The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1856-02-05 00:00:00

THE WAR.

Fitom Sebastopol and its immediate neighbourhood intel-
ligence has been received from the correspondents of the
London morning journals, up to the 19th ult. The events
narrated in that intelligence relate more to the peaceful
operations of the troops, and the preparations for coming
conflict, than the circumstances of actual warfare. These
letters also communicate the gratifying information that the
health of the troops continues good. Descriptions of the
means adopted by the officers and men of the various divisions
for keeping up the spirits of each other, by theatrical and
other amusements, occupy a considerable portion of these
letters, and, by the liveliness of their narrative and commen-
taries, convey a pleasing idea of the comparative ease and
comfort which pervade the camp as contrasted with the

harrowing details of little more than twelve months ago.
Amid these narratives of hilarity and pictures of enjoy-
ment, are mingled also some, of a forbidding aspect. From
time to time we read of punishments, some of them of great
severity, inflicted for breaches of discipline, in most cases the
results of intemperance. The correspondent of the Morning
Herald, who professes himself an opponent of " flogging,",
writing on the 11th of January, gives a very graphic account
of the flogging of a private in the 14th Regiment, the first
English soldier who has as yet been subjected to the degra-
dation of the lash. The punishment inflicted was fifty lashes;
and the crime arose out of a drunken fray in which the pri4
soner, Murray, although acting very foolishly, was seemingly
more sinned against than sinning. He is represented as
having borne the physical portion of the punishment with
great fortitude, but as having manifested much mental
suffering from the degradation to which be was subjected.
In the same communication, there is a copy of a " General
Order" severely censuring the conduct of Lieutenant Saunders,
of the Ist Battalion Rifle Brigade, for breaking through a
sentry's orders. Being in command of a fatigue party of his
regiment, Lieutenant Saunders forced two posts of the main
guard of the Karabelnaia, passed his party into reserved
stores, which, with the building containing them, were greatly
damaged.
Writing on the 12th of January, from the camp before
Sebastopol, the corresponaent of the Daily News writes con-
cerning the
EXPLOSION OF DOCKS AT SEBASTOPOL.
The engineers and Mr. Deane were not completely ready to
blow up the east pier of the English portion of the docks till a
quarter-past four on the afternoon of Tuesday, although noon
had been given out as the hour of the explosion. By the for-
mer hour, although it was raining and blowing pretty fresh, a
larger number of officers had collected together inside the
dockyard wall than perhaps at any one time before. After a
few minutes' delay, in which time it became generally known
that twenty-five charges of nearly 400 lbs. each—say 10,000 lbs.
of powder—were to be fired, the notice was given to Mr. Deane
by one, two, three, to explode at the last figure being hal-
looed out, there was a breathless anxiety, but nothing followed.
Again one, two, three was cried out, but, to the amuse-
ment of some, and the annoyance of more present, silence still
prevailed. At last Mr. Deane himself appeared through the
dockyard gate, from the outside of the high stone wall where his
voltaic batteries were placed, and, on being interrogated, he
stated that the connexions must be broken or out of order
somewhere, and that if the discrepancy could not be immediately
found out, the explosion would not take place that night. By
this time it was getting dark, and, as there appeared no chance
of the cause of failure being quickly found out, everybody left,
each finding his way back to camp head-quarters in the best
manner he could. Next day it was discovered that the platina
wires had got disarranged during the tamping, and that Mr.
Deane had been too much hurried at the last. But still matters
were mended sufficiently by half-past four on the same after-
noon to allow of nine of the charges being fired—eight of which
went off. Nothing can exceed the obstacles with which our
engineers have had to contend in the way of water, still, as
yet, they have been tolerably successful. The French have not
yet commenced to work at their keep or lock, oorresponding to
our centre dock, in consequence of the depth of water in it.
Since the last thaw, our west dock has got nine inches of water
in it, and many of the shafts, after sinking twenty feet, present
great obstacles through the same cause.
The same correspondent, under date of the 16th, gives the
following illustrations of the
DANGER FROM RUSSIAN RIFLEMEN.
A few days ago a French officer, wandering too near the
Tchernaya river, in pursuit of game, was shot dead by a Rus-
sian sharpshooter. Two English officers, who had managed
to get in front of the French sentries in the same valley, had
a narrow escape of a similar fate the day before yesterday.
They were wandering on, and had got some diatance in ad-
vance towards the position of the Russian sentries. A French
sentry, who had called in vain, at last hit upon the expedient
of discharging his musket, to attract their attention, and fired
over their heads. This roused them quickly enough, and, on
