
could not count it; and if anybody pronounced the amount
nobody could understand it. It was called 800 millions
sterling; and no one could tell or conceive what those
words represented. But at any rate we knew this: it would
take nearly 100 years' rental of all the land, houses, and
buildings, of every description of valuable property, in
Lancashire and Yorkshire, to make that sum. If every-
thing paid as rent, or valuable as rent, in those two coun-
ties, with 34 millions of population, were absorbed for 100
years, it would about pay off the national debt. In
the United States they bad so much money this yearfrom
their revenue, that they did not know what do do with
it, and were likely to quarrel because they could not
agree what tax should be taken off next. Their national
debt was about half paid off—it was never large ; ours
was not only not being paid off, but was was rapidly in-
creasing. Each state had its own taxation for its own
government expenses ; and then there was the general
taxation for the expenses of the general government.
Taking all these together, he supposed they would not
amount to more than 12 millions a-year ' • but say, 15
millions. This year, in this country, with no more pa
pulation than theirs—our being not nearly so well off,
and they not having a tenth part of our pauperism, ig-
norance, and crime ; he would shut out from considera-
tion that unfortunate and horrible blot upon their system
s
—not upon their eystennti ' w
Y :but
not more than 12 or 15 millions
things,the pa past—slavery
they —s lahvaed r
sterling, and this country would expend, in all probabi-
lity, nearly 100 millions. There would he the 56 or 54
millions for ordinary expenditure, and adding the expen-
diture for the war, he had not the smallest doubt that
this country would actually expend this year 80 millions
sterling over the sum which the people of the United
States would expend. They knew the process of
weighing before a race, and what chance a man had is
running with another, if ho had to take a sack of flour
i
upon his back. A, very little difference in the weight
made a wonderful difference in the endurance of the man
or the horse. He would ask any rational man, let his
rentiments be what they might about the Russian and
the Turk, "Ie it possible that these two countriesean go
on—one burdened with this enormous arid incredible
ex-
penditure, and the other almost free from it—an'
h
it—and that
this country should keep equal in the race with the
United States ?" If we could conceive going
on for to
years, it would exhaust a sum that would appear equali
to reducing this country, to a great extent, to actual
beggary ; while America was continually ascending in
the scale of prosperity. And yet people told us that the
interests of England were concerned in the East !
Why our interests, as far as regarded supremacy, whether
on the sea or in manufactures and commerce were a
thousand fold more engaged in what was now taking
place in the West, to which our statesmen and people
did not seem at all to turn their attention. (Hear.)
There. was no writing it out or talking it away. Bone-
baste articles in newspapers, the speeches of men anxi-
ous to curry favour with constituente, or who thought
it would please the farmers, because corn was high, nor
the shouting of men who never thought about the mat-
ter—all could never wipe off this
great and destroying
fact : that 80 millions sterling were paid by
thepeople
of this country—either from their own pockets, or from
capital lent to the government which was never got back
--over and above what was paid by their rivals in the
United States ; and no power, no witchery of statesraft,
could give our people a chance with the United States
while that state of things lastel. It was said to be a
very low consideration to talk about pounds, shillings)
and pence ; but they were the foundation of everything.
What could a wan do without feed, home, or clothing I

Surely, there is something here which does not
smack of absolute equality, something that must be
removed before the wish of the Colonels of the
Guards, that promotion in the Line should be
placed on an equality. with theirs, can be said to be
fully obtained ? If equality be really desired no-
thing is easier. Do away with all these unneces-
sary and puzzling distinctions ; organize the House-
hold Troops like any others ; let each officer hold
only one grade of rank in the army, instead of two,
and then apply the same rules of promotion to all.
We submit the proposition to the serious considera-
tion of the much-enduring men who have signed
this memorial. But this is a part of the subject
on which it does not suit the Colonels of the
Guards to dwell. They assume that the single ob-
ject of an officer's life is to become a General, and
they undertake to show that the Guards, who have
heretofore obtained the rank of General in much
larger proportion to their numbers than any other
corps, will, by the Royal warrant of the 6th of

October, 1854, be placid in an inferior position in
this respect to all other regiments in the army.
This warrant provides that the rank of full Colonel
shall be given to officers after serving for three
years as Lieutenant-)10nel in the actual command

MARSHAL PELISSIER.

