The Sun.
London, England, 1859-05-28 00:00:00

MEDICAL OFFICERS OF TILE ROYAL

NAVE

It is with sincere gratification that we publish
in this day's impression the new " Warrant," by
which the rank, pay, and general position of the
medical officers of the Royal Navy are henceforth
to be regulated.
Although somewhat tardy of appearance, this
document, which, when we except the clause relating
to the award of prize money, is as nearly as possible
a daguerrotype of the Army Medical Warrant of
the Ist October last, fulfils in spirit and in substance
all that was held out by the First Lord of the
Admiralty, and must be regarded as conferring the
greatest boon ever granted to the naval medical
service since the early part of the present century,
when the department was rescued from absolute
destruction by the first Lord Melville, certainly- one
of the ablest men that ever occupied the presidential
chair at the Adniiralty.
Since that period, it is true, various points have
from time to time been yielded in favour of naval
medical officers. But the present assimilation of
the naval with the other public medical services is
a stride in the march of improvement which leaves
all partial concessions far behind, and which, irre-
spectively of the justice it renders to an important
and mosVmeritorious class of officers, possesses the
still higher advantage of maintaining the medical
department of the navy in a state of desirable
efficiency, and of thus securing for our sailors,
equally with our soldiers, the most approved skill
and attention in sickness and in battle.
Opposed as we are on political grounds to Sir J.
Pakington, we have uniformly admitted his zeal and
honesty of purpose. On the present occasion the
medical officers, and indeed the whole naval service,
owe him much for having, under a strong sense
of duty, carried out a resolution to raise the naval
medical department to a position adequate to the
r intelligence and the claims of that profession upon
which the health, and consequently the efficiency,
of our right arm, the navy, so largely depends.
Of a truth, the snail-like progress of reform in
the naval medical service for the last half century
and upwards, during which in civil life old customs
were constantly being superseded by those changes
and improvements demanded by the advance of
knowledge and intelligence, as well as by the dis-
coveries of science, expresses but too forcibly the
apathy with which the department has been so long
regarded at Whitehall. In 54 years the only im-
provements effected in the medical department
worthy of enumeration are the institution of the
inspectoral grades and some increase of pay to the
various classes of medical officers, resulting from
the Royal Commission of 1839-40 ; the conditional
admission of the assistant-surgeons to the ward-
room in 1850, while Sir Francis Baring was at the
head of the Admiralty—a concession which, how-
ever, was wrung from the Admiralty, not until after
a division on the question in the House of Commons
hostile to the Ministry of the day; and the abso-
lute right of the assistant-surgeons to the ward-
room on their entering the service, ceded in 18551,
while Sir C. Wood was First Admiralty Lord. 1;
to these we add a more recent increase of pay and
a better plan of retirement to the inspectorial ranks,
and some addition of pay to the assistant-surgeons,
with a more advantageous scale of widows' pensions
(which by the present warrant must again undergo
reconstruction), we shall have mentioned all that
has been done for the naval medical officers, from
1805 up to the date of the new warrant.
But for the disasters in the Crimea the status quo
of the army medical department would in all pro-
bability have remained undisturbed ; and but for
the stern and independent sense of right Ressessed
by the First Lord of the Admiralty, .vve might not
have seen the conditions of the army medical warai
rant extended to the medical service of the Bey
Navy.
Most earnestly, then, do we thank
Sir John
Pakington for having had the courage to depart
from the "use and wont" so long dominant at the
Admiralty—for having shown an entire freedom
from sympathy with those who in the just elevation
of the Medical Officer can see nothing but peril to
the service, in the varied forms of subdivision of
discipline, unfairness to other classes, and a host of
other imaginary evils, which Admiral Berkeley, in
former days, was wont to declare in Parliament
would certainly follow the introduction of 'the As-
sistant-Surgeons into the ward-room. Fortunately
for the Navy, the Fates have been singularly.un-
propitious to the prophecies of the gallant Admiral.
Discipline continues to exist unimpaired in the
Navy, notwithstanding that the Assistant-Surgeons
have been ward-room officers for nine years ; and.
we have too great confidence in its stability to sup-
pose that it can in any wise be endangered by the
operation of the present warrant. The whole ob-
jections, in fact, to this excellent measure are so
opposed to all experience, so utterly untenable and
absurd, that they may be said to partake more of
the bigotry of the second James's time than of the
intelligence of our own.
The warrant for the Medical Officers of the
Navy will, as a matter of course, be received with
great satisfaction at the Universities and other Me-
dical Schools throughout the kingdom. The fore-
most students will now enrol themselves as candi-
dates for the' Naval Medical Service. Sir John
Pakington, long after he has passed from amongst.
us, will be remembered by the Medical Officers et
the Navy as one of the greatest benefactors of their
class. Nor can Sir John Liddell desire a higher
reward for his well-known devotion to the depart-
ment over which he so worthily presides than to
see it recruited by young men of approved talent
and attainments, and to feel that the Naval Medical
Service, from being most unpopular, has become one
of the most, popular branches of public medical
employment.—Daily News.

