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Leader (1850-1860), 24th February 1855, Edition 1 of 2, Page 184, Untitled Article

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      But it is not so . Certain posts are kept for ' " gentlemen , " with a very vulgar test of gentle birth ; and those who cannot undergo the teat are disqualified ; though they have a right ^ to bBtur arms without stain , or abatement—which is more than some of our aristocracy could say if heralds did their duty . A single case will illustrate our meaning ; and from its nature it will be seen to be only one of a class in a host of abuses where there are many classes . A young gentleman is' educated at a public oOl at stage

      SCn , goes TO couege , auu ever y «* his progress takes such honours as show that his attainments are worthy of higher tests . He studies engineering , and has an ambition to avail himself of the new " opening , " by which students at the established schools are admitted to the Woolwich Academy for six months' probationary study before entering the corps of Royal Engineers . The testimonials of the candidate are absolutely conclusive as to his eligibility ¦; but he is stopped at the first question . He applies for admission . The official

      asks—Not what the youth ' s attainments are , what bis training , his qualities , or his health ; not anything about himself at all ; but " Wasyour father in business ?" " Yes * , " is the answer ; and the door is closed against the youth ! . His father was "in business" — he may without exaggeration- — -when we compare what he found and what he left—be said to have organised the trade of the Shetland Isles ; and he accomplished an enterprise which proved him to be a man of energy , invention , and high spirit •—just the qualities that a cadet of the Royal

      Engineers should inherit . But to have been ** in business" is to be not a gentleman . — though Lord Torrington , a railway chairman , is a gentleman and something more ; Lord Ii 6 wi > ONDERRT is a gentleman though a coaldealer ; and Lord Ceajstbicarde would not be excluded on that account from the Royal Engineers ! . The young man applies to an officer in command , states his case , and is advised not to attempt perseverance . Evidently the worthy old Epaulettes thinks that a young gentleman who -is-not * a gentleman '' ot 4 ffh £ not to be admitted .

      Now are men born engineers by the rules of the Herald ' s college , or by the rules of a much higher college ? For it strikes us , that if the Royal Engineers are selected according to the exclusively " gentle" station of their fathers , Sebastopol is no mystery , nor likely to be the last of commentaries on that mode of selecting of Engineers .

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      OUR PRESTIGE IN EUROPE . Humajst nature is so made , and it would be waste of time to repine thereat . The French —at least such of them as have not joined the opposition of , silence and patience , the French of the official and venal species—are secretly exulting , over our discomfiture in the Crimea . They now believe , perhaps with some semblance of reason , that England has ceased to be a first-rate Power . We are

      shining , fiery , but dim and artificially mngai ^ fied , far down on the western slope of the heavens . There con be now no further doubt about it ; we are , indeed , a nation of shopkeepers , and nothing else ; capable , perhaps , of a vigorous , though vain attempt to defend our plate-glass and our four-post

      bedsteads if directly attacked , but too incompetent ; too ill-constructed , too steeped in Biere questions ¦ of profit and loss , too suffopAtted / with wealth , too fond of ease and our WiiBBt , to 1 ibe ! worth a jot as allies in a great * 5 ftr . ' Joh * Bull , poised on legs of Egyptian ptrpJ > o ^ tionrt ; mAy ( « tand on his threshold or Step to the' curb-stone , and give one sturdy

      blow with his fist ; but take him out for a campaign , and he pants and chokes , and indulges in harmless martial pantomime miles behind . There was a letter from the scene of war read the other nighfc in a Parisian salon . " We should have done the work , it said , " but for the English and the Turks . " — Is it come to that coupling ?— " It is impossible to act with such people . They are never ready . " We are not cowards , only stupid and slow ! . . -

      ,,,,, We know what stress is really to be laid on this opinion , but it would be very unwise to dissimulate the fact of its existence and rapid spread , not only through France , but over the -whole Continent . It may come to constitute a great danger . At least one half of a nation ' s power consists in the prestige that surrounds it . A man of honour , courage , and strength may fight his way through a crowd which , if it ever learned to despise , worth

      could crush him at once . Is it not while , instead of trusting any longer to the vast latent resources of Anglo-Saxon energy —no doubt capable of bringing us safe through far greater dangers than we have yet encountered—to do something at once calculated to give a different direction to the current of public opinion abroad , and to save this country from the attacks of the Coalition of Envy , which may be nearer in possibility than we like to believe ?

