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

- _....... - --..._
MEDICAL OFFICERS OF THE ROYAL

NAVY.

It is with sincere gratification that we pnbliah
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.
this
Although somewhat tardy of appearance,
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 at
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, certainlYell
e
of the ablest men that ever occupied the presidential
chair at the Admiralty.
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 (?`
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 most meritorious 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
equally with our soldiers, the most approved skill
and attention in sickness and in battle.
Opposed as wo aro on political grounds to Sir .1;
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
intelligence and the claims of that profession nPOII
which the health, and consequently the efficiencYP
of our right arm, the navy, so largely depends.
Of a truth, the snail-like progress of reform M
the naval medical service for the last half century
and upwards, during which in civil life old customs
were constantly being superseded by those changer.
and improvements demanded by the advance c"
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 he:
provements effected in the medical department
worthy of enumeration aro the institution of the
inspectoral grades and sonic increase of pay to th°
various classes of medical officers, resulting frl
the Royal Commission of 1839-40 ; the conditieed
admission of the assistant-surgeons to the war.
room in 1850, while Sir Francis Baring was at he
head of the Admiralty—a concession which, 11°`.;
ever, was wrung from the Admiralty, not until after
a division on the question in the Ilouse of Cornurn
hostile to the Ministry of the day ; and the ansd°:
lute right of the assistant-surgeons to the tfLirs,
room on their entering the service, ceded in_r•ii
while Sir C. Wood was First Admiralty Len; and
to these we add a more recent increase of nks,
a better plan of retirement to the inspectoriat
and some addition of pay to the assistant'surge;'oo
with a more advantageous scale of widows re;ldseirgo
(which by the present warrant must again üb, tb-at
reconstruction), wo shall have mentioned all ;.eal
has been done for the naval medical officers, 'I
1805 up to the date of the new warrant.
But for the disasters in the Crimea the states9ll°
of the army medical department would in allPlf:°;
liability have remained undisturbed ;
and bet
the stern and independent sense of right pos; t
by the First Lord of the Admiralty, we might --a°r
have seen the conditions of the army medical
rant extended to the medical service of the 11°/-
Navy.
Most earnestly, then, do we thank Sir John
l'akington for having had the courage to depart
from the "use and wont" so long dominant at the
Admiralty—for having shown an entire freca°ll/
from sympathy with those who in the just elevatieu
of the Medical Officer can see nothing but peril to
the service, in the varied forms of subdivision 0
discipline, unfairness to other classes, and a host of
other imaginary evils, which Admiral Berkeley, in
former days, was wont to declare in Parliamee',
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 se,
opposed to all experience, so utterly untenable Our
absurd, that they may be said to artake more 0'
the bigotry of the second James's time than of the
intelligence of our own. •
The warrant for the Medical Officers of Of
Navy will, as a matter of course, be received with
great satisfaction at the Universities and other
,
great
Schools throughout the kingdom. The
fore-
most students will now enrol themselves as cijnohn
dates for the Naval Medical Service. Sir
among
Pakington, long after h „
e has passed from f
us, will be remembered by the Medical Officers of
Navy as One of the greatest benefactors 0-f their
or
class. Nor (.1111 Sir John Liddell desire a !lig
reward for his well-known devotion to the nePa-
intit over which he so worthily presides than ta
see it recruited by young men of approved talent
and attainments, and to feel that the Naval Mcw:'al
,„
Service, from being. most unpopular, has become I
of the most popnlar brandies of public medics,
employment. —Dad,/ News.
wised

