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    ARMY MISRULE.*

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    Untitled Article

    depression of the intellectual functions , —for old Bex Jonsos s adao-e suits most of us , " Out of clothes out of countenance , outi ot countenance out of wit . " It has often been made to appear that the studied garb of great men is by no means without significance .- V \ . e have little doubt that it operates as well as indicates—that it is otten not merel y a sign , but a cause . But of clothes , the moral is tar greater than the intellectual expression ; forcing up < m a mail , as it were ah extra , and that very intensively , the qualities , and penetratino- him with the character of those whose costume he is wearing for the time , whether that costume be purely Wefxonal . or not . A whol seems to upon a man wiih all it , tn » tswith

    e genus press the comtad weight of all its individuals , to stamp and assimilate him-to force him " as the te . rm is , to be " worthy of the c oth which e has adopted . Wlio will deny that some of our very best soldiers have owed the first budding of their bravery very considerably to their uniform-that the actor acts with more spirit when he is dressed for his part , than at a miserable repetition wifhout costume / Take an individual , conscientious in his dealings , and sober in hi * fashions : invest that individual with a green cut-away coat rather tlu- worse for wear , insist upon his adopting an indifferently shabby white hat . planted rather jauntily arskew ; this is enough ; we leave the lower pirt of the integument to the fancy and the mercy o £ the latter ine for moment that the moral

    lo-uln- tloes the imag one utilities of the individual in question would not undergo a gradual deterioration ? On the other hand the scamp , or the swell , to whom the « Teen - cut-away originally belonged , Imt who has exchanged it * for our sober ' frienofs suit of black , with the short pantaloons , the shoes ,. the grey worsted stockings and hat , the hinder rim of which gently reposes on the coat collar , this transmuted scamp , we say , af ter a month ' s uncomfortable experience of the new costume , feels himself gradually oppressed , by a compiilsory o-ravitv . feels less and less enjoymeait in his penny cigar , begins to think ' slan" - at first questionable , then decidedly out of character , and if stiU irreclaimable to the paths of virtue , at any rate lays down the blackguard and bully , and does homage by taking up the

    hypocrite . ' Our clothes , indeed , seem to bind us 111 honour , to certain conformity of action . ; a man does not like to be infideiis erf / a vesfeiwmwn : perhaps he feels some delicacy about disappointing the expectations of his fellow creatures , formed upon the promise of his outer man We could imagine few people both more inconsistent and more ' unhappy , more shaken and wavering in their mantle , 4 han a being compelled every week to- draw blindly a fresh suit from a secondhand clothes ' warehouse . His case Would be different from that of the public performer , who derives momentary aid indeed from the dress which he adopts , but does not retain it long enough at a time to admit of its deeply influencing his character .: luminous remark to focus

    Let us draw these general rays of a and brin » - it briefly to bear upon the subject of hats . No part of the En 4 ishman ' s costume has been so much denounced by the Englishman himself , none pronounced to be so ugly , irrational , and in all resnects inconvenient , as the ordinary average English hat . Yet must there exist in this hat some secret propriety , some special ntriess for , in spite of obloquy , no portion of the Englishman s costume has undergone so few metamorphoses ; we- except individual extravagances in this article , the infallible evidence of conceit , and infallibly aggravating it : an abnormal hat , made to order is the corollary of Vanity ' s " consummate flower , and the seeds ' lie at it * base ; to this rule we never knew an exception . " There has been , it must be admitted , a great innovation in the case of the wide-awake , in all its ugly varieties ; but never have w "; -i :., i . « . a « ovMTit when flportincr , travelling , or gardening , and

    many scar ^ ly even then , taken to it kindly . It is secretly felt not to bo a ffentlemah ' s costume ; the most aristocratic general bearing , the most cold-drawn expression of face , the most point tie vice P unctiliousness in the rest of the attire will not ,. at any rate m the Streets of a town , suffice to support the wido-awalcc s inherent blackguardism and make it tolerable urther , it may be asserted , that the wide-awake , when persisted in , together with all those loose arbitrary , nonlic / e habiliments which so often accompany it , indicate , both as precedent and consequent , an irregular impulsive will and a slackened self-discipline , The only person that can- bo executed from these remarks is the reader . Let contract our focusstill more to a pointna < throw it . at

    u « . once illuminating and destroying , on the ordinary female hat of the day ! our final aifi real object . Wo have seen the wide Log-horn hat , its front flapping upwards in the brooze , and discovering the sunburnt ftwe < f tfe Florentine Contadina , and we have seen the graver broad-brims of some of tho Swiss Cantons and Imve thought them highly graceful , Under some wiotios of tho hat the Wlwh lemalo face , too , looks charming ; but the ordinary type , the hat ra her small turned up somewhat sharply ut the sides , so as to form a bed for witn itis mtowmDie most

    n portion ot tho feather generally worn . , ana thoroughly unbecoming to tho girln of England ; indeed , it changes their whole aspect and expression . The Frenchwoman has sense iLiul tasto ; her whole air i * coquettish ; aw a geiioral rule she knows ! imt her countenance would not bow the hat , and sho consequently » voids it Tho natural English girl ' M faco is swoot and modost ; ISi this « lio is not satisfied—Bho aims at French ooiiuottishness , S instead of looking coquettish , ^ p , looks lumen r we are . certain haltho oxi ) reHHi (» M '( rf . not merely in part produced by the hat , but loHl « SodlY accommodated to it . Tho girls of England are no oS the Httmo in < mr country towns ; wo speak , perhaps , rather 3 the nd . il than of the aristoeriitio classo * . We ha ™ a tolerably V" ¦ ! mul wo declare that when thoso hats uro worn it is praetijod o > ; « n I wo « oua third rate towns oi FnaWtnd WedS ' W « "y in th 9 oyonSngf , in very many caaon , riwtS a viuw womnn Ik , or i » not , precisely what th « ought to be .

