A memorandum has issued from the Horse Guards, announcing the
system upon which regiments of infantry will be formed into service and depot companies, on a plan which we have already explained,—the eight service-companies with a strength of one hundred each ; the four depot-companies with a strength of fifty each. But the note also goes into several particulars touching improvements—in the arrangements of barracks, in the distribu- tion of duties, in the appointment of officers, in the method of drill, exercises, bookkeeping, &c. The most important point is the warning that officers of all ranks, and at all posts, will be estimat- ed according to their efficiency and zeal in the discharge of their duties ; " regimental peculiarities " will be checked, and officers who are unequal to their post, either from natural deficiency or want of moral courage, will be replaced. A vigorous act of immediate reform has been accomplished in the dismissal of Cornet Lord Ernest Vane Tempest and Cornet Birt from the Army, for their gross misconduct towards Cornet Ames, and other outrages against discipline as officers of the Fourth Light Dragoons. Some question has been raised, whether it was consistent with regularity, or with justice, to dismiss the two officers without a court-martial ? We do not understand that they have been cashiered, but simply that their commissions have been taken away from them ; and unquestionably it is with- in the power of the Crown to retract its commission. The prac- tical reason for that course is understood to have been, the desire to avoid disgusting disclosures which would have been rendered necessary in the public proceedings of a court-martial, and which would have had no effect except to outrage public feeling. The misconduct of the two officers was too clear to admit of a mo- ment's doubt ; and the course taken not only saves needless and mischievous disclosures, but it is even lenient towards the delin- quents. If officers discover that they are under a somewhat arbitrary rule, they may remember that it is their pride not to be under the same laws which govern civilians.