utho
ptomeredolnt
,111.
aiitotTLE,7lllntAni
it.:
of
cf,
WagnerPt
hOenr;,,pt.:,i,
wtt —as Weeandavreode
rev:
having been sustained, on the contrary, by Mr.
Eliii-court, Temple.
+. the
The town of Grosseto, in Tuscan has
riTtimismittlrenititrtnt!yn tiltpnret y, sou -
„„de
soenf presort of
tawnetl, ti•itwiscess; we --Win-
stand, to form an encampment on Tog Down, near
Chester.
,TroN
PENINSULAR AN 1) ORIENTAL STEAM NAV,„,"*ii r
CoNtrANT.—The usual dividend of throe-and-a-an':
cent., with I,u additional payment of ono-half per een.;t
will, we understand, ho rticommended to the proprietors
the half-yearlT meeting on the 241 proximo.
MINES.— rho mining
share market has shoWil
tnure activity this week, and large business transitetioa:
1,
have taken place in several speculativeative
mines, as well as 1
dividend and progressive stocks ; awl the market luim also
experienced great and sudden changes.
A short time back a recommendation was pub-
lished signed by am almost unprecedented number of the
leading firms in London, in favour of the proposal for the
:
business
erounondeSr:ttlrddax
beat tdweomior'oclli(,coki
:114,1g1
m,
acceding to the arrangement, but left it to be initiated by
the 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 nierclor
tile body have expressed their wishes in the only j)"BBTifi
manner,. and it remains for the bankers to complY
those wishes, or to state what further demonstration 11114
require upon the point.
PUBLIC DRINKING FOUNTAINS IN TILL PAILKS'---
At the mooting of the vestry of St. Martin-in-the-Field*
held yesterday, a resolution Wits adopted in favour
fountuius in
anoi t
to
et
attle(hi,:esuppiav:
jkootimr
itti(110:1)Ii11.110ii8410114141).:
James's
ii:lti.(et
i fountains s
,wmf
ra,alvuutritigi,iniot::
vestry memorialising the government to erect (Ill:Tit:1
ern
it
there wen,
e
Parks the
r
Yllwh
which pass (long frolll the artesian well in Oratige4".~ a
the water being the purest ill London. The motion VC-4
UniSanUiNHIoTAI l
NI'Y aTiC':;I(:;):ItAPIIINO.—At the meoutill,grdal
the vestry of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Mr. Chtut•-w. to
Potter in the chair, coninlitints were received li-
the Sunday ,:4,
puotograpning nuisance, especially with ;,,ct
once to New-strest, Covent-garden. A letter on the sin -a
from the Commissioners of Police was also received,
that immediate inquiries had been made as to whetlisitom.tteiri:
circuinstaneem were much us to give the police legal Pin",
t of
to interfere. Should there be no existing legit] "lei? he
abating the nuisance, there exists strong
18164 li in favour of applying to it overnment on the se •1,,v
Di V oftCE IN CANADA.--The following in a co he
of the despatch addressed to the (lovernor-General hYw.
Imperial authorities, recommending the Cauxdian 19°Troeret,
inent taken
taketimi on the lowa divorce :—" Downing:li, 4 to
April 12. Sir-- In transmitting to you copy.of the 11,,cIises
amend the Ins
relating to Divorce and 'Matrimonial ut.0)14.,
in England,' I wish to call your 11114.11t1011 to the great imirdol
twee cf the subject. 1 ler Majesty's (lover:lntent
this subject as within the general class of internal
the. duty and right of regulating which belong; to the iv la t
vial Legislatures under free institutions. But they
ueni.
the 148114(1 tiiiie hilly senieble of the great iniportanc,° of
fortuity of legislation on this head, so far an It can
attained without. injury to theme principles of ea" $s
tiovernment, and the danger WOll to public remitshov
to family interests which might arise from the(
of the eoloniva on the subject of marriage and diveree dif-
Of
fining materially from that of the mother courtly, 111100..
each other. It is therefore the wish of her MajestyH,
Ile
verninent that you should einimult your Council as b..
expedieney of at once introducing a measure which Pllfill
corporate, as nearly as the eir(unistanees of the colony "1(1.
«dein, the provisions of the Act recently passed in Etti4l9l
Seine of the minor previsions of flip Act luny probably „l
it
incompatible with the requirements of the eeleily, I").
lily wish 111 preaeribe uniformity in such unelociitial 1)11
ail
sours. Hut the serious questions which might arise!".
dinerenve oflegimlation on that portion of the subject w11.1,:io
Minks to dissolution of marriage, or divorce ft"'
~
emit raeted one —questions possibly atlecting the validity of n'arril*'%l
varying
another, nod eonsequentiv legitimacy of offspring. -"""Act
it tulvisahle that if tile Legislature should pass (Inv f
part of the saiipire lifter divorce
11,1.
ill
England IQ this particular you should reser...4• it ci
an important degree from present law ;IL
*410410n 4.f her Majesty. Tho clause in Inos"°‘,)ol9
neve' minting to divorce Acts 111,5
Ilsttillly 114.1(1 141 appy only to special tor O.' ((liefl ul,fany
named peri.oos and you n 1.441 not consider 3-ourself iii
way &tiered by its provisions, I thid, from eutomunica .
„sl luus
ot's,
received from parts of her Majesty's colonial poss ,
Hutt an improssuut existed that the late UoVeriliii4(lll
hitcillsl lit 144.01,4(4.4411, 11103,4111144 ibreXteltding
nbo the dominio
11s of the Crown general. I 31,10:1,'.,
aware on what green(' this has been supposed. and can .1Y
state that no such IUSSIIIII
is coutemplation.—l ha% u,
&el &WIS./it IC."