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    g40 THE LEADER. [No. 324, Saturday,

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    PALMER—AS AN AUTIST. For ten days and mo...

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    The Services Oe The Allmy. Fuesh From Th...

    their fault that a system of wasteful rather than inadequate expenditure , that a system of purchase and of favouritism , that a system which made education of no more avail than the absence of it , had deprived them of the -benefits of skill , experience , and the habits of war . The general faults and follies of the campaigns in the East arose from a national neglect of the army . Engaged in a constant struggle with gigantic abuses—the legacies of Tory administration—the army was forgotten ,

    or , if remembered , it was shut out irom the national sympathies because it had become associated with the oppressions of " the good old times of Church and King . " Iieffc to itself , it became a kind of close corporation , and while the Duke of Wellington lived , none of its abuses could be removed . By degrees , the organization which he gave he permitted to die out , and it is one of the stains upon the reputation of the Duke that he did not insist upon keeping up the army in an effective state . " When the war broke

    out our troops were all over the world . They were caught up where they could be found , and were thrown upon the Turkish soil as fast as they could be gathered from the four winds . There were the men—a finer body of regiments than ever England sent to assert her policy in any era of her history . But where was their organization ? They had no efficient staff—the brain of an army ; they had no commissariat , or only one formed of

    inexperienced men snatched from every quarper of the world ; they had no land transport ; they had no efficient hospital service ; they had a mere handful of cavalry . When we remember these things , as we are especially bound to remember them now , the wonder is not that the army did not do more , but that they did not do less ; not that they suffered so much , but that they did not suffer more .

    Among the services rendered by the army is one of the greatest importance to England . It was said , and sincerely believed * that forty years of peace and commerce had enervated this nation ; that patriotic fire had become extinct under piles of gold and bales of cotton ; that the canker of peace had eaten the heart out of us . And well might such bitter comments on English life be believed at a time when all armaments were ridiculed

    as insane except for purposes of defence , and the doctrine was hourly and daily taught that England should sell her proud ^ position among the nations for a mess of potage . Two years of war , and that war against the incarnation of despotic power , has altered the tone of the public mind . The soldiers of England who stormed the heights of Alma and defended the heights of Inkerman ; the gallant men who rode down that green vale fringed -with Russian rifles and Itussian cannon ; the men who endured the terrible hardships of tho winter without a murmur ;

    officers , who like Butleb at Silistrm , and Williams at Kars , held their post without flinching—the one saving Bulgaria , the other Asia Minor—these have shown that England is still the England of Edwabb III . and Hem by V ., of Cuomwell , MAitLBoitouGir , and Wellington . That is an important fact ; but how much the more important when we reflect that every gallant fellow who fought in the East was a volunteer . Europe will not readily forget those two facts—the demonstration pf our vitality in other directions than , those of peace , and that demonstration by the free will of our sons .

    And now that we have onco more an army , what will be our best mode of recognizing its services P The beat mode of proving that wo value them , and value that army for them , Will be by doing justice to it in all its branohes ; by perfecting its organization ; by abolishing those unjust modes of

    promotion—the relics of the most corrupt time in our history ; by establishing military schools applicable to the whole of the officers of the army ; by giving the common soldier the means of carrying on his own education in quarters ; by treating him as a man , and not as a machine ; by teaching him the duties of every-day life as well as the duties of the battle-field . These changes will form the best monument to the services of the soldiers

    of 1854-55 . Another thing we might do , some of us . The services of the British army have been almost officially decried by one of the flatterers of the Ebench Emperor . All along we have keenly felt that Lord Raglan has suffered from the effects of that noble silence so becoming a soldier in the path of duty , and that our own troops have been

    underrated by means of extravagant praises of our French allies . We might turn the tables . Let the Government give some competent and thoroughly independent man access to the documents essential to an impartial history of the war ; and let us have out in plain English a statement of what we have done , and why we were not able to do more . Justice demands that able historians should perform this service for the country and the army .

    G40 The Leader. [No. 324, Saturday,

    g 40 THE LEADER . [ No . 324 , Saturday ,

    Palmer—As An Autist. For Ten Days And Mo...

    PALMER—AS AN AUTIST . For ten days and more , hundreds of spectators sat scrutinizing William Palmeb at the dock of the Old Bailey in the morbid hope of discerning in him some sign of emotion . Some told how , under the anxieties of the protracted investigation , they saw him grow visibly thinner ; others told how , as the strong-minded Chief Justice demolished , point by point , the defence set up for him , the wretched man buried his face in his handsand presently the passion of his

    , countenance revealed the horrors of the silent struggle through which he had passed . No sooner was sentence pronouced , than the bulletins as to his personal conduct began The traders in gossip are now fully occupied . They are eager to know how Palmer lookswhat he eats—whether he eats at all—what he says—what he does—what he feels—what he thinks . It seems so strange that the man , if he is really guilty of the enormities laid to his charge , should not betray more emotiou . But in truth it would be stranger if he did .

