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    class ; not only the noblest fighters , but the noblest men . It is far too low , too wasteful a view of an army to look upon common soldiers as food for powder "—the fashion of fifty , nay five 3 'ears ago . It is bad economy , it is bad philosophy , it is bad policy . A Government which is entrusted with the privilege of raising and wielding a standing army is in the . position of the servant to whom much was given and of whom much was required . Such a Government is in utter possession , so far as

    the highest , yet that he is very high in the scale of workers—rightly used , lie is the purifier of the world , the judge of the most tremendous causes—and that the calling of common soldier is , in due proportion , as noble as the calling of officer ; in short , you must make men strong , self-helping , and self-respectful ; and you must rectify the excess of self , by drawing forth the spirit of companionship , the community of life and death , and its noble sacrifices will be sure to follow . The best army will be that composed of the best and noblest men . If this be so , how much depends on the officers we select ! But that is a topic for aseparate paper .

    one set of human beings can be in possession of others , of the souls and bodies of say nearly a quarter of a million of men ; and such a Government seriously mistakes or neglects its duty towards those men and towards the nation tolerating their rule , if they -do not consider them , at all times , as talents entrusted to their keeping , and therefore

    not to be kept wrapt up in a napkin ; in other words , not merely to be physically drilled , but morally and intellectually disciplined and ennobled . " No schoolmaster has such an opportunity ; no university ; no prison even . Adequate care , adequate system , wise , generous , manly , would make of each regiment , not a band of scholars certainly—we do net want scholars , but of men and soldiers .

    We lay great stress upon the moral as well as the physical discipline . A soldier should have a spiritual life of a higher kind than he has been accustomed to . He should obey orders , not from fear , but an intelligent sense of duty ; he should be trained to habits of sobriety , not from apprehension of the cat , or the black hole , but from dread of doing wrong . He should he imbued , quite as much as his officers , with a spirit of honour , and a fear of doing

    dishonourable actions ; and he should be taught to love excellence in everything . Not " that will do , " but " nothing except that will do , " should be his motto . He should be taught to help himself ; to be equal to the situation if left alone ; to be able to act intelligently and promptly , if thrown on liis own resources ; but he should be also taught that " self-renunciation " with which , as G-oethe says , " life begins ; " that idea of comradeship and . duty , which alone ennobles the life of the richest

    and the poorest ^ and makes the most ignorant in his sphere equal to the highest . And in his more purely . military education , he should live as in his moral life—always as if he were in the presence of the enemy . Depend upon it , you will never have perfect soldiers until you have men taught to consider themselves as always in the very face of death . They should be drilled with that kept in view . No absurd , no squeamish delicacy should prevent proper exercises . At the risk of life men

    should be taught to run , to leap , to endure heat and cold , to wrestle , to take long marches , to camp out sometimes and feed themselves , to be left in uncertainty as to the morrow ; in short , to undergo as far as possible the severest trials , in order that they might be equal to any situation . They should go through a regular probationary course ; good conduct badges should be looked on as the inferior steps in an order of military chivalry , and each step

    upward should confer additional honour , as well as additional power and means . Every man in tho ranks should be looked upon and taught to look upon himself as one who may become a gentleman ; and every man who bears the Quken ' s commission should , ipso facto , become entitled to all the privileges of a gentleman in society . The way to make an invincible fighting machine , is to make a machine composed of gentlemen in soul and aspirations , animated by the highest principles of action which you oan draw out of man . In short , you must take this fact as the basis of your training , that though a soldier is not

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    HOW TO GET RID OF A WIFE . Truth is stranger than fiction , not only by deceiving ordinary expectation and thus departing more from verisimilitude than fiction safely can , but by producing events which , save for their occurrence , we might declare to be impossible . If a writer of fiction were to invent a tale , in which a husband could concoct a conspiracy with his own servants to defame his wife ; should carry on his plans in open day , and with a transparent failure in

    his testimony ; yet should succeed with the concurrence of a court of justice and the testimony of the impugned woman herself , critics would laugh at the " arbitrary" incidents . And yet we have "before us a grave statement , purporting to be a simple relation of facts , * which gives us this ultra-romantic romance with strong corroboration . "We have already alluded to this case : it comes before us again , justice still unrendered ; and the story is told with new and damning facts .