    If she looks impudent , uonchalante , and devil-me-care , the inference is evident : observe , the walk is greatly influenced by the style of hat ; to avoid this , however , there is often the same selfconfidence and independence , tempered , not ^ ylth levity but with a haughty repulsiveness , which "is still rfiore disagreeable , though , perhaps , more reputable . A great deal is said now-a-days about the fastness of our young females ¦;—a hat of the above description is the fastness of all kinds of fastnesses and self-wills . It is our opinion that the female fastness audindependence of which our writers and t

    parents complain so much came in with these hats , parly causing the hats , and partly . caused by them . Let them be abolished . A regular broad-brim shelters the cheeks , and softens , with a nice arrangement of the hair , the corner of the eye . The depressed brims , again , are far better than the upraised ones ; they have , it is true , a somewhat dowdy and melancholic air , but a graceful figure and a lady-like , lively , and natural bearing overcomes those disadvantages , and such hats are a real , not an affected , shelter from the sim , or from too ardent masculine glances : the true English maiden ' s cheeks will not bear bareness .

    Untitled Article

    A COMMON Soldier , several of whose poems have appeared in Once a Week , has indited a letter to Lord Palmerston , somewhat disfigured by misprisiorts of wit , which contains some home-truths in regard to ' the government and discipline of the army , that merit public attention . He tells us that he has served as a private in the 1 st corps in the profession , and is sufficiently familiar with its general management . He knows more about it than blue-books can teach , and asserts that the wonder is , not that the IJritish soldier " is . what he is , but rather that he stops short of being what the vital exigencies of Red Tape would drive him to become . " On

    leaving , he bade farewell to a non-commissioned officer , who urged him , in heavenV name , to write if he had the power , and let Ills country know how degraded the members of the service hail become , and how much is wasted in preventing them from being better . 4 i I have sat here , " said the old subaltern , . ' hour . after hour , wondering how the best ptu-t of a man can be so gradually undermined , and yet the carcass still remain what it is , presenting a total apparently so stable and so sound . " Such is , indeed , the general disaffection in the barracks , that the writer thinks the matter is becoming , serious . At anv rate , as we have said , his-statement deserves

    consideration . It shall have it . " There is no use , " he continues , "in hoodwinking the fact . . .. The conversation of the barrack-rooms , without an exception , is neither complimentary to Government in the concrete , nor . suggestive of a continuity of forbearance ; hut i . t revolulioiuvj / in fix 1 extreme . " If steps be not taken in time , he argues that " the soldier will undertake for himself the reorganization of the infamous and degrading system by which lie is ruled . A sense of power , and a tendency to try the efficacy of exerting- it , prevails largely in the take heedand not

    ranks . " This Ls a fearful warning . Let us , neglect it . The soldier , we are told , fosters a sense of wrong-, which must ultimately grow to formidable proportions , as the trutli begins to teach him that the recruiting-sergeant is , after all , but part of a system having its root in another quarter , and fostered by an oligarchy wjiom ignorance believes it has a prescriptive right to hate , an ' certainly has the strength to overthrow at . the expense of a nation ' s welfare . Not only is the expediency of the lash questioned , but that of punishment in the abstract . the available

    The evil' of desertion needs cure . What is only remedy ? Our letter-writer thus answers . " Expend the sums of money now lost to the country ( as bribes for the capture of deserters ) , in rendering" the home of the soldier more like that which he mis left to become { M he thinks ) your voluntary guardian , but whose state the condemned convict would scarcely accept in exchange ior his own . " . He tells a sad story of a soldier who had descrtocl , was captured . Sunished ( not with the lash ) , and released from prison . In a k vr ays , ho deliberately shot himself . abolition of promotion

    Our Common Soldier is no advocate for tho by purchase . This is , no remedy for tho speciiic evils i-bniplaiiu'tl of . Tho men would rather bo commanded by gentlemen ; --Itut they would havo those gentlemen show a kindliness and sympathy of demeanour . For want of this , there is many a man whom ; only wish is to be placed in sucli a position that ho may safely shoot his officer . " Tho officer , upon whoso success , in a certain cause , whole centuries of civilization depend , for ought we know , may-bo one marked out for death by tho hand of the soldier at his side . K' / Pho ntato of tho case appears , from tho evidence given , not to havo been exaggerated . The writer speaks of ono who chcnsla'd such an insane doairo , an bearing a stainless character on tho hooks of tho corps ; and naks , emphatically , " Do you suppose , my Lord , that , in time of war , no office ™ , or but few . full by tho hands oi subordinates P I should bo ( dad to boliovo ho too , but the prom wen from which wo havo started loud to u far diiloront conclusion .

    Such a statement is well calculated " to startle and way-lay U » o most inapprohonsivo of tho public . .., Tlio writor proposes that tho prosont , hjyston \ oi tntlttfalion on duty should ¦ ba / sujporsodotr . "' If tho moiV were not whwvUvil to salute , tho disoovory would soon bo made of tho „ " officer wli « possosscs tho knack of changing a loyal Holdicr into u maloontoni , by tho utteranco of u singlo sentence . " Here is » simple moiuiH oi lotting in tho li lifc of truth . Arc tho army authorities alhud « - >! tho tost H If not , lot thorn try it .

    Untitled Article

    ' " Army MUrutu ytth itatwek rhwgM * , tvut other J ' wuu . » y « v Oummoii tf » l « "vr . SnmulcnJ , Otloy , mid Co .

    Untitled Article

    766 The Saturday Analyst and Leader . [ Sept . 1 , 1860 ^

    Army Misrule.*

    ARMY MISRULE . *

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 1, 1860, page 766, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2363/page/6/