    Consider the man . In the eyes of his fellow townsmen this country surgeon had acquired a character for respectability . To most people he seemed an agreeable person- — to many even gentlemanlike . He lived in his native town of Rugeley ; -he was admitted to its leading official society . He had soothed tho pangs of many a youthful mother , and watched tho sick-bed of many a first-born infant . Latterly , indeed , he had withdrawn from the practice of his profession , having betaken himself to Tattersall ' s and the turf . But the society of such men as tho Earl

    of Derby and General Peel did not diminish his position in the society of Rugeley . He was still regarded as respectable . And yet at the very moment when ho was enjoying tho good-will of his neighbours , living apparently an easy , careless life of enjoyment , he was inwardly distracted by all tho passions of tho gamester . Under the jovial expression of these rubicund cheeks , who could have imagined the secret history which was being transacted ? For this jolly fellow was racing , betting , winning—more often losing —mid encumbered with debt . To relievo

    himself from his obligations he was contracting more debt—selling himself body and soul to mono }' -lenders—using the hand of his own wife ( he himself confessed it ) to forge

    the name of his own mother on bills of acceptance for thousands of pounds , kno wing at the very time that nothing but a lucky cast could make him to discharge those obligations which , nevertheless , if not discharged , must prove passports to prison . Nor was this all . Other means were needed to satisfy his wants : and Palmeb was not the man to hesitate . He had a wife and a brother . Money must be had . He insured their lives . His brother was fond of liquor . He hired a wretch to lead him on to fatal excess , and death soon overtook him . His wife was his slave—to be coined into cash . As a medical

    man he might himself minister to her ailments . She must die . Her husband—so will the legend for ever run—will himself conduct her to the gates of death . He seats himself by her bedside—with , his own hand he tenderly administers the poisonous drug—writes down his grief in his private diary—watches the vital power of the poor creature slowly evaporate under his fatal skill—consoles his wounded spirit for her fortunate loss at the very steps of the altar—and then gathers in the golden harvest of deliberate crime . This surely is not the man who would reveal himself to the

    thousand eyes of a crowded Court of Justice . He had played the stakes of life and death too often and too successfully before he stood within that dock . In the last momentous scene—the crisis of his life—no weak emotion was to disturb the serene apathy of this consummate artist . In the character of William Palmer there is , indeed , a sort of dramatic monstrosity . He waa no common-place villain . The bludgeon and the horse-pistol—the knife and the centre bifc—were not his weapons . Like C ^ esab Napoleon , his pawns were men . His instruments were mortal . He turned

    everything to his own use—his personal appearance—his professional knowledge—his mother—his brother—his school companions —his friends—the friends of his friendspostmasters — money-lenders — coroners — profligate attorneys . Tea , he could even deceive scientific doctors , and an experienced counsel of tlie degree of the coif and a member of Parliament . They pitied him ; they laboured for him ; they would fain have sacrificed their very means of living for his benefit . The man had read nature with

    infinite sagacity . He knew precisely what ought to be done—he knew the sort of man who would suit his purpose—he knew where to find that individual . One incident is enough . To administer poison to your friend in the bedroom of a public inn , after having once failed , needs a steady hand . But Palmer did more . For surely it was a surprising feat to summon that young surgeon Jones , the confidential friend and companion of the unfortunate Cookein order that ho might

    , witness tho 2 ) oi « o ) iing . But Palmer had studied him well . He had fathomed his weakness . Jones knew Cooke well : there is no taint of suspicion on his character . Hia presence at tho bedside of hia dying friend would surely disarm suspicion . Ho is the companion of Cooke , and , moreover , a medical man . Paxmeii summons him by letter— - satisfies him , against hia will , that his friend is suffering from bilious diarrhoea—administient

    ters tho strychnine pills to the poor pa in hia very presence—leaves him alono in the sick-room where ho purposes to pass the night—leta him witness tho horrors of tho last struggle—and , indeed , ho would havo had tho murdered man enclosed in a strong oak coffin , and quietly deposited in Kugeloy churchyard , without one whisper of scandal or remonstrance . Tho unsuspecting Jones waa fully satisjied . It was only the shrowd old stou-fathor Stevens who broke in upon

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), June 7, 1856, page 12, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_07061856/page/12/