The Sun.
London, England, 1854-08-07 00:00:00

LLOYD'S SHIPPING-(THIS DAY.)

LONDON, Aug. 7.—Wind this day at Noon, N.E. ; light
breeze, and dull weather, but inclining to be fine. The
Mercury is still slowly rising.
RAMSGATE, Aug. 6.—Wind, N.N.W. Arrived—Rival,
from St. Lucia.
DOVER, Aug. 6.—Wind, N.N.E. Arrived—Vesta,
from Shields, for Lisbon, with loss of bowsprit, &c., from
contact with a barque. Off Port—Quickstep, from New
York.
PORTSMOUTH, Aug. 6.—Wind, N. Sailed—Northum-
berland, for New York.
PLYMOUTH, Aug. 6.—Wind, S.S.W. Arrived—Rose,
from Quebec.
FALMOUTH, Aug. 6.—Wind, N. Arrived—Pearl, from
Rio Grande; Hetty, do. ; Charlotte, Callao; Aquila,
Havannah.
OFF WORTHING, Aug. 7.--Matador, from London, for
Geelong.
WEYMOUTH.—Arrived—Atlantic, from Quebec.
SALCOMBE, Aug. 6.—Wind, W. Arrived—Speedy, from
London, for Reva de Sella ; Diana, St. Croix, for Copen-
hagen.
PADSTOW.—Arrived—Springflower, from Quebec.
BRIDGEWATER.—Arrived—EIIen Simpson, from St.
John's, N.B.
LIVERPOOL, Aug. 6.—The Xarifa, hence to Africa, cap-
sized off Sierra Leone about the beginning of May ; part
of the crew picked up by the Sarah, arrived at Old Calabar.
HOLYHEAD, Aug. 6.—Wind, N.N.E. Arrived—Albion,
from Quebec.
SUNDERLAND, Aug. 6.—Wind, N.E. Arrived—Ca-
pagne, from Aden.
HULL, Aug. 6.—Wind, N.E. Arrived—Orion, and St.
George, from Greenland.
PETERHEAD; Aug. 4.—Wind, N. Arrived—Undaunted,
from Greenland, with 13 tuns of oil.
QUEENSTOWN, Aug. s.—Wind, N. Sailed—Punjaub,
for the Cape of Good Hope.
CORK PASSAGE, Aug. s.—Arrived Energy, from Que-
bec ; Pallas, do.
PERVAMBUCO, July 15.—The Governor, from London
to Port Philip, has put in leaky, and is discharging to
repair.

(BY SUBMARINE AND EUROPEAN TELEGRAPH.)
GRAVESEND, Monday, 10.52 A.M.
Wind, N.N.W.•, tide, 24 hours' flood • fine.
Arrived, 6th—Rob Roy, from Akyab;l Caledonia (s.),
Hamburg; City of London (s.), Dunkirk; London, New
York ; Norton, Bombay ; Ocean, Bombay; Medway,
Port Phillip ; Skumeronwen, Stavanga ; Carter, Honduras;
Harriett, Mauritius ' • William Hammond, Porto Adelaide;
Caroline Reid, Calcutta ; Yssel, China ; Charlotte, Copen-
hagen.
Arrived, 7th—lgnis Fatuus, from Madras; Lenor, Sant-
ander ; Achilles, Quebec ; Jamaica, Antigua ; Queen of
Avon, Bombay ; Maria, Memel ; Earl of Devon, Palermo ;
Quickstep, New York ; William, Stettin ; Leonne, from
Graveliues ; Juliana, Rostock ; Le Poule, Cherbourg;
Christian Sophia, Hernosund ; Abboy rown, Cuba;
Albion, (s), Guernsey ; Melwenkee, Quebec ; Fyenoord,
(s), Rotterdam ; Ocean and City of Paris, (s), from
Boulogne; Raveusbourno, (s), Antwerp ; John Swevel,
Rostock.

DEAL, Monday, 9.52 a.m.

Wind N.N.E., light, and cloudy.
Passed—General Hewett, from London, for Moreton
Bay; Cheruskor, from London, for Sydney; Gambia, from
West Coast of Africa, for London.