(Prom. the Examiner.)

The French of all parties appear to take greatly to
heart an article in which the Times lately reproached
Marshal Pelissier with having failed to take duo advan-
tage of the capture of Sebastopol. But certainly the
general feeling, after that triumph, was a foreboding
that the Russians would be allowed to escape from the
Crimea ; and when these fears proved more true, the
Russians continuing to hold their position 02 the heights
without even an attempt to dislodge them, this impa-
tience became naturally very great, and found expres-
sion in the remarks of our contemporary.
The Journal des Debate publishes a formal answer. It
begins by recapitulating the results of the campaign,
which ate undoubtedly good and satisfactory. It then
undertakes to Chow that it would hare been nothing
short of madness in the allies to attack the forts north
of Sebastopol, either by the mouth of the Belbek, or by
escalading the heights in fro-nt of Mackenzie's Farm.
Now, to this it can ()lily be said that no one knows
what would have been the result of an attack on the
Mackenzie heights immediately after the evacuation
of Sebastopol by the Russians, and when they were
,letnoralised by defeat. We certainly cannot assume
that such an operation must have been success-
ful ; but as little can the Debats declare the cer-
tainty of its failure. The argameets by which the
French writer supports his view, we are obliged t 3 say,
are not of much truth or value. Napoleon, he says,
attacked Mont St. Jean because the approach of the
Prussians did not allow him leisure to turn that
position, and he consequently failed. This is the cen-
trary of the fact. Napoleon did in the flue', instance try
to turn the position of Mont St. Jean ; and it was only
when he failed in turning it that ho made the attack in
front, the Prussians not arriving till long after the latter
attempt had been made and repulsed.
The Debuts says that strong positions should never
be attacked in front, unless it be impossible to turn
them. Well- the result of the two months' manoeuvres
after the fall of Sebastopol was the discovery that the
Russian position could not be turned. Therefore, and
on the specific ground of the reasoning of the Debuts,
this was a position that should have been stormed, and
sooner or later will have to be stormed.
The Titnee argued that Napoleon did not find the 21
Cl December too late in the season to fight the battle of
Austerlitz. The DOiats replies that the Russians were the
attacking parties on that occasion. But the whole
campaign of Austerlitz tells for the Tines. Mack
surrendered at 'Ulm on the 19th of October, when a
vict )riotls General might have said that the season was
much too advanced to undertake further hostilities ;
but Napoleon was not the man to put forward such an
excuse, and he forthwith marched upon Vienna. Nay,
from Vienna he advanced, late in November, into
Moravia. The result was Austerlitz. Had he delayed,
he would have had Prussians as well as Austrians and
Russians to fight, and one battle in the ensuing spring
would not have subjugated and pacified the continent.
It is, however, no reproach to Pelissier that he is not
Napoleon.
The Debate reconnts the efforts made to tura the po-
sition of the Ruseians in the present instance. Strong
reconnaissanc!-s were pushed on from Baidar to try the
possibility of turning the Mackenzie lines by the valley
of the Belbek ; but it was soon seen that in advaucing
by this route the army would have had to carry a seriee
of strong positions, one behind the other, on the road
to Bakshi-Serai ; and in order to turn the second line it
would have been necessary to penetrate into the moun-
tains, as far as the sources of the Katcha, an eccentric
and difficult movement, an._l of doubtful success.
The true reason, however, of Marshal Pelissier s re-
solve not to force his way by the Beibok or the IWcha,

