The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1855-12-25 00:00:00

THE

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TUESDAY, DECEMBER 25, 1855.

FROM OUR LONDON CORRESPONDENT.

MONDAY MORNING.
ON CHRISTMAS-EVE the regal halls of Windsor are once
more radiant with the smiles of royalty. On Friday, HER
MAJESTY and her illustrious Consort, together with most
members of the Royal Pamily, left Osborne at an early hour,
and proceeded with as much expedition as possible, consistently
with safety and comfort, to Windsor Castle, there to celebrate
the festive season of the year, and, as it is understood, to
sojourn for the winter. In the quiet seclusion of her marine
villa, HER MAJESTY has not lost sight of the double benefits
conferred by those graceful acts of courtesy and kindness by
which she has won her way and established herself in the
affections of her people. Conscious that, from her exalted
position, she is the fountain of honour, and deeply sensible
that self-devotion to the public good, and the heroic exercise
of unbought virtue, constitute legitimate claims on national
gratitude, the QUEEN has taken upon herself a kindly recog-
nition of the invaluable services rendered by Miss NIGHTIN-
GALE to our sick and wounded soldiers in the East, Han
MAJESTY has transmitted to Miss FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE
" a jewelled ornament of great beauty, which may be worn sls
a decoration ;" and, with the decoration, has transmitted,
likewise, an autograph letter, such as have on more occasions
than one proceeded from the royal pen—such an effusion,
indeed, as exalts its author as much as it must gratify the
fair recipient of the favour. By such acts of well-considered
grace and courtesy, our SOVEREIGN has on previous occasions
deserved and won general esteem ; but in /16 instance will
such courtesy meet with an acknowledgment at once so
widely-spread and so deeply, as will be the national gratitude
in this dignified recognition of the services rendered by Miss
NIGHTINGALE. As the acts of this last-named lady stand
out in bold relief among the noble deeds which throw a halo
round our-eommosi-humanity, and give a proud pre-eminence
to such dauntless virtue as has braved the terrors of the pest.
house in rendering service to our disabled heroes, so also is
the acknowledgment a fact per se unique and appropriate.
She has been made the unprecedented recipient of a badge of
honour in discharging the duties which beset the path of a
chivalry whose ennobling characteristic is its exalted virtue
and unobtrusive fortitude. Proud, indeed, she may be of the
distinction, and proudly will her country hail its display.
The past week, like its immediate predecessors, has been
fertile in rumours and discussions relative to the probabilities
of peace. Journals, in the interest of the Ministry, maintain
that circumstances have now reached such a crisis, in the con-
test with Russia, as to insure the most favourable prospects of
a speedy termination to the war. Those removed beyond the
reach of ministerial influences are equally positive in their as-
sertion that the prospect of peace is, at present, an exceedingly
remote one. In some of the clubs, it is averred that the peace
prophecy is a ministerial ruse, intended, by some occult pro-
cess, to insure them an amount of popularity which they sorely
need, and which there seems, at present, but little chance of
their-receiving. One on dit among the club habitues is, that
Lord PALMERSTON has been calculating how long the odds are
against his forming a profitable coalition with Lord Jorrx
RUSSELL, and that he finds the little lord backed by such a
following as would make him formidable in spiteful opposition ;
and somewhat useful, if he and his coadjutors could be secured
as aides. The chances, it is said, have been calculated some-
what after the following fashion. If the present peace projects
meet with a favourable reception from the CZAR, Lord JOHN
Will be solicited to join in the formation of a strong govern-
ment on peace principles : if they meet with little countenance
from the Autocrat, then the noble biographer of CHARLES
Janus Fox and TOMMY MOORE will be permitted to
demonstrate that his " post of honour is a private sta-
tion," the right honourable member for Tiverton endea-
vouring to patch up his popularity by an appeal to the coun-
try on a determined anti-Russian war-cry. Those professing
to be well acquainted with the state of matters and of feeling
in Russia, say that the CZAR himself and the aristocracy, as
well as the majority of the Russian people, are decidedly in
favour of peace ; but that the aristocracy of the Court, in
other words the representatives of the factions which assassi-
nated PETER 111. and murdered PAUL, are opposed to peace,
and that the CZAR dares not to go against their wishes. The
pecuniary pressure occasioned in Russia by the exlienses of
the war and the annihilation of commerce, is represented as
oppressive in the highest degree. The imperial Princesses
are reported to have sold their diamonds, and to have con-
tributed the purchase money to the empty coffers of the state.
The great landowners it is well known are reduced to pressing
straits by the withdrawal of so large a portion of the serf
population from the culture of the soil, as has been absorbed
in the requirements of the war, while heavy exactions in men,
money, and commissariat stores still continue to be made I
on them.

