The Sun.
London, England, 1856-09-06 00:00:00

MR. ROEBUCK.

It is the saying of the day that the right man
should be in the right place, the round man in the
round place, and the square man in he square
place. But there are men with so many angles,
and those angles so acute, that they fit no place.
They cannot be rounded or square I, or fixed, or
assimilated ; but there they remain spite of ad-
verse influences, and survive every form of disso-
lution. Like strychnine, they invigorate at the
risk of tetanus, and operate with unimpaired effi-
cacy on a dozen successive formations. Such an
angular unassailable crystal is Mr. Roebuck. Men-
tally his true region is the wilderness of Judea,
and he testifies in raiment of camel's hair, eating
locusts and wild honey. With a true instinct he
repels party, place, and almost companionship, for
his mission is solitary, and he bears not even a
brother on the crag which he has chosen for his
throne. In the midst of. cultivation and modern-
ness he crops out like a huge lump of granite,
nobody knows how or why, stratified by no crea-
tion, deposited by no deluge, not even fling up by
any known volcano. There are in other countries
men of gaunt, rugged mind.y, of wholesome aspe-
rity, and uncouth majesty.. Bat they wait for re-
volutions, or are worshipped by armies of &glowers,
or attach themselves to some European conspiracy
and fall into a fashion like other people. They
generally spend half their time in prison, or in
banishment, or nobody knows how or where. But
Mr. Roebuck for twenty years has been continually
before the world preaching and prophesying, and
testifying to a degenerate age ; always the same
Mr. Roebuck, whether advocating oppressed colo-
nists or denouncing corrupt Administrations. He
stands in a category of his own, and it would be a
surprise to find doing anything like other peo-
ple. So while other membrsof Parliament are wast-
ing not only their time, strength, and characters, but
half their fortunes also, on their constituents, and
while they never visit their boroughs but to distri-
bute favours and shower subscriptions, it excites
no wonder that Mr. Roebuck should go down to
Sheffield to receive a purse of a thousand and more
guineas. That was the primitive way ; when the
House of Commons, however, did little more than
present lists of grievances to the Crown and find
money for the French war. In those days the bur-
gesses had a regular allowance as the representa-
tives of their boroughs at the Court of St. James's.
This is the primitive character in which Mr. Roe-
buck DOW' appears,—nor does it suggest the least
suspicion of his independence. On the contrary,
such is the grain of the man that people would
think it rather natural than otherwise if this very
next session, with his retainer in his pocket, he
went right against the dearest opinions of his de-
voted constituents.

So, although there have been great men and
patriots and reformers besides Mr. Roebuck during
the last thirty years, there is a kind of subjective
truth in his own account of his career, as the single-
handed witness against universal corruption. We
shall not attempt to disabuse him of that mental
insulation in which he has brooded over the crimes
of the age, and sallied out of his intellectual fast-
ness to deal vengeance on the foe. Some people talk
of their party, or their friends, or their policy, till
not only self, but independence, and even honesty,
seem to merge in a game of political tactics. Mr.
Roebuck has an inspiration and acts upon it.
He is a law to himself, ani consults no oracle
but the good of his country. " A man's own
mind," says the proverb, " will often tell him
more than ten watchmen ; " and Mr. Roebuck
relies more on his own genius than on the mul-
titude of counsels, OR which weaker minds lean
for guidance. He not only repudiates party, but
be hardly even sees it. Like Sergeant Cut-and-
Thrust relating the bloody story of a battle, he
only knows that he met with a succession of antago
nists, of whom he killed some and wounded others,
without being able to say much of his comrades
and their achievements. He certainly was the bet
man in the Parliamentary battle against Crimean
alai-administration. He is the hero of a tale which

will interest and distress for ages to come. Others
might have felt as much, laboured as much, and
even achieved more. Many could easily have been
more judicious. But there remains the fact that
to Mr. Roebuck we are indebted for the Committee
of Inquiry, and that we have to thank him for dis-
closures that will survive courts, and sentences,
and distributions of honours. There never was en-
terprise or energy of any kind, however noble and
useful, without a look of egotism. For our part,
we feel that the country wants a few more egotists,
men who will set their faces " like flint" against

social and political evils, and act more on their own
noble instincts. It is everybody waiting for every-
body else, and wishing to do only what everybody
else does, that paralyses many men of great powers
and creates perpetual disappointment. Go into
the House of Commons and look round ; look at
that fine, tall fellow with a noble expression ; ad-
mire that other beaming countenance ; observe
those eagle eyes ; look down the benches till you
are arrested by that lofty brow, or that stalwart
form ; see there in succession—the very type of a
gentleman, of a philosopher, of one born for corn-
mand ; hear the rich tones of that voice, and per-
mit yourself to follow the fascination of that smile.
But all these men are nobodies. Tney were once

the hope of families, of counties, of cities, of
parties. But they lacked individuality. They
waited for others, and consulted partisans, till by
doing nothing they got into the habit of doing
nothing ; and having once succumbed to too

cautious counsels were never able to rouse
themselves. Mr. Roebuck must have had
such men in his eye when -he asked what it
was that enabled him to do what he has done. He
says with genuine modesty that it was not talent,
or rank, or party, or anything external that placed
him where he is, but the determination to be inde-
pendent, and do his duty to his country at all costs
—just what most men want in these days.
But for the future. When it is confessed that
the past is not encouraging, even when it was only
one winter's military mismanagement to be ex-
posed, one may reasonably look with little confi-
dence to the reform of our whole administrative
system. That, however, is the work, and Mr.
Roebuck proposes to set about it in his own way.
With a dozen brave Paladins he is going to attack
a whole army, occupying all the strongholds and
fortified lines of our political institutions. The
three hundred LiheraN may do as they like, and
the two or three hundred Conservatives may do as
they like, and the neutrals may do as they like ;
they may be off and on ; they may play fast and
loose ; they may take up schemes or lay them
down ; but Mr. Roebuck will pursue the even
tenourof his way against the evils of aristocratic
influence ; against bad appointments ; against that
mode of discharging public duties which is certain
to prevail when the misdoer is sure of protection.
But, though small bands have done much, what
can a dozen men do against an army of functionaries?
Three hundred men once withstood as many thou-
sands, but it was in a narrow pass which prevented
the thousands from deploying. "What is the ad-
vantage of position that is to make a dozen free-
spoken patriots equal to whole factions and classes,
the hundreds of legislators and thoi.Eands of func-

tionaries ? Hitherto the Association for Admi-
nistrative Reform can boast little success. It has
attacked sinecures and nibbled at salaries ; it has
carped at pageants and ridiculed formalities. But
while it was waging war with trifles, there occur-
red the tremendous disastar of our army in the
Crimea, every week of which swallowed all the
savings, all the reforms of any kind the Association
could ever have achieved. It is only the war that
has given a more practical turn to the crusade by
showing that the worst evil of all was the fact that
the most important positions in the army, as in some
other departments, are held by men of no genius,
energy, or even experience. With little encourage-
ment then from the past, we cannot hope for much
impression to be made by a dozen men acting inde-

pendently of party. May we be mistaken ;but it
is a case where numbers seem requisite, and we
hope they will show themselves before long.—

!21-Les.
•

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which Miss Johnson was sentenced to a month's hard
labour, and the man servant of Mr. Manners to four
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