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    848 THE LEADER. [Saturday,

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    THE GREEK AND PERRY CASE. The Greer and ...

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  • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

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    Suggestions Toll The Recess. Although Th...

    probable that the Czar will thus yield ? Not at all 1 His last act is absolutely to refuse those conditions , -without which France and England have declared that they will not treat at all . He retires behind the Pruth , only to protect himself from , being outflanked , and declares that he waits for overtures of peace or attack . The attack is coming .

    Austria has throughout said that she approved of the objects of the Western Powers , would not make separate treaty with Russia ,, ¦ would lend a negative assistance , but would not join in active warfare . To that rule she adheres , still waiting to see whether we conquer at Sevastopol . Austria , therefore , will consent to follow in the rear of France and

    England while they are victorious . Prussia scarcely pretends that her neutrality is more than a timid yet treacherous alliance with IRussia . The next great event , therefore , will be the taking of Sevastopol ; until that be accomplished speculation is useless—rafter that we shall know better how we stand with the German Powers and Russia * For bur own

    part , while we do not expect the Czar to give iii j we do not expect that Austria v « ill heartily joni to beat down Kiissia ; we do expect that during the conflictwhichRussia will be able to sustain , Prussia will abandon her neutrar lity to side with that Power * The conflict , tEen , must extend ; and in the camp at Boulogne ^ Fxarice and England have shown that they possess instruments for acting as well upon Prussian as Russian forces . ~ We believe that bitherto the purpose of official ' * England" has expanded with the oe > casion , that it has never beenframed in

    anticipation of the occasion . First , it was to freeTurkey fromRussia ; next to make Hussia . admit the suprenaacy of Eu ^ ropean law 1 ; thirdly , t 6 reduce the po w er of Russia . But we believe that official England lias no object for the next stags of the war , and that the enthralled nationalities are likely enough to assert their presence . Happy will it be for England if a , party can consolidate itself , with a sufficiently distinct purpose , and a suffix cient bold on public confidence , to prevent the Government from betraying English honour .

    It is from Newcastle that this position has been most distinctly foreseen . The men of Newcastle are prepared for the future , as well as the present . "We know that they are not in the hands of foreigners ; we know that they are moved by no party spirit against this or that Ministry , or non-Ministry . "We know that their feeling is thoroughly jLuui to

    gi .. » u , nuu uunu iiiiay u , w p » . ' upui'eu guana up for the good name , the flag , and the influence of England on the Continent . If they stand firm to these principles , they must gather adherents from other quarters ; and fox our owu part we hail the day when , " the Newcastle party" speaks to the Government in the name of the English people . Such a meeting ag that at Newcastle is not of difficult

    organisation : — -why not more such meetings in such towns P

    848 The Leader. [Saturday,

    848 THE LEADER . [ Saturday ,

    The Greek And Perry Case. The Greer And ...

    THE GREEK AND PERRY CASE . The Greer and Perry case has forced the Horse Guards to make a general demonstration on the subject of those jocosities in the army which , coarse in their nature , become blackguardism , or in the periphrasis of the Horse Guards , " conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman . " If we accept the institution of the nrnoy exactly as it is , much might be said for the species of compromise in which the triple case has ended . It is not justice , but justice is inconsistent with the framework of the army . In the second court-martial Lieutenant

    James Edward Perry was arraigned for " scandalous infamous conduct , unbecoming an officer and a gentleman , " these grounds —that he had described Colonel Garrett as meeting his report with the remark that " he was a fool for his pains ; " that he had threatened Colonel Garrett to report to the General of the District , and that Captain Nicholas had ill-treated other officers on joining ; all statements being false . Now there is no positive proof that this description of Cap * tain Nicholas is untrue . The remai'kable

    similarity in the negative replies of the officers on the point is excessively suspicious , especially when coupled with the letter of lieutenant "Waldy , who equally denied the charge , which nevertheless he had made in writing . There is strong collateral evidence that Lieutenant Perry did tell Colonel Garrett that he should write to the General of the District , and that he did actually write a letter , but withdrew" it at the request of other officers . The oblivion of the colonel , — -an old gentleman who did not know when a subaltern , was

    draggedintothe sainerioom in his night-shirt , —is no cbiraterprbof ; and if great allowances must be made for the excessive laxity of the evidence against Perry ; , exactly similar allowances ought to be made on his behalf . The judgment should be given upon , the charges ; and the charges are but partially susfcained . It is aix excessive stretch of partiality to dismiss OVCr .. Perry from the service for a watit of exactness in iiis statement , while for a direct untruth proved under his own handwriting , another officer is punished by nothing more severe than a reprimand .