of regiments, or as mounted officers in the Guards,
or to Captains and Lieutenant- Colone Is in the Guards
who have served for six years. This is the crying
injustice, this is the regulation which degrades the
Guards below their brethren of the Line. Now,
we are bound to confess that, considering that
officers in the Guards are Lieutenants, Captains,
and Lieutenant. Colonels when officers in the
Line of the same standing are only Ensigns,
Lieutenants, and Captains, we should not have
thought it unreasonable if, to compensate this
unfair and undue partiality in the lower grades,
some obstacle had been interposed by which the
accession of Guards' officers to the rank of Colonel
and General had designedly been made slower than
in the Line. The attainment to the rank of Ge-
neral is not the only or principal object of an officer,
glad to barter a quicker pro-
and many would be
motion to the higher grades for the advantage of
more rapid and immediate advancement to the
lower ones. There is, however, in the theory of
the warrant no such inequality ; for the Colonels
of the Guards do not even attempt to assert that
the two senior Captains and Lieutenant-Colonels,
or Mounted Officers, as they are called, in the
Guards, who only command in the absence of the
Regimental Major, are more than equal in rank to
Lieutenant-Colonels in the actual command of
regiments, or that Captains of six years' standing
have even so good a claim. What the Colonels of
the Guards really undertake to prove to her Ma-
jesty, is, that the average service in the Line of an
officer before he
obtains the rank of Lieutenant-
Colonel is 22 years and 2 months, while the ave-
rage service of an Acting Major or Mounted Officer
in the Guards is 24 years and 11 months—so that
the Guards are two years longer in arriving at the
starting point for Generals than the Lieutenant-
Colonels of the Line ; and, discarding those Lieu-
tenant-Colonels who obtained their commissions
without purchase (a purely arbitrary elimination),
the difference is three years and four months against
the Guards and in favour of the Line.
We have said we see no reason whatever why
Lieutenant- Colonels who have obtained th,eir com-
missions without purchase should be excluded from
the comparison. Purchase prevails in the Line, as
in the Guards, and we cannot in applying an ab-
stract principle take notice that it is more frequent
among the latter than among the former. Let
us grant, then, that in times of peace, to which
the memorial confines itself, an officer becomes
Lieutenant-Colonel in the Line two years sooner
than au Acting Major or Mounted Officer in the
Guards, which is the whole case of the memorial.
Is there any injustice in this, or rather, if it were
not so, would not such a state of things be of itself
evidence of the grossest inequality and injustice ?
Compare the life of an officer in the Guards with
that of an officer in the Line, and this truth will at
once appear. The Guardsman lives in London apart
from his men, discharging most of his duties by
deputy, in comfort and luxury, in a climate conge-
nial to English constitutions, in excellent society,
in the midst of his friends, with no inducement to
quit the service, and, indeed, with little prospect
of changing so agreeable and eligible position for a
better. He may, with ordinary gooci luck, spend
a long life in a red coat, in the. practice of very few
of the duties and the experience ofnoiie of the dan-
gers of his profession. The duties of his commis-
sion sit almost as lightly upon him as those of his
Colonel, the Prince Consort himself. What is
there to cause rapid promotion in such a corps or
to withdraw members from a society of jolly fellows
who have in time of peace all the pleasures of a
club, with the extra advantage of being paid for
belonging to it ? -
Take, on the other hand, the case of the ordi-
nary regimental officer. The world is all before him,
but not where to choose. Ito is destined, if he
stick to the service, to endure hardships such as
no other army in time of peace, and very few in
time of war, is called upon to endure. There is, the
wearisome monotony of country quarters in Eng-
land, or, still worse, in Ireland ; the eternal cigar,
the everlasting game at billiards, the greasy circu-
lating library novel, and the flirtation with the
confectioner's daughter. The scone changes—he is
shivering by the frozen banks of the St. Lawrence,
sweltering in a West Indian island, recovering
from his fifth attack of yellow fever in the putrid
swamps of Guiana, or nursing the remains of
his liver in a dreary cantonment of India. If there
is anything to be done in which there is much hazard
and little glory—a New Zealand Chief to be taken
out of his pab, a rebellion of gold-diggers to be put
down, fanatical San tals or homicidal Moplalis to be
quelled, Caffres to b 3 dislodged half-a-dozen times
in a year from the same rock—these, and a hun-
dred similar duties, all fall on the Line, and make
up, even in tilllo3 Qf pelliQe3 a very considerable

