5 AUGUST 1854, Page 13

NEGLECT OF DISCIPLINE IN THE ARMY.

GREEDY as the public is of information respecting the condition and movements of the Army, it happens, unfortunately, that there is very scanty information, excepting a kind that is the least credit- able to our system of military management. We want to know where our Army in the East is posted, what it is doing, and how it is circumstanced; and we receive such despatches as the "me- morandum" addressed by Lord Raglan to the officers of the Army, lecturing, them' onthe style of buttoning their coats and on their deviations from the regulation-tostume. "There is an absence of what is befitting the appearance of an officer in the whole person," writes the Commander of the Forces ; and his zeal for his subject leads him into details which it must have been humiliating to in- dite. "The thell-jacket is allowed to fly open, shoWing not only," he says—and we: can imagine a. blush at the reference to the sub-. ject—"a red flannel- shirt With nothing around the neck, not even," pathetically -adds the Commander • of the Forces; " a•white shirt- coupe." One man wears ti turban around his foraging-eap, another is unbuttoned :to a degree that transforms the whole aspect of his meanie, a third has chin unshaven--mot, we - presume, with the fidl-giown 'Oriental beard, but. rather with. theiSaturday..night's aspect, Ahab must look hideous enough in the••eyes of the.. Com- manderof the:laces. These enormities are the more reprehen- sible since thisCommander the-Forces is evidently lenient even while' exercising wholesome authority.. In this 'very:lecture to the officers,. " the..Commander of the Forces does not-insist that their jackets' .should alwaya be buttoned from the :bottoni to the top." A certain :amount of unbuttoning is petenisSible,ebut he wishes them to draw the lino sometvhere,—for• it appears, the officers disregard that noievintilly neknowledgeeduty of- drawing the line. The'British ArmylsOonverted into is free-and-easy club. It is impossible to avoid laughing at the solemn treatment of these trifles ;' but when a :general disregard of a.mild: discipline calls for each solemn treatment, it indicates something worse; than a mere disregard of-regulations in uniform. it might eltilost • be feared that NIA Raglan's 'Officers are "out of hand." It seems ridiculous to be.under the neeessityof issuing very minuteinstruc-• tions to officersus to the kinintint of inehesthat theeilmay shave oie not shave, and asi to-the battening or unbuttoning thafthey may be permitted in the courie of the flay.;. but the faei that 'officers ilte not anticipate sueliamall. Wishes—that they are net. willing to undergo little Saorifices of personal comfort lorethe leake -of pre.: serving a-uniform appearance .tei the regiinemt; and Of setting an example to the, men who are forced to undergo a stricter con- struction of gnaw rules--4peak8 ill for the diecipline of -the Army: The doubts suggested by the trifles: from the 'East ,receive 'an ugly confirmation from such. disclostiries as those .43kawn forth in the three courts-inertial' in whieh LieutenantPerey.has 'figured.' The Forty-sixth Regiment was recentlyathouree it 7a:3i-0W in the East; its manners -and customs . are not 'alleged tole:worse than others in the Army... We. have, therefore,. it Apeeimen of -military life as it is at home and abroad. No*, we- de not accept "'the case'? of Mr. Perry Without some genius 'of allowance. We doubt whether the young man was so 'well suited to a comminsienin a re- giment as to natool in an attorney's offiee. But the 'circumstances to which eveallude..do:nOt depend upon, his statement. We refer. to theevidence of-golonel Garrett and of Major Maxwell; from which we gather—ethat; an officer may be pulled Out of' his bed at night; that another officer may be -pulkd-out of his bed '; that there D.3!gri*.-aimdden "ruhh- of 'youngsters," one of , them in an un- seemly condition of- undress, almost into • the robin where 'Colonel Garrett he playing at Whist that -complaints Of these and other irregularities may be made to the Coloneleommanding, and that be will net recollect them ; that when " the youngsters are making a rush into his room, his hack being turned helloes not happen to see them; that' on more then one- occasion hereceives complaints in such. a spirit, and answers* them in such a manner, that he is afterwards. "unable to remember." We 'find the Major half-re- buking half-coaxing the youngsters back again to bed and doing his best to prevent the Colonel, busy' with his game of whist, from being obliged to. know' thatanything so improper is 'going on. In short, we find a regiment of naughty bOys and spoilt children as little under control as if the fieldeofficers were old ladies.

These "youngsters were officers bearing the queen's commis- sion; soldiers ire expected to obey them,: under thepenalties dic- tated by martial law—they are expected to obey them during peace and to follow them in battle. But we ask, how is it possible that the soldiers can feel towards the youngsters that respect which the youngsters fail to show either for Colonel or for Major ? Are Other regiments in this condition ? Do the more distinguished offi- cers, who present a Saturday night's chin to the Commander of the Forces in Turkey, and who tacitly mutiny against his wishes with regard to the buttoning and unbuttoning, remember, that when once the principle of strict obedience has been broken through, it is difficult to draw any logical line between the disobedience of an order upon the subject of a jacket, these boyish and indecent prac-

eal jokes in quarters, and the mutiny of an entire regiment? The public have indeed a right to ask how far this military dis- ease extends in her Majesty's forces. We suspect that much of this minor indiscipline is, not unna- turally, the effect of too much life at home during the peace. Officers have fallen into unsoldierly habits, both with regard to neglect of discipline and neglect of costume. They have been haunted by a certain vulgar dread of an ordinary vulgarity. Be- cause upstarts take a pride in military uniform, men of better i

position have learned a vulgar coyness n the wearing of a red coat. They are like those, not the most refined or proud of per- sons, who dread lest they should be called "genteel," and trouble at the suspicion of belonging to " the silver fork school." A true soldier, like a true gentleman, is as much above the suspicion of vulgarity as he is above vulgarity itself; and he will be proud to wear a uniform which is decorated by the glorious memories of the service, although an upstart may .also be proud of it for meaner reasons. But whether proud or not, be- wear it, if by so doing he assists in preserving that uniform ity of type which con- duces to unity of feeling in a corps of soldiers, and to that obedience in trifles which preserves amongst the men obedience in higher matters. There has been too much indulgence, too much encou- ragement almost, for the practice of going about in " mufti " even in places where soldiers may virtually be said to be always on duty. But it is to be hoped that in time of actual war this doubtful if not effeminate practice will be more generally discon- tinued.