      Within the last few weeks it has become an article of Continental faith—greedily accepted—that the last Englishman to be feared ^ or respected fell at Alma or Inkerman , or is freezing to death in the peninsula of Chersbn . We have no longer , it is said , either an army or the means of getting one together . How this strange result has been brought about is a . mystery . No one can understand why , in a country which has made so much boast of its warlike enthusiasm

      which has thundered in monster meetings , emptied out its purse in subscriptions , and shaken the sides of the world by the clamour of its press , recruits more numerous than the Government can manage do not pour in . There is certainly at first sight a sufficiently broad contradiction between our talk and - ^ - ^^^^ . ^—^ - ^^ l ^ - ^^ g ^ xjnless the apostles of peace at any price have a greater hold than seems likely on the classes whence the raw material of armies is drawn , ifc must be admitted that there exist artificial reasons

      by which the people are separated in feeling from the Government . What these reasons are , no calm observer of public affairs here at home can fail to perceive ; but they are perfectly inappreciable abroad where people wait only for the practical results that ought to follow on national bluster;—and so the report goes round : England's glory is on the wane . There is probably some slight want of good faith in those who propagate this opinion .

      At any rate they are ignorant of the stuff of which soldiers are made , and of the way in which they are made . In former years the English army , which has done so many fine things , was recruited from the ranks ot idleness , of misery , and of crime . Tall , rawboned youths were lured into the arena like bulls by a bit of scarlet cloth . Discontented sons and disappointed lovers started on the

      heroic road through mere spite , stupified during the first irrevocable steps by beer and gin . No one can regret the fact , if it be true , that these causes have ceased to operate in so great a degree ; and surelv in the vast multitude of , human motivos there may be found others quite as operative , and more respectable . But we cannot expect to get new men with the old machinery ; people think nowadays before allowing their palms to be tickled by the shilling : they know what

      they are doing , and would like to know whither they are going ; and , although foreign statesmen and diplomatists — sharing the opinion of our short-sighted and selfish governing classes ^—may deride the idea of a reform , and tell us that the necessity we plead is a sign of decay , we must not accept these interested suggestions . He who laughs at reform fears it .

      A vague rumour has been circulated that some of our boldest statesmen have discussed , at Imperial suggestion , though for the present they have rejected , the idea of introducing the conscription into England . In Paris , those who affect to wish us well cannot see that we have any other alternative . Either we must aubmit to that degradation , or perish . This is nonsense . Let our friends be quite sure , at any rate , that until all other reasonable

      measures have been tried , England will not receive any such proposition , except with derision . Yet , no doubt many of our wise governors—wise in their own interest—would prefer even taking such a hint from the man whose policy they so much admire—it seems true that the Emperor did really throw out the hint—to striking in with public opinion , and giving us , in a country which has so many democratic tendencies , a really democratic

      army . One of the sophisms by which the conscription is , made tolerable abroad is the assertion that it is a democratic institution . A Frenchman , becoming a hero on compulsion , is ready to accept the apology without much scrutiny . But there never was a greater mistake . The conscription is a tax _ p £ blood practically raised only on the poorest members of the community . Save in rare

      exceptions , no man looks forward to the period of drawing without horror ; and no man goes for a soldier unles ? he fails in an attempt to beg or borrow sufficient to buy himself off . The aristocratic and bourgeois classes , therefore , escape the heavier obligations of this law , which spreads misery and immorality amongst the poor . " We will have nothing to do with it . There must be , there are , means of raising an army quite effective enough for our purpose on very different principles .

      - It is now superfluous to enumerate those means . Every one knows them— -both those who recommend , because they have the honour and safety of the country at heart , and those who oppose , because they think only of class interests , and would prefer reigning alone in a degraded realm to sharing power with the real citizen of a free commonwealth . It is quite evident that the soldier ' s life may , botli by increased pecuniary

      advantages and greater promise of honour and advancement , be made attractive to as many young men as we can find use for . The mere hope of good pay would , perhaps , not be sufficient , although a little increase might have a considerable effect . But you must put a Marshal ' s baton in the knapsack of every soldier . Unless you do that in these days of enlightenment , nothing will avail . At present , the common soldier is in the position of a man who stands for hours with his nose

      against the doors of a theatre to secure a good place , and when it is opened , finds all the front seats taken . Everybody has been before him there with his money . These ideas of reform , however , as wo have hinted , are laughed at in France , where people , even in opposition , take their op inion often on such matters from authority . Whence we derive our hopes—from free discussion— -they imagine all our dangers to flow . We are under the curse of Parliamentary government—meaning not only our cramped forms , but all the means by which public opinion expresses itself . Look at the article published the other day in the Mont-

      Untitled Article

      184 THE LBAMB . [ Sattjkday ,

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Feb. 24, 1855, page 184, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2079/page/16/