bSaturday,erofhosaens de
xwhai bsimteudewhabsulsairegretrhatiniaunsuhaals•
DONCASTER AUGUST FAlR.—This fair was held on
the corresponding fairs for many years past, but the
dumber of superior . beTehneseennnmai
animals• for sale was very limited.
There was a large attendance of dealers, and a consider-
able number of horses changed hands at advanced prices.
The show of beasts and sheep was large, but the trade
was slow, sellers demanding more than buyers were
willing to give.
DESTRUCTIVE FIRE AT THE JOLLY GARDENERS,
BERSIONDSEY.—On Saturday morning, shortly after one.
o'clsck, a most destructive tire broke outon the
Remisese
of Mr. H. Nicholls, the Jolly o.‘rdene.rs, Blue
road, Bermond-ey. The inmates escaped in the rear of
the building. The engines of the London Brigade were
quickly at the scene of devastation, and Alentiful s
ons
up-
ply of water being obtained, after very gt exerti,
it was extinguished. Cause of the outbreak unknown.
The insurance of the contents and building will fall on
the Sun tire-office.
The royal mail steam-ship
LIVERPOOL, Saturday.—
Anierica, Captain W. J. C. Lang, saile,l from the Mer-
sey this afternoon for Thston and Halifax, with the
usual mails, 16. passengers, and a full cargo on freight.
The United States mad steam-ship Baltic, Captain Com-
stock, will sail on Wednesoay with the biweekly
for New York. The royal mail steain-ship Asia, niatils
Lott, with dates from New York to the °6
.. th ult., and
•,
the screw steamer Lusitania, Captain Brown, with malls
from the Brazils, may be expected to-morrow.
LEICESTER, August 3.—There is a
ent in the demand for both regular and
fancy hosiery.
general improve-
ment
spinners have cleared their old s
cent jobs in yarns are now over. stooks, and. re-

,zinz.m.u2l". ETHICS.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES.

Sni,—The -6fficers who arc Conducting the pro-
sec.utiori against and sitting in judgment over
Lieutenant Perry appear so fearful of allowing any-
thing to transpire which may acquaint the public
with the system of social oppression existing in the
British army, that I believe Ishall be conferring
on her Majesty's service in general a very great
boon if I at once describe to you in plain English
the details of that system.
Were the offences committed by one officer
against another invariably made the subject of
public courts-martial, what I am about to state to
you would already have been known to all the
world.

The system has hitherto been fostered by what
are called in the army " courts of inquiry"—i. e.,
packed tribunals, selected by the Horse Guards—.
whose proceedings and verdict are veiled in the
strictest secrecy. Before these courts of inquiry
aristocratic and influential culprits have always
met with the most culpable indulgence, while the
weak and the friendless have ever gone to the wall.
Until lately, the half-educated members of our
aristocracy and ploutocracy, who on leaving our
public schools have felt themselves unequal to
meet the educational tests requisite to qualify them
for entering at our universities, have been in the
habit of taking refuge in certain fashionable corps,
in which they could dress gorgeously and play at
soldiering with very slight chance of ever being
called upon to perform any real service, and where
they could agreeably divide their time between
horse-racing, betting, fornicating, and prizefighting.
It has long been the habit of the officers of these
corps to consider them merely as pleasant, clubs,
kept up as asyldms for the private accommodation
of young men "in society, and to resent the
ap-
pointment of any young man not included, in their
opinion, within that pale as an unwarrantable in-
trusion, to be resented by all means in their power,
whether fair or foul.

If the obnoxious intruder, of course a mere lad
of 16 or 17 years of age, should show any signs of
mental or bodily weakness, they at once fall upon
him, and subject him to a series of insults and. out-
rages of inconceivable indecency and brutality. If
the poor boy should complain to his colonel, who
is just as deep in the conspiracy as the subalterns
who are his active agents in the conduct of it, he
gets such redress and protection as Colonel Garrett
appears to have afforded to Lieutenant Perry, and
personal resistance is generally out of the question,
the victim being only as one against a score, and
duelling in the army being strictly forbidden.
If, however, he be resolute and wary beyond his
years, and if he contrive to meet insult by insult and
outrage by outrage in spite of the odds against him,
which of course can but seldom occur, another
course is adopted—the recusant is sent to Coventry;
nobody will speak to him, nobody will associate
iyith him, and any friends who may visit him in
his room or at mess are treated with equal con-
tumely.
All this may happen, and does happen daily, as
the Commander-in-Chief well knows, and yet the
victim may be superior in every military and social
quality to his oppressors. A youth is condemned
in these "swell" and " fast " regiments because he
goes to bed early—because he says his prayers—
because he is shocked at the presence of prostitutes
—because he will not drink, and smoke, and swear
—because he is shy, or studious, or silent—because
he will not gamble—because he is poor, and does
not choose to spend what little money he has on
eating and drinking. Yet he may possess all these
faults, and still have in him the makings of an ex-
cellent soldier.

