The Sun.
London, England, 1854-08-25 00:00:00

ROYAL MARINES.

Lieutenant Mudge, 1 sedeant, 1 corporal, 1 drummer,
and 24 privates of the Woolwich division of Royal Ma-
rines, including the men of the Royal Marine Artillery,
from Portsmouth, were marched yesterday from their bar-
racks, headed by the band of the division to the dockyard
station of the North Bent Railway, for conveyance to
Strood, en route to Chatham, to join for service iu the
Cossack, 21, screw steam-corvette, fitting for sea at that
port.

ROYAL ARTILLERY.
Captain Gibbons's company, 12th battalion, with a nine-
pounder field battery, assembled yesterday morning at
9 o'clock, at Woolwich, in service marching order, with
camp equipage, and proceeded to Bexley-heath to encamp
there for the day. The men were supplied with their day's
rations, and 25 rounds of ammunition per gun were served
ont previous to marching.

Draughts of the 14th Foot, 60th Rifles, and 57th Foot
have arrived at Cork to embark in the Mauritius for con-
veyance to Turkey.

The 54th Foot, 66th Foot, 71st Reserve Battalion, and
72d Regiment of the line, now in Canada, are ordered
home.

Agreeably to a route received from the Quartermaster-
General's office, Dublin Castle, the remaining troops of the
King's Dragoon Guards will leave that garrison in the fol-
lowing order, viz.:—Captain Slade's troop will march from
Portobello barracks on Saturday, the 26th inst., to Dun-
and Captain Sayer's troop, under the command of
Major dalk, en route to Edinburgh; the head-quarters, staff,
band,o Briggs, will march from Portobello barracks on
Monday, the 28th inst., to Dundalk, en route to Edin-
burgh ; the dismounted men and casualties will follow on
Tuesday, the 29th inst.
A detachment of the 62d Regiment, consisting of 150
rank and file, under Major Buokinghain, left Belfast on
Tuesday per railway for Cork, where they will embark for
Tut key.

During the present month 95 recruits have been attested
at the Belfast police-court.
On Tuesday morning 22 men of the 13th Regiment,
under command of Captain Lynch, left.Clonmel by special
train for Cork, to join the service companies at Malta.
A draught of the 92d Highlanders, consisting of throe
sergeants and 70 rank and file, under the command of
Lieutenant Leith and Ensigns Parkinson and Nowell,
which arrived from Reif ist on Tuesday, left Dublin on
Wednesday morning by the 10 o'clock train for Cork,
there to await embarkation to join the service companies
at Gibraltar.

