MODERN CHIVALRY RETIRED FROM BUSINESS. READER, we bespeak your sympathy
for the grievous injuries in- flicted on one who until lately was a gallant officer in her Ma- jesty's Brigade of Guards. We ask you to listen for a moment to the sad story of the fate of Lord Adolphus Vane-Tempest, an enter- prising young- nobleman who has been compelled, by the cruelties of wicked and designing men, to quit "the active walks of that profession which he consistently followed for seventeen years," and who, in no. commercial spirit, we are sure, but in the sadness of a heart grieving over the degeneracy of his fellow-men, " sold out," and became a civilian.
The inordinate privileges of Guardsmen were reduced some five years ago, and the favoured corps was placed nearly on a level with the Line., It is true a great number of privileges remained, and nice little staff appointments were still left open to the officers of the Guards. They still started in their military career with a step in front of their brethren of the Line, but the rapidity with which they attained. the. higher ranks was considerably dimi- nished, and it really became possible-for an officer of the Line to obtain a Coloneloy--" that object of ambition. to all officers," the unfortunate Lord Adolphus Vane-Tempest remarks wier se much originality—almost in. as short a time as an officer of. the Guard& It is true they still continued to. enjoy that amesing, amount of "leave of absence" which is one of the oharacteristion of the-institution; something like one-third of the period counted, as service being spent by these hardly-used young gentlemen in the enjorentof those recreations so dear to the British youth. To T Ct Adolphus Vane-Tempest these injuries were more than: he could bear. His chivalrous soul revolted, and he sold out.. _ What else could a modern knight do than sell- out when ha found„ to use his own elegant language, " the position of being an offwer in her Majesty's Guards, instead of being, one of advantage awls one of comparative superiority, as it used to be to the other. branches of the service, was one that,, by succumbing to the at- tacks of people who wrote against that service, was put in an in- feriority, as I considered, to the other branches of the service, and in an inferior position to that which I expected when I entered; the service." Who is there that will not shed a tear of commi- seration over the fate of the hapless young man who had been, cheated out of a position of. " comparative superiority" by the weakness of those who succumbed to " the attacks of people who" wrote against " the privileges of the Guards, and thus "put ire an teriority " and, " an inferior position ? " Think how' dren.iful to a calculating military enthusiast. was the prospect of no:...inaRy serving nearly as long for a Coloneloy as one of those interior persons who• officer her Majesty's regiments of the Line, do• duty in the Colonies and. in India, march about from place to place when at home, and who are never quartered next door to the Court, the Parliament, the Horse Guards, and the Opera.. How' frightful to find, after seventeen years' service (one third spent on leave), that seven more years intervene between you and a Coloneley ! Why, in 1854 twenty-seven officers of. the Guards were made Colonels after serving on an average only twenty-two years, three months, and eight clays; while at that day 284 Lines- men made Colonels, had each servedt on an average, not leas than thirty-one years, two months, and fifteen days. Nay, did not. a Guardsman gain the rank of Colonel after a service of fourteen years and five months ; and while a Linesman. had, in 1857, to serve on an average twenty-seven years, six months,. and eleven, days, your Guardsman got his. Colonelcy after a service- of nine- teen years, four months, and four days, from which one-third must be deducted. for leave of absence. How unjust to augment the number of years of service in the Guards and place similar ob- stacles between them and the object of their ambition which had been long placed in the path of the Linesmen, and thus compel a. high-minded soldier, like Lord Adolphus Vane-Tempest,, to quiff the service of his Queen and' country ! But there is a saving clause in the confessions of this candid victim of monstrous oppression. One of his chief reasons for re- tiring, as he told his mother's tenants,was this horrible levelling of the Guards. But there was another. It was this—that other duties prevented him from giving that time and paying. that at- tention to his military duties which, on his own admission' they required. Surely a sufficient reason, my much-put-upon Lord But, if there had been no warrant. of 1854, are we to infer that you would have remained in her Majesty's service and_ taken pay i and honour without giving service n return. We will not do you the injustice to suppose so. Still it is questionable whether Guardsmen, or any other soldiers on active service, should take upon themselves political duties, if it be true that they must either neglect the regiment or St. Stephens.
The real reason of the retirement of Lord Adolphus Vane- Tempest is no doubt that to which he gives such prominence in his confidential speech at Carnlough. An instalment of justice has been done to the Line, and' it has proved too much for the young gentleman. He has quitted a. service no longer so unfairly petted as it was, though still petted far too much, at the expense of the Line. Mang officers may have sold out for the same rea-
sons as those advanced by Lord Adolphus; he is the first to bear public testimony to the fact—the first to confess before all the world that he has given up the Queen's Commission because the personal advantages which he hoped' to obtain. by the bargain —advantages obtained, mind-, at the expense of others—would not be so great as he expected when he entered the service ! The motto adopted by a Prince of Wales who was a. soldier was, with- out any qualification, " dien." But modern chivalry bargains for advantages at the expense of others, throws up. its sword, or keeps it and talks something, like mutiny, if the Sovereign revokes privileges conferred in period's of corruption, and' makes ever so small an approach towards the placing of all her dicers on a footing of conventional eq,uality, so that desert may have fair guerdon, and the real soldier the chance of a career. We say " approach," because the Guards still have privileges which are incompatible with fairness to the Line,, injurious to the efficiency of the whole Army, and likely to prove fatal' in time of war.
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