THE SUN, LONDON, TUESDAY EVENING, DECEMBER 18, 1855

amount of casualties, and therefore a very consi-
derable amount of promotion. The modest and
reasonable demand oi the Guards is that they, the
gentlemen of England who live at home at ease,
who avoid all those dangers from climate and bat-
tle which decimate the Line even in times of peace,
shall have the rules of preferment so managed that
their officers shall be promoted at least as rapidly
as men whose lives are constantly jeopardised—not
only in great battles and sieges, such as Chillian-
wallah and Mooltan, bat in a service which is per-
petually, though silently, carrying off its victims.
A regiment in the West Indies is fortunate which
does not lose as many men by climate as a crack
corps in the Crimea, and the moderate and reason-
able request of the Guards is, that the influences of
a tropical climate shall be counterbalanced by a
system of favouritism which shall equalise the pro-
motion in London with the promotion in Jamaica.
Let the Guards take their turn in the Antilles, in
India, in Ceylon, and they will probably find that
a Mounted Officer is no longer two years more in
obtaining his rank than a Lieutenant-Colonel in
the Line, and that the slowness of promotion of
which Prince Albert and the Duke of Cambridge
so pathetically complain, and of which they are
such melancholy instances, has been effectually if
not agreeably remedied.

(From the Times of this day.)
Three Eastern regions are from time to time
spoken of as " the seat of war." In one a disastrous
drama has been just enacted. Amid the bleak
heights of the Armenian mountains an heroic strug-
gle is now concluded. For nearly five months the
defenders of Kars resisted the cannon of a vastly
superior force. Twice they repelled the onset of
the enemy. No event of the war has displayed
more courage and stubborn fortitude ; none has
more called forth the interest and admiration of
the world. But famine has done its work, and
brave men have yielded when honour and their
country's fame were fully satisfied. Kars is now a
Russian position. The earthworks which our gal-
lant countrymen constructed will now shelter de-
termined foes, emulous of the resistance of Sebas-
topol; and anxious to preserve what they must feel
to be their only conquest. Gamri is now no longer
the advanced post of the Czar ; his armies, though
weakened by their long and dreary bivouac, now
hold a fortress and a district 8,000 feet above the
sea, in a country diffieult to approach, and guarded
by the long range of the Soghanly-Degh from the
attempt of any but a powerful and resolute foe.
These mountains look down on Erzeroum, which
is now the frontier city of the Turks. There is
probably little fear that it will be attacked at such
a season, should a relieving army have had time to
concentrate itself behind the works which were the
especial care of our gallant General Williams; But
it is evident that we know too little of the armies
in these parts to make any conclusion weighty.
Nineteen days have elapsed before the surrender
of Kars has been fully confirmed ; in that time much
may have happened, and of Vely Paella and his
forces we know almost nothing. On the inland
Asiatic seat of war we are thus certain but of one
thing—that the Turks have lost au important post,
and that another may be perhaps in danger. Turn-
ing now to the eastern coast of the Euxine, we come
to the head-quarters of the chief Ottoman-General.
His small, ill-fed, ill-clothed army, straggles for 20
miles along the banks of the Ingour. A few ca-
valry in advance, but the General knows that any
movement is impossible with his present force.
The Russians, on the other hand, are said to
be not idle. The fords and passes are held by
an army by no means contemptible, and it can
hardly be doubted that science will be applied to
the strenthening of these positions. Every day
that passes makes Kutais more defensible, and re-
turning spring may find Russian generals firmly
established on more than one line of works, while
new levies may enable them to operate freely in the
province they have conquered, whilst they hold
with pertinacity the roads which traverse their OWD
territory.
The third and most striking picture is that of
200,000 men encamped on the heights which over-
look a conquered city, watching an enemy which
sullenly thrown now and then a shell to break the
stillness which has for three months overspread the
most gigantic battle-field of modern times. Their
labours are suspended ; preparations for comfort
or amusement occupy all, from the general to the
private ; the daily historian of the war announces
that he has little to tell. We will not discuss the
generalship of the commanders, or compare a cam-
paign of our own times with Austerlitz and Eylau,
