The Sun.
London, England, 1851-09-13 00:00:00

Wtt= 2511 tit

LONDON, SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 185

With feelings of the deepest disgust we call the
attention of our readers to the following " circular
memorandum," which has been recently issued from
the Horse Guards :
" MILITARY DESERTERS.

" Horse Guards, Aug. 19.
" In consequence of the diversity of practice, and in-
efficiency of the existing methods of 'marking the de-
serter with the letter D; and it being found in many
instances that the mark has become obliterated in a short
time, and even been removed by artificial means, it has
been decided (By whom ?] that from the Ist of October
next this part of the sentence of the court-martial shall
be inflicted, in all cases where practicable, in the military
prisons, by the medical officer [! I !] attached to each of
these establishments, and under special instructions from
the Secretary-at-War.
" G. BROWN, Adjutant-General."

That military and naval officers have ever regarded
with feelings of envy, of jealousy, and of dislike the
medical officers of the respective services, has long
been matter of notoriety; indeed it was natural to
suppose that some such feeling must exist on the part
of naval and military officers with regard to their
medical colleagues. Officers in the army and navy in
general enter the service at a very early age, at an
age when other boys are scarcely emancipated from
school; it is impossible in consequence that their
education can he completed, or nearly completed ;
and lads of sixteen are not the persons the
most likely to devote their leisure time to
intellectual improvement ; the consequence is, that,
except as regards the requirements of their profession,
the officers in the army and navy are, generally
speaking, an uneducated race. There are many
brilliant exceptions, we admit, but we are sorry to
be compelled to declare that in both services the
NAPIERs are the exceptions, not the rule. The sur-
geon, on the contrary, has been compelled to devote
the six most important years of his life, from 16 to 22,
to study. Whilst the officer has been developing his
muscles by athletic exercise, the surgeon has been
developing his mind by intellectual cultivation, and
after an examination, to pass which is proof sufficient
that be is a highly educated man, the surgeon
joins his regiment or his ship. He there
fiuds that men who are his juniors in
years, his inferiors in intellectual acquirements,
are socially and Gfficially above him, and the unedu-
cated boy, who chances to be his superior officer, re-
venges himself on the man of education, whose
intellectual superiority he envies, and whom personally
he detests, because he suspects that the educated man
in subordination despises, in his secret heart, the
uneducated men in authority, by annoying him in
every possible way. It is to this miserable feeling of
petty spite (that is the only word that accurately de-
scribes the feeling) that we attribute the studied in-
sults to which the assistant-surgeons in the navy were
long subjected, and the meannesses to which the
authorities of the Admiralty condescended in order to
avoid a compliance with the orders of the House of
Commons; but the conduct of the Admiralty in that
instance was noble, was honourable, when com-
pared with the conduct of the Horse Guards
in issuing the above " circular memorandum."
That memorandum, by degrading the medical officer of
a regiment into an assistant executioner, renders it
impossible for any medical gentleman to hold a com-
mission in the army after the Ist of October next.
We hope, and we expect, that the military surgeons
will uphold the dignity of their profession by resign-
ing en masse, unless the atrocious order shall
be rescinded, and we suggest to the
gentlemen of the medical profession the propriety of
coming to a general resolution to refuse to meet in
consultation any army medical officer after the let
October next, as from and after that date those
who officiate as medical officers in the army cannot
be regarded (unless this memorandum be re-
scinded) in any other light than as assistant-
executioners. We call upon the medical men
to make a stand now for the dignity of their profession;
they have too long submitted to the insults of army
men, and navy men, and poor-law men. These peo-
ple look upon the medical man as a tame and crouch-
ing hound, that they may kick with impunity; and
should this insult be tamely submitted to, it will not
be long after but we shall have the Home Secretary
issuing orders that the surgeons in prisons are to offi-
ciate as hangmen. A firm and determined resistance
on the part of the medical men to this atrocious
memorandum, a declaration of war by the medical
profession against the Horse Guards, would secure not
only indemnity for the past, but security for the
future ; whereas, should the members of the medical
profession fail to do their duty on this occasion, it
will have ceased to be a profession to which a gentle-
man can belong.

Many unfavourable opinions are expressed on the
continent with respect to the new Austrian loan, and
it is said to have been received with general coldness.
We are by no means surprised at this result. We
cannot conceive how any men of ordinary prudence
would feel disposed to invest their surplus capital in
the new stock under the peculiar circumstances of
the case to which we briefly alluded in our impression
of Wednesday last. Patriotic individuals may sub-
scribe their names for large sums to meet
national exigencies of an extraordinary descrip-
tion, but they must at the same time make
up their minds to certain losses. Such transactions
were not unknown in this country during the war,
and a considerable portion of our debt was contracted
in that manner. But there must be an enthusiastic
feeling
of sympathy in favour of the objects for
which the money is required. Where the appeal is
pro aris et focis, every exertion will be made, and
persons will readily enter upon engagements involv-
ing at least the possibility of future losses, when they
believe that the welfare and prosperity of their father.
land depend upon the devotion of its children, and
the sacrifices which they are prepared to make on its
behalf.

It is only under such circumstances that an attempt
should he made to raise a loan by voluntary subscrip-

tion. In a common-place transaction it should take
place through a banker or agent, whose intervention
would be beneficial to all parties—to the borrowers,
affording a guarantee that the subscribers were
not " men of straw," recklessly putting down
their names for sums of almost fabulous amount,
which they had no possible means of satisfying—to the
lenders, as proving that the transaction was straight-
forward and bona fide, one on which a respectable
firm of high standing bad consented to pledge its own