The Sun.
London, England, 1860-03-05 00:00:00

CAVALRY COLONELS.

A writer in a contemporary says•:—
Sir H. Stracey is reported to have put the fol-
lowing question to the Secretary of State for War
in the House of Commons,—"Whether general
officers appointed to 'regiments of cavalry will in
future be obliged to repay the difference of £1,675,
although the prices of commissions in infantry and
cavalry have been equalised." As your columns
are open to the exposure of every species of jobbery,
I trust you will permit them to become the medium
of explaining the practice to which that gentleman
alludes, one which, although apparently collateral
to, is as immediately destructive of the good of the
service, or the efficiency of the English cavalry it-
self, as any of those enumerated in the able letter
of the Secretary for War to the Lords of the Trea-
sury, or your own comments on the subject.
When a lieutenant-colonel of cavalry has com-
pleted his six years in the rank of field officer, be-
comes weary of its monotony, or is ordered on fo-
reign service, he casts about for a mode by which
he may attain a triple result—first, to regain the
money he may have expended on his promotion,.
secondly, how to effect it without selling out ; and
thirdly, how not only to retain his rank and reim-
burse himself, but how to form all those expedients
to the best future advantage. He finds out some
poor aged lieutenant-colonel of infantry desirous of
realising the price of his commission, £4,500. He
then informs the officers of his regiment that he is
willing to exchange to the half-pay of infantry,
provided they will make up the sum of £lO,OOO or
£12,000, as the case may be ; if they consent, all
the excess above £4,500 is put into his own pocket,
probably from £7,000 to £B,OOO. Our lieutenant-
colonel of cavalry having thus accomplished the first
two of his meditated projects now quietly vegetates
on half-pay, enjoying the " °them cunt dignitate."
In the usual course of promotion he becomes an ef-
fective major general, and aspires to be colonel of a
regiment of dragoons, worth £1,300 a year. Ac-
cordingly, after having enjoyed the £7,000 or £B,OOO
for years on half-pay, he applies to be installed as
colonel of a regiment on paying to Government the
paltry sum of £1,670. This, however, if I understand
Sir H. Stracey's question correctly, does not satisfy
his cupidity; for he hopes, under recent regula-
tions, to be restored by paying next to nothing.
But let that pass. The object of my letter is to ex-
pose the injustice of his obtaining a regiment un-
der any. circumstances. When the retirements
have been accorded to seeing foreign service, wounds,
or ill health, they may perhaps be defended with a
show of reason ; but the reverse of this has been so
repeatedly the case, that instances have been known
when a double compact has been entered into, in
which the major purchasing the lieutenant-coloneley
of cavalry has pledged himself at the expiration of
12 months to re-enact the same, or sell out; which
has been done. Can it be matter of wonder that
this arm of the national service, so prostituted to
private vanity and ambition, interest and cupidity,
should degenerate into utter inefficiency, under a
job more worthy Mt Ga.:eminent c6ntractor than
the dignity of a great nation ? -
It is by practices such as these that officers who
have expended all their little patrimony on the pur-
chase of their commissions, and the best part of
their lives on foreign service, are disgusted when
they see opulence and ease talc.; precedence of merit
and actual service.