The Sun.
London, England, 1824-03-31 00:00:00

NEw TIMEs.]
.

The publication of Sir Herbert Taylor's let-
ters to Lord Londonderry and Mr. Battier,
places the affair of Mr. Battier and the Tenth
Hussars in rather a new light. The Duke of
York manifestly acted with great caution and
delicacy throughout the whole business. It
would appear from these official documents, that
though Mr. Battier had previously belonged to
two other cavalry regiments, and had left them
with honourable testimonials, yet he was in fact
incompetent to discharge the duty of a Cavalry
officer. When he joined the Tenth, he was
treated uncourteously and improperly by the
officers forming the mess of the corps, and this
circumstance called forth a severe censure on
them from his Royal Highness. The officers
acknowledged their error, and do not appear to
have subsequently given to Mr. Battier any dis-
tinct cause of complaint. Lord Londonderry, it
seems, was absent from the regiment during these
proceedings, and was in consequence totally ig-
coral; t both of the misconduct of the mess, and
also of the Commander-in-Chief's reproof ; but
Mr. Battier complains of the Noble Marquis's
behaviour towards him on the 24th of November.
—The explanation is clear and satisfactory.
Mr. Battier, it is stated, had been report-
ed unfit for cavalry service : had admitted
this : he had intreated that his incompe-
tency should not be exposed : in consequence
of his inability to appear properly at the Re-
view, he Lad obtained leave of absence, and had
acted on it by absenting himself from regimental
duty ; so that his subsequent appearance at
dinner on the 24th was an irregularity properly
noticed as such be his Commanding Officer, Lord
Londonderry. The subsequent publication of
Mr. Battier appears to he a breach of military
discipline, which the Duke of York might have
been justified in treating with severity ; but as
his Royal Highness might in that case have been
thought to act from personal feeling, he very emi-
t sideratelY declines taking such a step.

[HORNING HER ,ILD.:I
There are two Bills now before Parliament,
Some of the objects of which might, we think, be
united, with evident advantage to the public, in-
cluding no inconsiderable saving of expellee. We
allude to the Insolvent Court Bill, and that for
extending the powers of County Courts. By the
first of these it is proposed to add a new Com-
missioner to the Insolvent Court, and to establish
what may be called an Insolvent Circuit over the
whole kingdom. The necessity for this, if it ex-
ists at all, arises, we apprehend, from the presumed
incompetency of the Magistrates at Sessions to dis-
charge the duties which the present Insolvent Act
imposes upon them. By the other Bill (known
as Lord Althorp's), a Circuit of a different and
more obviously useful nature is to be established,
for the recovery of debts under 101., without the
ruinous expence and delay attendant upon suing
for such debts in the higher Courts. Now what
we would suggest is, whether it might not be prac-
ticable to transfer those duties under the Insol-
vent Act, which have hitherto been performed by
the Magistrates, to the new Judges under Lord
Althorp's Act, and thus save the expence and in-
convenience of the Insolvent Circuit altogether.
To such a plan we cannot foresee any objection.
To the competency of the persons to be appointed
under that Act none, it is to be hoped, can arise
while, in fact, it will assimilate the practice to
that which existed under the old Insolvent Acts,
under which it was necessary, if we recollect
rightly, to bring up all persons to be discharged
before the Judges of the Courts in which they
happened to have been sued. While on the sub-
ject of the Insolvent Court, STO must go one step
further, and inquire whether every species of in-
solvency might not by degrees be brought under
its jurisdiction,,, and the whole machinery of
bankrupt commissions and Commissioners in time
be done away with ? We do not pretend to be
sufficiently conversant with the subject to say
with certainty whether this be practicable or
not ; and are aware' how much the very sug-
gestion will shock the prejudices of those
who prosper by the present system ; but this we
know, that insolvency must necessarily be, in
general, a matter of business and common sense ;
and why, therefore, the laws for regulating it
should be (as the present Bankrupt Laws con-
fessedly are) intricate in theory, and slow and
expensive in practice, is more than we cm) un-
derstand. Lord Althorp's 13111 will do away'
with a great deal of legal jargon.. If a man owes
his tailor at Uxbridge ten pounds, it will be no
longer necessary to fill half a dozen sheets Of
paper with a declaration, stating the debt to be

due at " the parish of St. Mary-le-Bow, in the
ward of Cheap ;" for we conclude that the I
whole tribe of declarations, pleas, demurrers, &c.
are to be done away with, and the case brought
before the Jury on a summons, and the facts—
and the facts only, immediately gone into, unen-
cumbered with legal quibbling and verbiage.—
And when so much form and expence shall have
been done away under one head, should it be
found to answer, we do not despair of a si-
milar pruning applied to that part of our legal
system to which we have alluded.

