The Sun.
London, England, 1863-06-22 00:00:00

excellent measure was introduced, founded on the
reports of a Royal Commission appointed to inves-
tigate the subject. The bill was not proceeded
with, though it had been introduced into the House
of Lords. Mr. LIDDELL summed up the chief
points of this measure, which certainly comprised
the most important changes that are suitable and
requisite. An entire change in the governing
body, a material reduction in the staff of officers, a
large reduction in the domestic establishment, with
a view to more Efficient working and greater
economy, and some provision for the wives and
families of pensioners." It is a great pity that
these intentions were not carried out; but since
they were not, for some unaccountable reason,
why should not the Ministers now redeem the
past, and seek to retrieve their lost opportunity,
and rectify their former mistakes. Mr. LIDDELL
strongly animadverted upon the practice that now
obtains of " retaining Greenwich as a place of com-
fortable retirement for the old invalided officers of
her MAJESTY'S Navy." He truly said that he
looked upon the Institution in a different light.
At present they occupy a fourth of the building,
and draw largely on the resources of the Hospital.
This is, surely, a most flagrant perversion of the
original intentions of the founders of the Hospital,
and ought not to be persisted in any longer. No
one could have put the subject more strongly than
did Mr. LIDDELL, and his remarks were as tempo. i
rate in their tone as their general tenour was in
conformity with sound sense and right feeling. He
said that he grudged nothing whatever to our dis-
tinguished naval and military officers; indeed, he
thought that the Government were often too nig-
gardly in their rewards to these eminent men, but
" he objected to the Crown transferring its obliga-
tions to its own servants from the public treasury
to Greenwich Hospital." This is the very substance
of the case, and exactly explains its consequence.
Why should such a mode be adopted and persisted
in, in spite of all remonstrances and in the face of
all opposition. It is unjust to that humbler class for
whose benefit the Institution was founded; it is
placing worthy men in a very invidious position, and
casting disgrace on ail in authority who connive at
such innovations and tacitly sanction such injus-
tice. Mr. LIDDELL observed that there had been
great discontent at the proposal to tax charities,
but that had the proposition been carried out, it
would have been nothing compared with the Ad-
miralty plan of paying the pensions out of the
funds of Greenwich Hospital. With reference to
the domestic establishment the commissioners drew
up a comparison between the years 1808 and 1859.
The following is the result. In 1805 the cost of
maintenance of 2,410 pensioners and 144 nurses
(widows), was £69,206 ; while the cost of establish-
ment, salaries to civil and military officers, clerks,
servants, and repairs, &c., was £21,837. In 1859
the cost of maintenance of 1,676 pensioners, 100
nurses, and 71 sick attendants, was £50,910, being
118,296 less than 1805 ; while at the same time the
establishment charges was £48,667, or 126,830
more than in 1805. Thus it appeared that while
the expense of the individual pensioner had not
increased during 55 years, and whilst the aggre-
gate numbers of pensioners had been diminished
30 per cent., the cost of the establishment had
during that period considerably more than doubled.
If it were not proved beyond doubt that these
returns are official we would be tempted to
doubt their authenticity. A more monstrous state of
things could hardly exist in the way of misappro-
priation and extravagance. Another evil that Mr.
LIDDELL pointed out was that the female relatives
of the pensioners were wholly ignored. The con-
sequences of this neglect were most deplorable. The
commissioners stated in their report that the wives
were in extreme penury, sometimes chargeable to
tee parish ; while the school for girls had been
abolished, and in consequence these children swelled
the ranks of the disreputable class of the community.
Mr. LIDDELL concluded his able speech by trusting
that the House would render justice to "a set of
men who had ventured their lives for the honour
and defence of their country."
Sir J. PAKINGTON made a few remarks ; he said
that he believed that the Admiralty had full power
to cure the evils that had arisen without having
recourse to legislation, and he hoped that they
would exercise those powers. This is very true, but
the question is, if they will do so ; and past experi-
ence does not hold oet much satisfactory prospect
for the future.
Lord C. PAGET made a short and most unsatis-
factory speech in reply to the several statements
and various questions. He acknowledged that it
was not at first intended that Greenwich
Hospital should be for the benefit of naval
officers ; but, at the same time, the practice
had ever been in the other direc'ion, and
he thought that it would now be unfair to
deprive them of their pensions. This is very ex-
traordinary reasoning, because they need not be
deprived of their pensions but paid from other
sources. It is something new for an official per-
sonage to state to the House that an institution is
perverted from its original purpose, yet that there
is no intention to restore it to its primal condition.