If we may form a judgment from the number of com-
munications we receive upon the subject, the case of Lieut.
Perry is likely to remain as one of the chief "topics" of
,the recess. It would be needless for us to say that our
own sentiments are perfectly in accordance with those of
our correspondents upon the treatment which this young
gentleman has received at the hands of his brother officers.
The prosecutions have been a disgrace to the British army,
discreditable in their origin, and from the spirit in which
they have been conducted. The report is rife in Windsor
that if this second prosecution should break down—as
break down it certainly will, if there be one spark of jus-
tice left in tho breasts of the military judges—a third is in
contemplation. Delenda est Carthago ;—" We'll smash
Perry yet," are the precise words attributed to the most
malevolent of his persecutors. The idea seems to be that
he can be put upou his defence a third—we may say a
fourth—time, for having charged the witnesses upon the
late trial with " combination," and some of them with
perjury. There would not, indeed, be much subject for
regret if these points could be fairly tried by a competent
tribunal, and no longer before one of these courts-martial,
which appear intended as practical proof of how ridiculous
the forms of justice can be made. Were it possible to
consign the Fyffes, and Campbells, and Nicholases, and
Curtises, and Waldys—and, above all, the venerable
Garrett himself—to the persuasive finger and thumb of
the Attorney-General or of Sir Frederick Thesiger, with
such a judge as Mr. Justice Erle or Mr. Justice Cresswell
to see fair play on all sides,
we might end by knowing
something of the proceedings of the gallant 46th. It
might be instructive if information were elicited
from the witnesses as to the exploits sthich some
of their number are said to have performed in
Ireland—ay, and even in Windsor the other day, while
this inquiry was in progress. We should like to know a
little about the general habits of the regiment. If it could
be shown that the officers of this corps are pure and un-
spotted in their lives and conversation, and if they could
prove that young Perry was the reverse, we should find it
quite natural that theyshould have dropped his acquaint-
ance. If, on the other hand, it should appear that many
of the officers of the 46th are pre-eminently loose in their
habits, and that they are unable to fix a similar stain upon
the conduct of Lieut. Perry, it is evident that we have
againnostt
yet arrived at the true explanation of the extraordinary
combination of which this young officer has been the vic-
tim. There was some other reason for the
pull
him than the one assigned, and that reason—which is the
key of the whole position—has not as yet been mastered ;
and most certainly never will by the proceedings of any
Court-martial conducted as those at Windsor have recently
been. 'save any of our readers ever assisted at an investi-
gation before a military tribunal of this kind? We will
endeavour to give them an idea of the same, and of the
form of proceeding.
At one end of the Infantry Barracks at Windsor, in
which the 46th Regiment is at present quartered, and upon
the ground floor, looking into the barrack-yard, there is a
somewhat long low room, papered with an excessively
"seedy" green striped paper—if we remember right—well
bedaubed with stainsand spotted with flyblows. This room
is the mess-room of the barrack. On the floor is a dining-
table capable of dining 16 persons with comfort, at one end
of which sits the President., and down the sides the
other members of the Court, seven on a side, in full uni-
form. There are thrse windows to the President's right,
looking, as we before said, into the barrack-yard, and in
one of these, el me to the President's right, sits a jocular
kind of rodfaced man. This is Major Dalgetty, the
Deputy-Judge-Advocate. He has before him a little table
with writing materials, and a red book—some work on
Court-martial law. At a dark corner of the room opposite
to him, and close beside the President's left hand, at a
little round table, all by himself, as though waiting for a
glass of brandy-and-water before starting by the train, the
official prosecutor is to be found. At the end of the long
table, opposite to the President, and divided from, it by a
few feet, is another small table, at which are seated poor
young Perry in uniform, and Mr. Darvill, his legal ad-
viser. At the window furthest from that at which Major
Dalgetty is placed there is yet another table for a couple of
reporters, who are taking notes and growling into each
other's ears, as well they may, constant complaints of the
atrocity of the whole proceeding. There are two orderly
sergeants with their caps on, who are constantly employed
in carrying bits of paper about the court, for purposes
which we shall presently describe. The room has two
doors, one at each end, which may be said practically to
open out into the barrack-yard, and in this barrack-yard
are lounging a number of the officers of the 46th, who have
been called in, or who are about to be called in, or who
have been turned out in the midst of their examination,
because the Court was cleared,—and t there they are all
gossipping, with Colonel. Garrett iu the midst of them.
The method in which the examination is conducted is
this :—Let us suppose that the prisoner wishes to put a
question in cross-examination. The witness is standing
between the President and the Deputy-Judge-Advocate—
so close that he coubl with the utmost facility read any paper
that might be in the hands of either of them. The prisoner
then writeshis question on a slip of paper,and delivers it to the
orderly sergeant near his own table, who delivers it to the
other orderly serg6,nt, who carries it to the President.
The President looks at it, and may or may not raise a little
friendly discussion upon it, in which all persons officially
present seem inclined enough to join. But let us presume
that he hands it at once to the Deputy-Judge-Advocate.
This functionary reads it aloud—but it must not therefore
be supposed that the witness is to be incommoded as yet
with any necessity for reply. After reading out the ques-
tion the Deputy-Judge-Advocate quietly takes up his pen,
and transcribes it into the minutes with all duo circum-
spection and attention to calligraphy, and then, and not
till then, does he rise from his seat anti read the question
out to the witness, much in the same tone he would use if
he were asking him to take a glass of wine. We leave it
to the experience of all persons who have been connected
with the administration of justice to decide what chance
there is of eliciting truth upon a system of this kind. The
theory which Lieutenant Perry set up in his defence was,
that the bulk of the officers of the 46th were in combina-
tion against him, and that many of them had been guilty
of perjury in the evidence they delivered against him
either the perjury of assertion or the perjury of forgetful-
ness. It was with the weapons, and under the circum-
stances we have deseribed, that he was to trip them into
contradiction with themselves, to confound thew with the
consciousness of their guilt, and to drag the truth from
their white and trembling lips.
Even then we have not quite exhausted the absurdities
of a Court-martial. It must not be supposed that the
Deputy-Judge-Advocate records the answer actually given ;
he throws in pronouns and prepositions according to
his own fancy. He allows the witnesses for the prosecu-
tion to alterand amend their evidence a dozen times before it
is recorded. He helps a lame dog, so the dog limps on the
prosecutor's side, over any awkward stile. The functions
discharged by the official prosecutor are perhaps the most
anomalous of all ; he frames the questions for the exami-
nation in chief, and stops the questions for the cross-exami-
nation ; he makes and enforces his own statutes of limita-
tion ;
nd
duties cionuhrit-ns,°::;1•1e pdeiarcsrartgheodsebycotmh;
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the court is adjourned or cleared. The Deputy-Judge-
Advocate thronghaut the whole inquiry takes up his quar-
ters with the Queen's Horse Guards Blue, and i.e hail fellow
oinfgthaebocouut;t.
well met with the offisers of that exemplary corps—in
which practices are said to have prevailed much of the
same character as those of the 46th. We verily believe
that, despite of all these drawbacks, a hightainded
man—such as Colonel Kelly appears to be—may
blunder into a right decision by sheer honesty of
purpose and determination to make the right prevail .
; but
was there ever such a plan for arriving at truth as the pro-
ceedings of a Court-martial ? It is well that the English
public
should be made acquainted with these particulars,
for, monstrous as are the disclosures in the evidence, ordi-
nary readers may not be aware of the difficulty under
laboured in extracting even these few
which the prisoner
shreds of truth from the lips of his brother-officors. Under
the circumstances of the case, we cannot wonder at the in-
dignation which the proceedings have roused in the minds
of a nation pre-eminently lovers of fair play. In
our impression of yesterday it may be seen that an inten-
tion is afloat of discharging the cost of Lieutenant Perry's
defence by public subscription, and that the Mayor of
of Windsor has consented to receive donations for the pur-
pose. It it is nut
once in twenty years that we should
take notice of such a proceeding in the leading columns of
the Times, but we cannot but heartily wish success to the
cause—so disgraceful has been the persecution to which
Lieutenant Perry has been exposed.—Times.

THIIRSDAY.7SHILLING DAY.—Ad-
CRYSTAL PALACE,
mi,ison at the doors, 9,949 ; admission by season ticketo,
764, Total, 103711