    Mr . and Mrs . TALBOTWeremarriedin January , 1845 . They had one child—a daughter born in October , " The child of the mother ' s unbounded affection / ' remarked the judge of the Consistory Court . In 1851 Mr . Talbot inherited from an uncle considerable estates in Roscommon , which were entailed on the male descent . When Mr . Talbot discovered the arrangement of the will , he expressed dissatisfaction at having no son ; and from that time , it is remarked , he treated his wife " with

    indifference , coldness , and unkindness . " Although he had considerable pi-operty , and his wife appears to have been a careful woman , anxious to see lxer household in order , he left her exceedingly short of money ; so much so , that she was compelled at times to borrow sums as small as 3 s . 6 d . from her own servants , and to repay them in small instalments—fourpenny pieces taken from her child , or postagestamps . No charge was made against the lady until May , 1852 3 seven years after marriage ;

    and then she was accused of criminal familiarity with a groom . In all respects this accusation was improbable . Mrs . Talbot appears to have been a woman with little forco of character , devoted to her domestic duties , in fear of her husband , constantly accompanied by her daughter , and without motive or impulse of any kind which could have led to such a position . There were circumstances which rendered her relation with the

    groom almost impossible . The witnesses brought to sustain the case in court , for it was carried into tho Consistory Court , and thence into the Court of Delegates , —swore to proceedings which were in , their nature absolutely impossible : such as describing a man to have passed through a small square hole in a wall , without assistance , at a height considerably above his own head . Some of tho witnesses asserted that the lady was in the

    habit of visiting the groom ' s bedroom , and of leaving her daughter in another room , goinv back to the child subsequently . < . It appears to have been true that Mrs . Talbot did visit that room , in succession with all the rooms in the house , " to see that things were neat and tidy , " as she said . Specifically , however , some of the witnesses concentrated on a particular day—the 19 th of May ; when they agreed that Mrs . Talbot was locked in the room with the man-servant— " somebody , " she afterwards remarked , " had turned the key ; " and

    this seems highly probable . But it was established beyond doubt , and before the court , that on that day the child , instead of having been left behind , was with her mother the whole time . The witnesses brought to establish the charge were , the servants of the house , and two clergymen to whom the lady was said to have confessed . The servants disagreed with each other . Two amongst them , who spoke most distinctly , were named Hallorax the butlerj and Finnektt . .. One of the witnesses called for the prosecution distinctly said that these two men " tried to induce her to swear

    false against Mrs . Talbot . " The two clergymen , who were brought forward as "witnesses to show that she had confessed , were the Rev . Mr . McClelland , the rectorjof Mount Talbot , and the Rev . Mr , Gage . But when in court , Mr . Gage denied that the lady had confessed ; oi \ tHe contrary , when the charge was mentioned to her , ' " she shuddered back" from it . ^ Tke

    other clergyman was not so distinct ; and ilie relatives of the lady have since collected , and have published , testimony which they declare themselves prepared to affirm on oath , stating circumstances that in many respects invalidate Mr . M'Clelland ' s account . He had declared 'that the servants at Mount TalBot were : a " bad set : " this he denied in court .

    He had expressed a hope that he should not be called as a witness in the case , because he was under pecuniary obligations to Mr . Talbot . Toa brother-in-law of Mrs . Talbot he described her , the night after the charge was made , as crouching down in a corner of her room , with every sign of terror : he gave a totally different description in court . Yet , ' on the otherhand he did not stand by the averment that she had confessed—which most certainly she did ; then or afterwards .

    As soon as the charge was made , the husband took a course which is tinparalleled in modern times . He placed the lady in charge of two men servants—who were appointed to be watchmen over her during the night . One of them was Halloran , the butler , who had been discharged from , a great number of places for drunkenness . He appears to have been in a state of intoxication that night ; and to

    have treated the terrified lady with a rough familiarity , as if he were bent upon substantiating the offence -with which she was charged . On the next day Mr . Talbot was informed of this conduct on the part of his butler ; but the man was not discharged ; on the contrary , he afterwards received an advance of wages , and when he came up to Dublin , as a witness , bis expenses were paid .

    The terrified wife entreated that she might be sent to her father ; begged that one of her sisters might come to her ; or that an old family servant might moot her in Dublin . Instead , she was taken iu charge of Mr . M'Clelland , to Cofmsy ' s Hotel , in Dublin-, thence to lodgings at Buttigar ; and thence again to a species of private asylum at Clowor , near Windsor , where she remained in charge of a lady , who passed by a feigned name , until the wife was rescued by her family in November , 1852 . By this time , on more than one occasion , she had confessed , She eoems to hare presumed that what so many peoplo as-

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    February 9 . 1856 . 1 THE LEADE B . 133

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    • A letter to his Excellency tho Lord Lieutenant of Ireland , on the judgment of tho High Court of Dolegatoa , in tho case of Tall > ot v , Talbot . By Thoman TortiuB Pftget , Esq ., Bidgway , 1850 . [ Wo noticed tho subject in tho Leader for July 21 , 1866 . ]

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Feb. 9, 1856, page 133, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2127/page/13/