LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
[Letters of the length of one of our leading paragraphs are often more read, and therefore more effective, than those which fill treble the space.] SIR FREDERICK MAURICE'S LETTER.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."] Sm,—May the stupid minority venture to ask, with all humility, the sagacious majority to elucidate the following perplexity ? (1) Are there any circumstances, say once in thirty years, when disobedience of orders and deviation from rule lapses from vice to %irtue P (2) Supposing—and I beg pardon for the supposition—an English Lieutenant were ordered to march his platoon through a captured German village, and, in the fashion of the Huns, to bayonet every woman and child whom he met, would he be properly placed on retired pay " for disobedience of orders if he failed to stab a few fugitive women or to •impale a few wailing babies ? (3) Had Guy Fawkes held the position of our present "beloved" Premier, would his private secretary have been justly "placed on retired pay " for revealing to James I. his chief's intention to blow up both Houses of Parliament ? (4) When Colonel, afterwards Lord, Hardinge galloped along the Albuera Ridge with Marshal Beresford's orders to retreat and cover the withdrawal of the British left, supposed to be defeated; when, as he galloped along, he decided that the British Army was not defeated, and, in defiance of orders, he directed the splendid Fusilier Brigade to advance and not to retreat, could Colonel Hardinge have been justly shot or "placed on the retired list" for thus having won the battle of Allmers, ?—I am, Sir, &c.,
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