The Sun.
London, England, 1855-01-02 00:00:00

BETTER LATE THAN NEVER.

And now for some of the fruits of experience. It is
found out that in war it is necessary to have a good
basis of operations, and, having one, to make the best
of it. At last we are sending a man to Constantinople
to look to our hospitals, transports, supplies for the
army, and so forth, as they ought to be looked to.
General Jones—he of Bomarsund—is going out there
with full powers. Again, the sad incompetency of the
staff, which has formed the subject of so many com-
plaints, public and private, and to which the mis-
management of the expedition has been mainly as-
cribed, is at last recognised. Our authorities have
slowly opened their eyes to the fact that the French
understand the practice of war rather better than
we do, and that one reason of their greater success
is the rank and position they assign to those who
have learnt their profession over those who have
not learnt it. We are about to take a leaf--a very
little leaf, out of their book. Engineer officers,
who have, at least, had some professional education,
are to be attached to the Quartermaster-General's staff.
Whether they are to have rank enough to give them
authority remains to be seen. This is something to
have gained by the terrible sacrifices of the year. The
gain, indeed, does not seem much in itself, but it is
much when compared with the absence of it. We
have hitherto officered our army, and in fact conducted
this arduous undertaking, as if there was no such thing
as special talent, experience, skill, or education in mili-
tary affairs ; or, at least, as if half-a-dozen men with
these recommendations were sufficient for the purpose,
and all the rest of the officers might be left to the order
of seniority and purchase. Great gain, indeed, it is to
have discovered that this is not enough, and that,
besides the half-dozen chiefs, we must have at least a
few other officers who have learnt snore than can be
picked up on parade or at mess.
But more must be done, much more, in the improve-
ment of our military organisation before the nation will
cheerfully see its best blood drained towards the Crimea
—perhaps never to return—in the profusion perempto-
rily demanded. The cry is " Mere men ; more men."
Lord Raglan, we are assured, has not half enough for
his work. To do it with security would require at least
35,000 ;todo it efficiently 60,010. Had we the proper
numbers, then our men would only pass one night in five
in the trenches, instead of every othernight—nay, some-
times every night. We should have enough to spare for
the protection of our flank, far the better safety of
Balaklava, for the making of roads, for the pre-
servation of order, and the assistance of all the
departments. All this is true. But, even if we
had the men to send at once, the British people
would not see more men and more men for
ever embarked for the East without some better assur-
ance than it now possesses that the life of a British sub-
ject is as precious in the Crimea as it is at home. Possi-
bly the common soldier has not quite the respect that he
ought to have among us., but we have net got yet into
the way of regarding him as mere food for powder,
food for the cholera, food for famine—ia fact, to be
thrown away as fast as he can be landed on the scene of
action. But that is the inevitable working of the
present system in our army. The common soldiers are
deliberately and systematically exposed to trials that
cost es much life and strength as the deadliest colli-
sions with the foe. They are so exposed simply and
solely because it is thought better to leave the manage-
ment of these things, and the disposal of thousands of
lives trembling in the balance, to gentlemen wholly ig-
norant of their profession, than to men of experience,
but without money, rank, or Ministerial [favour. As
deliberate is the waste of life, or at least the peril of life,
when many hundreds are committed to the mercies of
the Euxine in unseaworthy vessels, dismasted, rudderless,
leaky, and with difficulty reaching their destination in
twice the proper time, and at twice the unavoidable cost
of suffering—all because it is not thought worth while
to have a single steamer regularly fitted upas an hospital-
transport, and employed in conveying the sick and
wounded, not by thousands, but by a hundred or two
at a time. It is mere and sheer waste of life, too, to
leave the sick and wounded at Scutari in the wretched
hands which, but for the " nurses," and but for
us, would have been their only guardians. From
the fund confided to our care 3,0001. worth of
comforts for the sick and wounded have been

distributed that would otherwise have been "done with-
out"—at the cost of how much life and permanent
strength we forbear to guess. What are we to think of
a system under which the " Purveyor" satisfies his ideas
of official duty by piling up medical stores and comforts
of all kinds, and refusing to give them out, even when
for months together there is urgent demand for them ?
Here for two months all Europe was crying shame on the
want of lint to dress the wounds of thousands of British
soldiers lying at Scutari, and scarce a household in this
country but was busily employed in supplying the want.
It now appears that the lint was there all the time, only
some brutal official thought it less trouble to say nothing
about it than to give it out to the hospitals. What the
fellow meant to do with his lint and other stores
at the end of the war, should it ever arrive, it
passes us to say. We cannot think better of the medi•
cal officer at Scutari, who does all he can to thwart and
neutralise the assistance not only of the nurses, and of
the gentleman acting in our behalf, but of the British
Ambassador and his lady. It is simply the case of a
1 man who thinks his own dignity a great matter, and
I ti,e i;,,..n nnd comfort of some thousand British soldiers
a small one. But the simple tontrasi, .: fb. m.-11.:.L.
and French hospitals, the British and French harbours
in the Crimea, the British and French roads, the

British and French camps, the British and French
horses, the British and French men, is enough to show
that a new
ilwlgrantorganisationt
i, w
is wanted,
eare
ad
and, till
thatheßritish
Government the
British people will behold with great sorrow and grow-
ing reluctance the continual and increasing drain of its
thousands to the seat of war.--Tines.

SIR DE LACY EVANS.

