Is it to he understood that English mihtary surgeons are not entitled to any honorary reward? Lord Panmure does not say so, hut he lets Lord Raglan's shade stand hetwixt him and the angry doctors. The case stands thus: — • After the publication of the recent lists of brevets, promotions, and decorations of the Bath, &c., Dr. Hall, urged thereunto by sundry weighty considerations, addressed an energetic and reasonable letter to Dr. Andrew Smith, animadverting upon, or at least pointing distinctly to, the exclusion of the surgeons of the army from the rewards bestowed with no niggard hand upon their comrades of the Staff and of the regiments. Dr. Smith sent that letter to Lord Panmure, and his Lordship, who has not studied polemical divinity for nothing, and is, moreover, a capital hand at finding out a good official excuse, replied to it, and met the case by a plea of confession and avoidance.
Nothing would his Lordship be more ready, nothing was he more anxious to do, than to recommend deserving medical officers for promotion, but the fact was, that he was in utter ignorance of the deserts of the gentlemen in question, for, on looking to Lord Raglan's despatches, he found that the FieldMarshal had never said a good word for any of that genus or species of man-militant. They could not even boast of the official damnation of a fiiint applause from head-quarters, nor is there much solid pudding to compensate for the want of empty praise from which they have sufl'ered. Although these officers do not wish to be placed mider a system of supervision like that of the French intendance, they feel that such a course would at least relieve them from much responsibility and consequent blame, and that it would secure to them special mention and official recognition of meritorious services or of extraordinary exertion.
In one case, at least, I know for a fact that a General of Division, with many of the oaths which he lavishes in enforcing professions of earnestness and sincerity, declared to the principal medical officer of his division that he had intended to mention him specially to Lord Raglan, for his zeal and devotion after the battle of the Alma, but that he had imfortunately forgotten OUR ARMY SURGEONS. 2oJ to do so in his despatch. However, he would — he would hy, do so at once — write a despatch, and so on. Did he? If he did, Lord llaglan never paid the least attention to it. The wretched jealousies of our system are contagious. The instant a civilian becomes connected with the army he is caught at once, and becomes involved with A, B, or C, who has something or other to do with him.
The military surgeons are jealous of — well, they do not like — the civil sm'geons. The latter think the former assume too many airs, and that they despise the civil element, which is fresher from the hospitals, and knows a great deal more about the theories of the day than besworded and bespurred fogies who swear by Lawrence or Larrey. There is an int^nccine battle of " corps," which is chiefly developed in brisk afiairs of outposts. What man of the Line or Guards is not " down " on the Engineers? What Engineer has recovered the mortal wounds inflicted on him by lazy soldiers who would not work in the trenches? Is not that "' confounded Kaval Brigade, that gets all the praise," an eyesore and a stumbling-block to the ill-used siege train?
Ai-e not the infantry tickled with ironical mirth at the notion that the cavalry have done anything? Are not the cavalry wroth that they should have been turned into di'aymen, porters, and hewers of wood and drawers of water for the infantry dm-ing the winter? The Eoyal Horse Artillery have similar grievances. As to the contests between Commissariat oflBcers and Land Transport officers, if smothered by official forms they blaze below the paper. The defunct navvies waged liorrida hella with the Commissariat department also. The QuartermasterGeneral's department is trying to do as little as it can to comply with the large requests of the Ai'my Works Corps, and the railway interest and the road-making are by no means on the best possible terms. The Ambulance Corps, while it still existed in the body, was savagely tickled up, probed, walked into, reported upon, and attacked by the doctors; and as to the method pursued in higher quarters — we are afraid to reveal the battlefields ■whereon so many of our soldiers perished in times gone by; — " Tantsene animis coelestibus irse?" There is one part of Sir George Brown's speech to which, though of no overwhelming importance, I must in the interest of truth refer.