looking around, they discovered a group of three or four Rus-
sians, partly concealed, and apparently awaiting their nearer
approach, among some rushes at the opposite edge of the river.
They at once turned back towards the French lines, and re-
gained them, not without some risk, for the Russian shots
grooved up the ground about them near enough to prove the
necessity of the sentry's warning. The Russian sharpshooters
line the whole length of the Tchernaya on the north side, and
omit no opportunity of firing a shot at a casual straggler.
About the middle of January the weather was changeable,
and the temperature exceedingly variable, rain and snow suc-
ceeding bright sunshine, and intense frost following a degree
of heat somewhat approximating to summer temperature,
with a rapidity which is both perplexing and annoying. The
Times' correspondent writes, in reference to the
HOSPITALITIES OF THE CHRISTMAS
SEASON:
Christmas festivities are now pretty well at an end in the
camp before Sebastopol. Dinner parties, lately very frequent,
are now comparatively rare; in many cases, from the exhaus-
tion of supplies. Good though the rations be, it is beyond
the genius of our Crimean Vatals to concoct for them a ban-
quet to which it would be agreeable to invite a party of friends.
Hospitality waits the arrival of ships. " I want you to come
and dine with me," one hears a man say, " but I have nothing
left to eat, and must wait till the Tartar arrives at Balaklava,"
the said Tartar being a ship shortly expected,laden with eatables
and drinkables. The rapidity with which everything of the kind
is snapped up on arrival is something wonderful; and unless
one has an agent on the look-out at Balaklava, one risks find-
ing an empty hold. Transports arriving from Constantinople
are boarded and taken by storm, and pursers and masters
must make very decent profits by the sale of butter, cheese,
jams, wines, brandy, and other articles. For their live stock
they might obtain any prices, but they seldom can be induced
to part with it. I heard of hungry warriors, on New Year's-
eve, offering guineas for geese, and offering in vain. Poultry
of all kinds is very scarce here at present, the cold having
played havoc in our pens. Moreover, I grieve to say that the
morality of the camp is not rigid it:be article of fowls; and
the lamentations of ill-used small proprietors, whose chickens
have vanished in the night, and whose ducks have departed
—perhaps in search of water—are frequent and piteous to
listen to.
While festive and other hospitalities have been pursued
with considerable assiduity—notwithstanding the difficulties
by which they have been beset and surrounded—more serious
and important matters have not been neglected. The corres-
pondent of the Daily News, under date of the 19th January,
writes as follows on the
PREPARATIONS AND TRAINING FOR THE
SPRING CAMPAIGN :
The leisure and opportunity which were wholly wanting
last winter, on account of the unceasing duties in the trenches
and sickly condition of the troops, are now being converted to
the best uses for fitting the army for active operations in the
next campaign. The younger soldiers are actively trained,
and their older associates, by frequent parades and inspections,
kept in the most efficient condition. The regiments are fre-
quently drilled, and march out at regular intervals by brigades;
so that not only the men themselves are exercised, but the
generals and staff are practised also in the handling of bodies
of troops and their various duties. It is impossible
to observe the men on the march and not view with
pleasure their elastic tread, vigorous frames, and the general
appearance of health which characterises them. It may also be
noticed how frequently in general orders occur the appoint-
ments of instructors of musketry. The fact is that the whole
army is going through a regular course of target practice.
Detachments from every regiment are daily engaged in this
exercise. The new system of instruction in the use of the
rifled musket, as taught at the Government School of Mus-
ketry at Hythe, is strictly carried out; and thus, before the
winter terminates, the men of the whole army will be fully
trained in one uniform method of using their firearms. Many
causes concurred to prevent this obviously desirable result
from being carried out before, and many were the evils which
were experienced in consequence during the past campaign
and siege operations. Each brigade has now one, and some
brigades two, qualified instructors of musketry, under whom
numerous regimental officers and non-commissioned officers,
who have been qualified by previous training in England,
give the necessary instructions to the men. Colonel Clark
Kennedy, who formerly held an appointment at the school at
Hythe, and who now occupies a situation on the Adjutant-
General's Department of this army, superintends the whole.
Orders have • been given, and measures are being taken, to
ensure that every officer and department are complete in the
necessary equipment for the field. The Land Transport
Corps is reported to be fast regaining its efficiency, under the
active surveillance of Colonel Wetherall, who is acting as
Director-General, in the absence of Colonel M`Murdo. Thus
the prospects of the British forces, so far as the army in the
Crimea is concerned, being found in an effective condition at
the ensuing spring, are now on all sides exceedingly favourable.