A braver soldier than Sir De Lacy Evans, who has
just returned from the Crimea, never sustained the
honour of his country. There may exist doubts as to
the capacity for contmand of other officers engaged,
whatever may be their personal bravery, but in the case
of the gallant soldier of whom we are now speaking,
there can be no hesitation in saying that in the Crimea,
as elsewhere, he was ever found equal to the occasion,
and to the situation in which he was placed. His post
was that of General of Division ; and, had every
superior post in the army been as well filled by
the officer who held it as was that of Sir De
Lacy Evans, we should not now be reckoning
up our unfortunate countrymen by slaughtered heca-
tombs. In his case there is no running away from the
stern calls of duty. It is not for the sake of a soft pillow
and a brilliant Mayfair drawing-room that the bravo old
man has abandoned his brethren in arms. While human
nature could hold out he remained at his post, and it
was not until repeated trials had convinced him that he
was of no further use in the field that he resolved, sadly
but wisely, to try for a time the effect of his native air
and comparative tranquillity. We have heard of some
200 young officers who have applied for leave of absence
because they were sickened and disgusted with the heavy
service of the camp and the trenches—not because they
shrank from conflict with the foe. They might have
taken a lesson from this old soldier, now in his 68th
year and worn out with hard service in every
quarter of the globe, through a period extending over
half a century. He was confined by severe illness to
his tent. He mot with an accident on horseback,
having been thrown upon his head, and his horse rolled
over him. He was suffering from chronic disease, and
swallowing the most powerful antidotes in order to fit
himself for service whenever the hour of danger came.
" During the occasional northerly winds," Sir De Lacy
Evans writes to Lord Raglan, " I was obliged to have
my tent fur twenty-four hours together wholly closed,
and gave and received orders through my unopened
tent doors. Some of your Lordship's staff will also
remember how often in bringing me orders they found
me iu bed, or roe her in my blankets, on the ground,
when I ought rather to have been, if I could, on
horseback." It was not until the brave old man had
convinced himself that the public service might receive
detriment from his persistence in a post the duties of
which he was no longer able to discharge that he re-
solved to apply for leave of absence, and to return to his
native land. Let hint be assured that there is no one
among his countrymen who does not appreciate the value
of his services, of his professional skill, and of his gal-
lantry in the field.
It would be unpardonable if we were to pass ever
without mention the incident connected with the battle
of Inkerman which has done so much honour to this
brave officer. To be sure, it is in everbody's mouth, but
it would be difficult to speak of his return to Eng-
land without recurring to the fact of his having risen
from a sick-bed on that bloody day, and caused himself
to be convoyed to his own division, in order that he
might share the perils of his men, and endeavour to as-
sist by his counsels his second in command. It will re-
main recorded among the brightest incidents of this
sanguinary struggle that the chief refused to stand in
the light of his subordinate,--that he would not resume
a command which lie saw was wisely used, but contented
himself with sharing the danger, and leaving the glory
to another man. The story is best told in his own
simple and unassuming language On hearing heavy
firing on the morning of Sunday, the sth, though the
weather was bad, and I had taken mercury, I proceeded
as fast as I could to the point of attack, and remained
there till the close of the battle, but felt neither jus-
tified nor fit to take the command of the division
from General Pennefather, which he had exercised
with so much ability in the previous part of the day."
This was the old soldier's lase effort ; he was conveyed
from the field, "after the close of the battle," to a ship
in the harbour, and was compelled to resign himself to
the conviction that at his advanced age the struggle
against nature and the elements, against his own con-
stitutional disease, and the pestilence flying about the
camp,
was above Ins steength. Well and truly had ho
done his duty to the last, for but nine days before the
battle of Inkerman he had repelled a most determined
attack upon the position of the division under
his command. We have the authority of his
Commander-in-Chief for stating that never in any
former period of his career did the military ability
of the gallant General display itself with greater
lustre, and never was an effort attended with
more complete success. And this was done by a man
whose years were verging on the extreme limit ordina-
rily assigned to humanity—his body covered with the
scars of many wounds—the most honourable insignia
of many a well-fought day—and, in addition to this,
his frame was attenuated and worn down by a consti-
tutional disease.
The record of Sir De Lacy Evans's services reads like
an epitome of well nigh all the wars in which this court-

try has been engaged since the rupture of the Peace of
Amiens. He has been fifty years in the army, nal has
been present in fifty great battles. He has served in
the East Indies, in the West Indies, and in the
United States. He accompanied the Duke of Wel-
lington through his career of conquest in the Spanish
Peninula, and there greatly distinguished himself,
wherever distinction was to be carried by reckless
exposure of himself or prudent care for others. It was
he who, at the head °Via hundred men, forced the House
of Congress at Washington. Ile performed, besides,
many important services in the same quarter. He was
at Waterloo, and showed himself to be among the
bravest and most competent officers on that dreadful
day. It would be idle to recur to his more recent ser-
vices In Spain in behalf of a constitutional throne
which scarcely deserved the support of such a
Paladin. Now that all the angry passions and jea-
lousies of the day have subsided, few men will
question that throughout the Spanish campaign Sir
De Lacy Evans proved himself to the an excellent
and successful officer, not unworthy of high command.
We cannot but feel that in losing the benefit of his
services in the Crimea we have lost the assistance of one
of the best officers in the army. in the existing condi-
tion of the Army List he cannot lightly be replaced.
Hcr,v did he obtain his skill ? Where did he serve his
apprenticeship to the stern trade of war ? He was no
creature of Horse Guards favour, he was not the protege'
of a high connexion, nor pushed forward by unfair in-
fluence. He fitted himself for command by constant
service in the field. Ha was a good officer, because he
hail seen military service in every form.--Times.

SPURTING INTPLLIGENCE.