and the other deeds of the giants who are gone.
We will accept the doctrine that prudence is the
chief of military virtues, and that those who have
gained laurels have a right to rest ,on them for a
season. We will presume that in April much may
be easy, which was impossible in September. The
campaign in the Crimea has closed, and it is
useless to regret the past. But we cannot think of
those vast armies, those miles of tents which cover
valley and plateau, those thousands of mules and
horses, those tons of corn and meat and hay, those
piles of ammunition, those fleets of mighty trans-
ports, without comparing all this plenty with the
destitute condition of the poor Ottoman army, to
which, as in mockery, has been committed the safety
of half the Sultan's empire. There are the right
men and the right materials for war, but are they
in the right place ? Surely, of the inactive thou-
sands before Sebastopol a few might be spared for
service on another field. For the fall of Kars there
are statesmen and generals who owe a strict account.
A strong position is in the hands of the enemy, a
province is overrun by the Cossack and the Bash-
kir. Many a brave man may be destined to fall
before the abandoned city bo wrested from the in-
vader. The name of Mouravieff is probably now
repeated with awe by the Persian and Affghan ;
the moral lesson of Sebastopol must again be sternly
taught. But there will be a still greater responsi-
bility if after such a warning the Czar be allowed
to confirm and extend his triumph. Omer Pasha
has landed on the Abasian coast to enforce the
enemy's retreat by a march on his own territory.
The policy of the measure may be doubted, but
it is an accomplished fact, and nothing remains
but to persevere in what has been begun. It
is proved that the General is without means
it is proved that the Seraskier and his col-
leagues are unable to supply their only com-
mander with the
.first necessaries of a campaign.
The Turkish army is small, it is without resources,
on an inhospitable coast, and winter has set in.
The histories of the Danube and Balaklava may he
repeated in a third winter. The Ottoman is hardy
and
and discipline.
patient,
wherehe
Europeanrequires
troops
wouldsubmits
lose
uncom-
plainingly heart
Bub no strength or devotion can
accumulated trials. Unless the Turkish
re
General receive assistance he may not only be un-
able to vanquish the enemy's army, but he may
lose his own. In spite of the successes of their
allies, the Turks have suffered greatly in the pre-
sent war. We hardly dare estimate the numbers
who have disappeared in the two years' contest.
Omer Pasha now commands the last body of the
Sultan's troops which can be depended on for active
warfare. Though brave and obedient, these must
be dejected by the calamities of their race, and
especially by the news which has just reached them.
It is a dangerous and even a guilty policy to leave
then alone and unsupported even for a season.
There can be but one conclusion from the facts
hweo.
aor:utial
übdn
secsheeunai.
vinooefaf.
mtnea: Christian htbreiisni s
urged.teinfia ncoitaTcorps
bi
une
tndas b.O theseiut
bai
itieut
doubted
may dislike the Russians, but they most certainly
that politically the presence of a British or French
The importance
stutnhi:
oven these ulterior advantages are small compared
with theimportance of succouring the neglected
Turks, carrying out the long looked for advance,
and by a bold inroad rousing the enemy from a
dream of conquest to the hasty and unready de-
fence of their most valued province. Those regi-
ments which suffered most in the late contest may
well remain to recruit their exhausted ranks; but
there are surely troops enough in the East to fur-
nish 10,000 men for an Asiatic campaign. There
are also Generals of Division in the two armies
who might wisely be trusted with an independent
command, and military genius might be called
forth which has been hidden during the dreary
routine of an eleven months' cannonade. The
time has came for such a course, and it may soon
be past. If we leave the enemy to enjoy and im-
prove his triumph, the labours of the future may
be long and its success incomplete.

THE WESTMINSTER PLAT.—The third and last repre-
sentation of the Phormio was given last night by the
alumni of Westrnimter. There was the same full
audience as on the former nights, and the same disposi-
tion to enjoy the salient points of the play. Tha young
histrios also read more into the comic spirit of the situa-
tions and language with each repetition. The company
fast night included M. Musurus, the Turkish Ambassa-
dor, and Madame Musurus, the Earl of Devon, the Rev.
Dean Milman, Dr. Colquhoun, Mr. Darby, &c.
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