Under such circumstances, a retrospective glance tends
considerably to favour the opinion of those who believe that
the CZAR and a majority of the Russian people would wil-
lingly listen to terms of accommodation, one chief objection
to which, in addition to the opposition already referred to, is
the assumption of infallibility by the CZAR, as the vice-gerent
of Heaven, and the accredited interpreter of the divine will
upon earth. Opposed to this pretence there is of course the
loss of prestige sustained in numerous defeats—in the inva-
sion and capture of territory—in the destruction of a stupen-
dous fortress and mighty arsenals—the extermination of the
itinOjan Black Sea fleet—and in the destruction of vast stores

of provisions. To counterbalance all which, there is on the
Russian side only the solitary success at Kars. A success

laid by many individuals of weight, and intelligent on such
subjects, entirely at the door of the British cabinet, by their
remissness in having timely succours forwarded to the
relief of the brave defenders of that fortress. One good

may, however, even arise from the misfortune sustained
in the loss of Kars. The CZAR has pompously declared
that Russia would never make peace after defeat ; and
this semblance of victory may furnish the haughty bar-

barian with a pretext for doing that with the semblance of a

good grace which most thinking men in Europe believe he
has been cudgelled into a sincere desire to accomplish. What

may become of the negotiations which seem really on foot, it

is no easy matter to conjecture ; great suspicion of their value,
however, exists in many quarters, on account of their supposed

origin in Austria. In the peculiar circumstances of the case

in NvNch the Emperor ALEXA.NPER is placed by his antagon•
ists, if he is a prudent monarch, and a free agent, and they
willing to grant him the terms of peace which it is said have
been proposed, he will at once accept them, as infinitely better
than anything he can reasonably hope for from a continuation
of hostilities.

In the meantime the cloud of his destiny seems to be
darkening and closing round him. A treaty has just been
concluded between the Western Powers and the Kingdoms of
ti?.'eaen and Denmark, which must have the effect of greatly
circumscribing the power of Russia in the Baltic. More im-

portant provisions than those published are said to furnish
material for some secret conditions which it is rumoured bind
the Scandinavian Governments to active operations against
Russia in the spring. An important treaty has also been con-
cluded between France and Persia ; but whether the clever
Government of Britain has been sharp enough to effect a
treaty of a similar eharacter with the Court of Ispahan or not,
has not been permitted to transpire beyond the secret pre-
cincts of the Cabinet. While diplomacy is active at home and
abroad, with a view to bring about a peace, preparations for
the next campaign are being carried on with great vigour in
both France and England ; and if, as is rumoured, the Swedes
and Danes are to furnish a hundred thousand men to carry on
hostilities in Finland against Russia, the Baltic campaign of

1856 will, without doubt, be productive of different results
from those of the present and the past years.
In the Crimea our brave soldiers appear to be making the
most of the winter quarters into which they have dropped.
It is pleasant to learn, as one does by the arrival of each suc-
ceeding narrative of events, that the army, if not absolutely
" in clover," as the phrase goes, is in a state of comfort which,
in _comparison with its predicament at this time last year,
savours of Elysian enjoyments. The grog shops, those fruit-
ful sources of evil in the camp, are being rigorously visited by
fine and deportation, as a protection to the non-commissioned
officers and privates ; and the officers have found leisure and
sufficient spirit to get up well-contested steeple-chases, and to
start a jockey club, a happy contrast to the miserable details
of suffering, want, and death which flowed in so heart-rending
and continuous a narrative twelve months ago. The spirits
of the Allied armies in the Crimea are buoyant, and their health
good. Food, clothing, and shelter are plentiful in the British
camp ; and, with these in abundance, the incidental severities
of a Crimean winter form subjects of gay discussion and
amusing comment, instead of grounds of agony and sources of

despair.
Allusion to the Crimean winter brings forcibly before
intelligent and sensitive public the fact that London has been
visited by a frost of intense severity, So great was the degree
of cold that, on Wednesday night, the thermometer at the
Humane Society's receiving-house, in Hyde-park, indicated a
temperature of twenty-three degrees, or nine degrees blow
the freezing point. On Thursday and Friday numerous par-
ties of skaters enjoyed their favourite and invigorating
in pastim
Ken -
e
on the ice in the Regent's-park and the Round pond
sington-gardens. Plenty of tumbles and some immersions
tookplace. An incident occurring at the latter ice occasioned
some anxiety at first, but this afterwards gave place to less
painful emotions. A gentleman, evidently an adept in the