THE LATE BANK FORGERIES.—We are authorised
to contradict some of the reports which have recently ap-
peared, stating that Wagner was undefended, his cause
having been sustained, on the contrary, by Mr. Dickie, Of
Elm-court, Temple.
The town of Grosseto, in Tuscany, has sent the
Piedmontese army a present of twelve horses.
It is the intention of the authorities, we under'
stand, to form an encampment on Teg Down, near Win-
chester.

PENINSULAR AND ORIENTAL STEAM NAVIGATION.
COMPANY.—The usual dividend of three-and-a.half Per
cent., with an additional payment of one-half per cent.,
will, we understand, be rscommended to the proprietors at
the half-yearly meeting on the 2d proximo.
moMreiaNcEtiev.i7-yTthhieft mweinekin,
agnashluarrge e marketbusiness has
shown
transactions
several etwhellasaaslsino
hdividendav have ta k taken placedprogressive in
stockspeculatives ;
an d tmheinmesa,raks
experienced great and sudden changes. A
short time back a recommendation was pub-
lished signed by an almost unprecedented number of the
leading firms in London, in favour of the proposal for the
termination
Bank of Englandationofbankingbuwseinreessunola understood to
atbe
de
two o'clock.
The
acceding to the arrangement, but left it to be initiated by
tae Committee of Bankers. No steps, however, appear to
have been taken, although the season has arrived when the
benefits of the measure would be most felt., The mercan-
tile body have expressed their wishes in the only possible
manner, and it remains for the bankers to comply with
those wishes, or to state what further demonstration they
require upon the point.
htbheereea vestrygt
dor
iovonnefek government PUBLIC DRINKING FOUNTAINS IN THE PARKS.--'
tAphaterrt
vestry
kehsetmemorialisinghweree wnmeetingaoofprla
ee could
tsu
lhwed
held yesterday, a resolution was adopted in favour of the
mt.enMtarttoine-
fountains in all the parks in London. It was
,urged that
rinen-ttbedrinkin-Field;
required than in the parks, and in St. James's and the Green
nugbtaifonuedntak
which pass along from Orange-street,
the artesian well in fririnsmwtheree
p 111.7
the water being the purest in London. The motion was
unanimously agreed to.
SUNDAY PHOTOGRAPHING.—At the meeting
the vestry of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Mr. Chunhwardell
Potter in the chair, complaints were a • •
gam received as to
the Sunday ph t hi • *th refer-
o ograp ng nuisance especially wl • a
ence to New-street, Covent-garden. ,A
letter on the subje
from the Commissioners of Police was also received, stating
that immediate inquiries had been made as to whether the
circumstances were such as to give the police legal Pevreq„
to interfere. Should there be no existing legal means
,h;
abating the nuisance, there exists a strong feeling in
parish in favour of applying to government on the subject'
DIVORCE IN CANADA.—The following is a c°PY
of the despatch addressed to the Governor-General by the
Imperial authorities, recommending the Caiiadian Govern:
ment to take action on the law of divorce :—" Downing-gine"
to
April 12. Sir,--In transmitting to you a copy of the Act
amend the law relating to Divorce and Matrimonial Cause!
in England,' I wish to call your attention to the great import-
ance ance cf the subject. Her Majesty's Government regarded
this subject as within the general class of internal att
the duty and right of regulating which belong to the
a,
Colo-
nial Legislatures under free institutions. 'But they are
the same time fully sensible of the great importance of an.i-
formity of legislation on this head, so far as it can ,bt.
attained, without injury to those principles of colonial
Government, and the danger as well to public morality.
to family interests which might arise from the
am
of the colonies on the subject of marriage and divorce dif-
fering materially from that of the mother country, all;',11.:
each other. It is therefore the wish of her Majesty's
VOT nment that you should consult your Council as to t.lle
expediency of at once introducing a measure which shall 1?„
corporate, as nearly as the circumstances of the colony will
admit, the provisions of the Act recently passed in Englane.,
Some of the minor provisions of the Act may probably pr.ov.e
incompatible with the requirements of the colony, nor is !L
my wish to prescribe uniformity in such unessential partl...
culers. But the serious questions which might arise from
difference difference of legislation on that portion of the subject will 7
relates to dissolution of marriage, or divorce a
—questions possibly affecting the validity of marriages
contracted in one part of the empire after divorce 1r
another, and consequently legitimacy of offspring—render
it advisable that if the Legislature should pass any
varying in en important degree from the present law 0.
Englend in this particular you should reserve it for the
:con-
sideration of her Majeaty. The clause in most Gover
nors' instructiorp relating to divorce Acts has been
usually WA 10 appy only to special bills for the relief.
of
named persons, and you need not consider yourself in
oant_..
way fettered by its provisions. Ifind, front communicatotir
received travel parts of her Majesty's colonial sessi
diet tie impression existed that the late Government _
de-
signed to propose to Parliament measures forextending
law to the dominicmo of the Crown in general. I can am
aware aware on what ground this has been supposed, and _hoarm);
140€1. that no such measure is iu contemplation. --I
b.; ST4NI4XIC."