IMORNING CHRONICLE.]
We have heard but one opinion on the con-
duct of the 10th Hussars towards Mr. Battier,
and that opinion is not likely to be affected in
any measure by the letter of Sir Herbert Taylor
to Lord. Londonderry. All that Mr. Battier
advanced in his statement may be considered as
proved ; and when it is admitted by those who
certainly ,do not regard him with too much fa-
vour or indulgence, that the treatment he expe-
rienced was utterly unjustifiable, it appears to
us most extraordinary indeed, to see his pub-
lication of grievances severely censured, on the
score of its containing insults on the corps
which had so grossly and wantonly insulted him.
Sir Herbert Taylor 13 much perplexed to disco-
ver what motive Mr. Battier could possibly have
had for going to the mess-dinner after he had
received his leave of absence. There appear to
the Military Secretary only two conceivable causes
for this proceeding—an amicable or a hostile feel-
ing ; if the feeling was amicable, what then, he
argues, what are we to think of the subsequent in-
vectives? If hostile, Lord Londonderry is held jus-
tified in having excluded him from the mess. On this
we have to observe that amicable and hostile feel-
ings are not the only impulses which can be sup-
posed to prompt a man to go to the dinner be has
paid for ; there is a third, a carnivorous or hun-
gry feeling, which may satisfactorily account for
the singular occurrence of Mr. Battier betaking
himself to the mess about dinner-time. If, however,
the delicate beings of the 10th apprehended that
Mr. Battier was coming in great hunger and great
wrath with a design to devour them, and that
thus they might be at dinner, in hamlet's sense,
not where they eat, but where they are eaten—
in this case, Lord Londonderry would have been I
justified in shutting the drawing-room door
against so fee-fa-fum a guest. But unluckily it
so happens, that his Lordship, like a fashionable
Colonel of a Regiment, professes to have been
in utter ignorance of what had taken place in
that regiment. As Lord Londonderry knew no-
thing of what had previously occurred, whether
Mr. Battier came in friendship, in wrath, or in
hunger, cannot bear in any manner upon his
Lordship's extraordinary proceeding of ex-
cluding him from the mess. The point remains
ktill unexplained, notwithstanding the Military
Secretary's casuistry, and his position, that there
are but two causes that cam account for a man's
going to 'his dioner—friendship and hostility.
We must freely own that the tone of pique which
appears in Sir Herbert 1 ay lor's expression of the
feeling at the Horse Guards is far from satisfac-
tory to us. The Duke of York feels affronted
that an officer should appeal from his judg-
ment to that of the public, and his Royal
Highness thinks that such a proceeding would
warrant so severe a measure as that of dis-
missing him the service. Again we repeat, that
t here appears a pique in this language, which by no
means conforms with the opinion we bad Coll.
ceived of the Duke's equitable conduct in such
matters. The Duke of York acquired a high
character for justice in the Army, and we trust
lie will not endanger it by any proceeding, the
motives of which may be mistaken. We believe
the fact to be, that the Dandies are too strong for
the Duke, but that is no reason why he should be
wrath with Mr. Battier. The appointment of Col.
Wyndham to the Tenth shows, however, that there
is a disposition to restrain the impertinencies of
these frail beings. Col.Wynd ha ns is a martinet,and
not likely to respect the delicacy of-their sex.—
Until the gallant Colonel has made something of
them, it will certainly be prudent to forbid their
frequenting public places—a measure we highly
approve ; they must be taken care of till irrita-
tion subsides, or till the power of resisting its
consequences germinate.