Dr. W. H. Russell, the celebrated correspondent of the Times
in the Crimea, has been describing the later incidents of the war in the Transvaal for the Telegraph. He was shocked to see evidences of indiscipline in the Army there, and reported some incidents in proof. The Adjutant-General thereupon de- clared, on the authority of Sir Garnet Wolseley, that he had been " hoaxed " into publishing falsehoods. In Tuesday's Tele- graph, therefore, Dr. Russell reiterates his charges, stating that lie had reported nothing which he did not see, or did not take down
from officers' mouths ; that he found commanding officers obliged to taboo the villages to their men ; that " a distinguished officer" was actually in danger at Newcastle, the soldiers having wrecked the hotel in which he lodged, because they were re- fused drink ; that at Utrecht, the commanding officer had been compelled to adopt the illegal step of forbidding the sale of liquor; and that, at the same place, spirits were sold on the open veldt, in order that the soldiers might not be drunk in -town. In Heidelberg, every store was wrecked by the troops, and on one occasion the officer in command in the Trans- vaal said, " If I carry out my orders, I shall not have a man for duty. Half the men will be guarding the other half." It is simply absurd to attempt to dispose of charges like these, from a man like Dr. Russell, by rub- bish about "hoaxing." They bear directly upon the most important of all questions,—the discipline of the British Army, and ought to be energetically pressed by the officers of that Army in Parliament upon the Secretary at War. It is not tho interest of officers, any more than of the country at large, that British soldiers should get " out of hand," or, like sailors iu a former day, require a separate force to do police over them.