Lord C. PAGET also misunderstood, or affected to
do so, the plans and proposals of the objectors to
the present system. He said the House was asked
to reduce the cost of the establishment by "a mi-
serable knocking off of a few naval officers' pen-
sions." The point was that the money was mis-
applied and misappropriated. The recipients might
be deserving, but they had no right to be rewarded
and supported with the fund set apart for others.
'fills "noble charity," as Sir J. PAKINGTON truly
designated it, will soon be shorn of its glory, and
deprived of its utility, if it is to degenerate like
this. Surely, if any class more than another deserve
recognition ,and demand at tention at the hands of the
British nation, it is the sailors. Mr. LINDSAY exactly
summed up the case when he declared that the Go-
vernment had set its face against all reform in this
matter. It is a very disgraceful thing to lay to their
charge that they should look coldly and indifferently
on while the defenders of our most sacred rights are
deprived of their just meed, and their fami-
lies compelled to undergo the sharpest trials
of poverty. It is a scandal on the
country to allow the present state of Greenwich
Hospital to continue, and if too late for the present
Session, it is very much to be desired that early
next year something decisive should be done to
adjust affairs at least more equitably, and render
the general system a link more creditable. It is
extraordinary how the noblest privileges may be
rp.blaueseedd ,
iaendautthheorihtiy, highest duties
such matters neagleecrsted, and all
s
cautious to supervise and keep in cheekhoaullld bthe
arrangements of such institutions, lest at any
time they assume
seem likeluynatoueranpre-eminence, and, as at
present,
se
on
the
proprinciplealtlhTte benefitsehariiy
• for themselves,
begins at home.

disposed to let the new
its objectionable
The Volunteers are not
bill pass into law, with all
clauses, without an effort to obtain at least SOMO
modification. A deputation from the metropoli-
tan Committee waited upon Earl DE GREY and
RIPON on Saturday, and expre.ted the sentiments
of the Volunteers on the tubjt,et. Captain Worms,
the chief spokesman, statea the grounds on which

their objections to the clauses in question were
based, and very reasonably asked why the Volun-
teers, as a body, should submit to give their time
and money, and yet be subjected to arbitrary
restrictions, which neither the army, the navy, or
the militia were called upon to suffer. Mr. FEW,
in supporting his views, said that all that alas
wanted was the common and indefensible right pos-
sessed by all persons in civilised countries, namely,
the right of being heard before being condemned.
The reply of the 'War Secretary was anything but
satisfactory. He paid some general compliments to
the Volunteers, and declared that the public impres-
sion with regard to this bill was altogether mis-
taken, but he gave the deputation no sort of hope
that their wishes would have any influence. We
should be glad to know why a clause should be in-
serted in the bill, whether freshly introduced or
retained from some old measure, which is so decidedly
opposed to the general feeling of the Volunteers.
The Government, we should imagine, can scarcely
wish to diminish the force, or to induce its mem-
bers to throw up their offices in disgust, yet they
insist upon the insertion of a particular section
which is calculated to effect these undesirable ob-
jects, and is entirely contrary to the spirit of Eng-
lish 'aw and justice. There has been no outbreak,
no display of unruly or reprehensible conduct
among the volunteer regiments which might autho-
rise such stringent regulations. It is not likely
that men, often of independent position, always of
other occupations and interests, would enrol them-
selt es in a corps at the sacrifice of personal conve-
nience, without remuneration or reward of any
kind, if they did not intend to fulfil the duties
of membership. Of course there may be,
and probably will be, frequent cases among such a
large body of men where individuals will transgress
the regulations, but there has not been, nor is there
likely to be, an amount of insubordination suffi-
cient to justify the bestowal of such arbitrary
pots ers. It is probable, as Capt. WORMS observed,
that few commanding officers would exercise those
powers to their full extent, but that is no reason
why they should be authorised to dismiss a volun-
teer at will without any court of inquiry. It is
useless to talk of the right of every individual to
appeal to the Secretary of State for redress. It is
not difficult to conjecture the sort of reception that
an unknown individual, without rank or influence,
would meet with at the hands of the various officials
of any public office if he came there with his cata-
logue of wrongs. The utmost he would obtain
would be a polite intimation that his papers had
been laid before the Secretary of State, who would
give them full consideration, but more probably he
would be told that the case was one in which the
Minister must " decline to interfere." It is very
well for Earl DE GREY and RIPON to talk largely
about the service of their QUEEN and country,