    It may be true that Mr . Perry is not proper company for officers , and there is something calculated to excite at least prejudice against him , in the very nature of his defence- —his profession of quietude , his study of fortification and the cornopean , while submitting to the immoralities , the grumblings , and . the indignities put upon him by Greer . But all this has nothing to do with the specific charges ; and it is an outrageous irregularity in judicial proceedings severely to punish a man for collateral improprieties , respecting

    which he was not put upon his defence , while glancing over defects in , the evidence against him in order to declare him guilty on uuproved charges . The spirit of partiality which dictates this sentence is indicated e converso iu the disposal of Greer ' s case . He was accused of having struck Lieutenant Perry and of having usjed provoking and insulting lan guage , and convicted , except upon that part of the charge which accused him with using the words " swindler" and " blackguard . " The Court ,

    however , only sentenced the man really convicted to bo reprimanded and placed lowest on the list of Lieutenants of the 46 th . The Commander-in-Ohief , with a juster sense of equity , dismissed Greer from the service , but permits him . to sell out . Some of the evidence , perhaps true enough in fact and letter , was false in spirit . Captain Campbell declared in Court , that he declined to associate with Perry because that person was the associate of disreputable women ; but the same witness

    declined to answer the question whether ho himself did not associate with the same cliiss of women . There is , then , some all-prevailing hypocrisy in the treatment of such cases . Perry is dismissed from the service on a charge of falsehood unsustnined by the evidence ; and ho is sent to Coventry by Captain Campbell for oifences against morals , which Captain Campbell does not deny in his own instance , and which ia notoriously iu the instance of many officers . There muat then havo been some

    reasons which moved officers to these aobions , but which they do not like to avow . Mr . Percy was not wealthy ; and it has been

    evidently the custom in the Forty-sixth to play for high sums , to go to expense in the way of " drags , " to cultivate society of the female sex more lively than regular , and in short to indulge in those vivacities which socially are not thought to be " unbecoming an officer and a gentleman . " The new order from the Horse Guards does not touch that

    subject of expenses , or the painful position in which a young officer is placed who has not the means of competing with his brotherofficers in the purse . Again , Mr . Perry rose from the ranks 5 we all know to what painfal trials that circumstance leads ; but the Horse Guards has done nothing to check the social cowardice which , enables men of wealth or

    birth to oppress the man who possesses neither . Yet the Horse Guards cannot at this day sustain the opinion of the great Captain . He declared before a Parliament commission , that there are difficulties in . promoting officers from the ranks , because it tends to remove the distance vvnich there ought to be between officera and men ; and because those who rise to be non-commissioned offieers do not

    possess that steadiness of head which is reiaclered necessary by the ATine-drinking habits of gentlemen ia commission . The Duke , it seeins , thbuglit the decanter an essential institution , and it constituted for him an effectual bar to thepromotionof non-commissioned officers , who cctnnot be ( guilty of debaucheries and liotous living like that . which prevailed

    in tne jForty ^ sixth . Before the Duke departed from tlie chief command , it was , webelieve , a practice at the Horse Guards to receive his orders , but out of consideration for him to abstain from fulfilling them ; It hied beeii discovered that the Great Captain could err even on military matters , He was wrong on the subject of promoting npn-commissioned officers . Since the memorandum

    winch Lord Hardinge made on the Fiftieth , regiment , its discipline has been greatly improved , and that improvement must , we believe , be ascribed to the Colonel commanding : but who is he ? He is an officer who has risen from the ranks—and if we are not wrong he has known what it is to rise from the ranks among " officers and gentlemen . " The disclosures which have been made respecting the haunts of vice in the metropolis , exhibit all classes as partaking the same depravities— " without respect of rank' *

    —and if we consult the history of the country 011 its better side , we shall find the same community of action . Who were the great improvers , for example , that created our manufacturing system ? If Cartvvright , who introduced the spinning jenny , was a clergyman and a man of position , Hargreaves was a Avorking apinner , Arkwright was a barber , Watt a working mathematical instrument maker , Cook , who rescued our navy from its sanitary abominations , was a collier ' s boy .

    The last Indian war gives us lords and plebeians equally fighting in the van . And why should tho army be an exception ? The qualities required for an officer are bravery , probity , and tlie capacity for organised action in subordination—the qualities of Englishmen iivall ranks , when the character is brought out . It is because wo ta'lco the test of wealth , which is worse than that of birth , that wo introduce so many un-officerlike

    un-gentlomanliko , un-JSngliah men into that profession ^ which ought to be open to tho competition oi all Englishmen . Throw open commissions to tho ranks , nbolish tho system of purchase , let promotion always be earned by service ia tho barrack if not in the field , rmd wo shaH have tho effeminate raco of idle cadets , who arc supported by the ostentatious generosity of their relatives , replaced by a genuine working corps of oificors .

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 9, 1854, page 8, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_09091854/page/8/