Now, if when complaints of such conduct reached
the Horse Guards they were • invariably made the
subject of open courts-martial, the system would
speedily die a violent death, and a young officer
would be allowed in future to live in peace and
quiet in any manner ho pleased, so long as he did
his duty attentively and manfully, and behaved in
other respects like a gentleman.
But so long as they are settled by courts of in-
quiry, so long will the rich and influential bully
escape with impunity, and the system which he
has instituted endure. For these courts of inquiry,
composed of officers who entirely approve that sys-
tem, invariably decide that, although the assailants
have gone too far and ought to be reprimanded,
the assailed will not " do " for the army; and must
sell out. Therefore, in any case, the bullies attain
their object—the only question being whether they
shall attain it with or without a reprimand, which,
after all, they know to be a mere harmless for-
mality.
Several 'of the officers whose names I see on the
court-martial at Windsor will recollect the following•
circumstances, which occured not a great many
years ago :

A lieutenant had been appointed to the —,
whom the other' officers disapproved. They deter-
, mined to get rid of him in the usual way. He was
a resolute fellow, and resisted. At last, after en-
during insult and oppression of various kinds with
what temper lie could, he called out one of his op-
pressors, a captain in the regiment, who had grossly
and publicly insulted him at the mess table. The
captain refused to meet the lieutenant, unless the
latter could get a second in the regiment, which ho
very well. knew was out of his power.
The lieutenant maintained, very reasonably, that
it was no business of the captain's where he got his
second, so that he got an unexceptionable one, and
he had taken care to do so by securing the services
of an officer of the Foot Guards. Still, the bully
would not fight ; so the butt was compelled to
horsewhip him in the public street.
Then came the farce of a bloOdless exchange of
shots, a court of inquiry, and a llushinc, up of the
matter by the Commander-in-Chief—for the
contained many lords' sons—on condition that all
persecution against the lieutenant, against whom
the officers of his regiment admitted they had no
complaint to make, should cease.
But from the day on which the said officers
pledged themselves to receive him among them in a
friendly manner to the day on which he left the
regiment, a captain several years afterwards, not
one of these generous soldiers exchanged a word
with him save on duty. Yet the lieutenant was
the only man in the regiment concerned in that
business who had behaved in it with spirit and
honour.

I once asked a younc, Irishman, who had joined
the corps subsequendy to the fracas, why he did
not speak to Lieutenant ? He answered—
" Upon my word, I don't know. The poor fellow
has never done anything wrong that I know of ;
but none of ours speak to him ; so I don't."
Since that day, sir, and it is not very long ago,
some of the " capital fellows" who conspired to,
drive this young man from the service have mar-
ried prostitutes, and have retired into private life,
much regretted by their comrades ; many more
have been obliged to fly their country for swin-
dling on the turf, also much regretted by their
comrades; repeated courts of inquiry have hushed
up orgies which ought to have broken up the regi-
ment, and must have done so had they been in-
quired into publicly ; and not one of them has been
heard of in the service as a gallant or a good
soldier.
In another of these regiments the following
operation is being systematically conducted at the
present moment with the knowledge and approval
of every officer in the regiment save the one who
is its victim :—A young man has been appointed
to it who is the son of a solicitor. His brother
officers, who are not by any means themselves all
sprung atavis regibus, resent his appointment, and
have determined to drive him out. But as he is a
stout fellow, and is known to have excellent legal
advice handy, they do not think it prudent to at-
tempt to carry him by assault—they judiciously
prefer siege operations as less likely to cause waste
of life. So none of them will associate with him,
and the young man, who, they admit, does his duty
well, and is gentlemanlike and good-tempered, has
now lived alone in his regiment for nearly two

•
years.
Which they are fond of telling,
They have 'a
Story) w_
that the lad's father lent money to their colonel,
and that the accommodation was. repaid byg ,
the son a lieutenancy in the regiment. And they
have not the wit to Eee that, if the story be true,
it may afford an excellent reason for avoiding the
intimacy of their colonel, but no reason at all for
cutting the youth, who, of course, could have had
nothing to do with the matter.
The example which these worthless regiments set
has, I am sorry to see, penetrated into the line, and
we have in the 46th a picture of a regiment of
,‘ bricks," who are determined to stand by one
another, and to allow no " slaw coaches" to thrive
and be happy in their society.
As yet we have obtained but glimpses of that
society. I trust, however, that, the courts-Martial
on Colonel Garrett and Major Maxwell, which must
surely follow, will afford us a more complete view
of it.—l am, sir, your obedient servant,

A CIVILIAN.

THE HOPS IN NORTH NOTTINGHARSHIRE.—In this
district the hips are a great failure, and there is every
appeal ance of its being the worst season for 30 years
past. The bur is of a very indiff,,mnt description and
small in quantity, being eaten up by filth, and choked
by its own sap. By this time there ought to have been
plenty of plantations in hop, whereas there is no appear-
ance of anything of the sort in the district.
THE LAWSON OBSERVATORY.—The withdrawal of the
Government grant of 2,9001., which had been calculated
upon by the committee in Nottingham for the establish-
ment of the above observatory, will, it is thought.
render abortive all attempts to carry out the scheine.
The money already subscribed, which is considerable,
will, unless the subscription can be increased, be re-
turned to the subscribers,