which the Volunteers had entered, but he and his
colleagues would do well to ask themselves whether
they are fulfilling their duties in that service by
disgusting the large body of spirited and patriotic
men with the task they have so cheerfully and libe-
rally undertaken. It surely is incumbent on the
Government to meet the Volunteers half way, and
to accord them a full degree of sympathy and
confidence until they prove themselves
unworthy of it. It is idle to expect, in a time of
peace, to tie these voluntary soldiers down to the
strict rule of martinets, and there seems to be no
possible advantage in the course proposed. To show
the feeling in the matter, upon Earl DE GREY'S as
serting that courts of inquiry were permitted by the
new model rules, a gentleman named PRINCE asked
whether that could not be embodied in the bill, and
suggested also that when a charge was preferred
against a man, it should be made in writing; where-
upon the Under-Secretary of State remarked that if
a charge were obliged to be made in writing, that
would prevent the power of instant dismissal by the
commanding officer. His lordship seemed to con-
sider that an objection, whereas it would be a prin-
cipal advantage of the provision. Earl DE GREY,
who evidently wished to smooth matters down, said
that if an officer proved coercive or tyrannical, the
members of the corps had the remedy in their own
hands, since they could all resign and leave him
without a corps to command. His lordship appeared
to forget the inconvenience this would occasion, and
the loss which it would prove to the movement
generally, since it would be very improbable that all
the members would re-enlist in different regiments,
especially after such an unpleasant experience. A
member of the deputation reminded the Secretary
of War, in the middle of one of his pacific explana-
tions, that dismissal from one corps prevented a
volunteer from joining another, and also
that in the interval between sending in his
resignation, and the end of the intervening
fourteen days, the commanding officer might dismiss
him. Consequently, supposing the fulfilment of
Earl DE GREY'S suggestion about the wholesale
resignation, the unjust or tyrannical commander
might have his revenge by giving a dismissal to
each member of the corps, and consequently pre-
venting them from joining the service again. Of'
course this is an extreme and highly improbable
case, but his lordship would do well to follow out
his suggestions to their possible conclusions before
he proposes them as specifics. Whether the objec-
tions to this clause have been exaggerated by the
volunteers or no, it is evident that it is most un-
popular among them, and it is very much to be
regretted that the Government have not acted in a
frank and cordial spirit towards a body of men of
whom any country might be justly proud, by at
once expunging, or at least modifying, the obnoxious
article. There is even more danger of personal
favour or prejudice in the case of volunteers than
among regular soldiers ; the commanders will be
lees experienced, probably less cautious and tempe-
rate, in the fulfilment of their duties. A strict
obedience to the rules, and a careful observance of
that order which is " Heaven's first law," on the
part of' these voluntary soldiers are doubtless indis-
pensable, but the Government's determined
adherence to an unpopular clause for which no
better argument can be adduced than that some-
thing like it was in the last Volunteer Act, ib
neither wise, just, nor politic.

Professor Faraday recently announced that it is
intended to have an extra evening-meeting at the
Royal Institution on the return of Captains Speko and
Grant to this country, when it was hoped that a lecture on
Egyptian geography would be delivered in reference to the
discovery of tte sources of the Nile.
STORY OF A MONKEY ON BOARD A MAN-OF-
WAR, AND A CHARACTERISTIC FRENCHMAN.—The
captain, who studied pug's happiness as much as the others,
and who perhaps thought he might be steadied by matri-
mony, was anxious to provide him with a wife. For some
time the happiness of the wedded pair appeared to be com-
plete; and the trigate sailed upon a summer cruise during
their honeymoon, The husband, however, soon grew in-
different; and indifference was soon succeeded by disgust.
This was manifested by angry looks, chatter, and even
blows, upon the female's persevering in her attentions. All
were much disappointed and scandalized at the evil success
of so promising a union. At length, however, an apparent
change took place in the husband's conduct, and was
hailed with correspondent joy by the ship's company.
Their pleasure was, however, of short duration, for the
traitor, having one day decoyed his wife out to the end of
hveitufoerses,tclogpe-ttgathllaant yard, as if to show her something at
sea, and sat down with her on the spar, slipped his paw
shall d
forget
sitting part, and tumbled her overboard. I never
momentary horror with which this was
prisoner
with the exception of a French captain,
lieutenant:
ex
claraeotneedre,b,:,,alrdiebnwlioehu,o.,,s,
ititiort,niii.l:ugr,toce thdrealsecond
a
beaucoup de ear '
Biographica‘ k'hetches.