The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1855-12-18 00:00:00

CAMP ON THE TCHERNAYA.

A correspondent of the Times, writing on the 26th ultd;
from the Allies on the Tchernaya, says :

For the last two days, especially on Sunday, we had for
the first time something approaching to last year's Novem-
ber weather—strong south-westerley winds, low heavy banks
of clouds, sharp showers of rain, and real Crimean mud. But
this avant-garde of winter, so formidable last year, has
ceased to inspire fear and apprehension, especially as regards
this part of our position. All the Highlanders are in huts ;
so are the Piedmontese and the French, at Baidar. The
French on the Fedukhine heights are indeeed still under can-
vas, but not under the tenter d'arbri. They have got a
grear number of Turkish double tents, which, if properly
stretched, are water-tight, while the poles, made of one solid
piece of wood, resist any wind, as was proved`last year in the
gale of the 14th of November. Even these tents, however,
are gradually disappearing. As it is, more than three-fourths
of the allied armies on this side are in comfortable shelter,
whence they can brave storm and rain. There is no want of
provisions either. The Highland division has not, in this
respect, been behind the other English divisions on the plateau
of Sebastopol, as every one can see from far when he reaches
the Church of Kamara, now a Piedmontese magazine.
Pyramids of biscuit sacks, rows of barrels with salt meat and
rum, piles of corn and hay, are striking evidences of the fore-
sight and diligence exhibited in collecting ample stores for
winter, especially as the brushwood abounding all around
dispenses with the transport of that important item—fuel.
The Sardinians and the French, not including those at
Baidar, have not thought it necessary to form large stores ;
they send to their depots at Balaklava and Kakiloi.

TELEGRAPHIC DESPATCHES.

BERLIN, Dee. 12.

Yesterday the house of Mendelssohn here opened subscrip-
tions for a new Russian Five-per-Cent. Loan, at 86, with but

little success.

The Moniteur of Thursday announces that the Minister of
War has received the following telegraphic despatch from
Marshal Pelissier

SEBASTOPOL, Dec. 8, 1 p.m.
I have received the following despatch from the general in
command of the Ist Division of the Ist Corps :
A body of from 2,000 to 3,000 infantry, and about 400 or.
500 horse, at daybreak this morning attacked Baga, Onrkusta,
Skvaka.

The enemy beat a retreat after a sharp fusillade, which
lasted for an hour and a half.

Some 30 prisoners were left in our hands, two of whom were
officers.
I am not aware of the number of killed and wounded.
Oar loss is insignificant.

KARS.—The Fremden Blatt has a letter from a British officer
at Kars, dated Nov. 11, informing us that the state of the be-
sieged garrisom was hopeless. They had offered to surrender,
if permitted to retreat to Erzeroum, but these terms were re-
fused by General Mouravieff. On the 10th the garrison made
a sortie, but were repulsed. The city and its environs were
covered with a bed of snow more than six feet deep, and
which, without considering the enemy, would be sufficient to
prevent all attempts to revictual it.

WITH regard to the rumours of peace, the Paris corres-
pondent of the Morning Post writes thus :—The best in-
formation in my possession at the present moment, as to the
peace question, is this :—Russia has not officially commissioned,
or countenanced, any propositions. Austrian diplomacy has
made suggestions, which have been submitted' to Paris and
London. The Cabinets of France and England have re-
quested that the said propositions for peace should be stated
more clearly, and that they should also be fully sanctioned by
Russia, before any attempt is made at negotiation, At this
stage of the affair, Austria is supposed to have communicated
with St. Petersburg, and so matters remain. . . . Russia
is making immense preparations for the spring campaign.
The Allies are doing.the same. The Governments of France
and England are perfectly agreed. Such is the data on which
the public may really, speculate (with the probability of arriv-
ing at correct conclusions), if they care not to be deceived by
the exaggerated importance which is given -to the most
shadowy hopes of peace.
THE PEACE NEGOTIATIONS.—The public must look with
anxiety for information on the important subject which is
now occupying the attention of the chief Cabinets of Europe,
but we must candidly confess that we have none to communi-
cate. The speculations in our journals are entitled to very
little credit. They are either unauthorized, or are intended to
mislead by disguising the real points at issue, and the nature
of the pacific proposals which are under discussion. The pro-
gramme put forward in some Ministerial prints resembles the
display made in front of a show at a country fair. All the
swagger and grimace are outside. The whole art is to entice
the innocent spectators to enter the booth ; they are to be
attracted first that they may be cheated afterwards. For our
own part, we have no wish to affect a knowledge of secrets we
do not possess. We can reason only from probabilities' which
are open to all. Facts are the best guide to judgment. It is
now six weeks since proposals of peace were forwarded by the
Emperor of the French to our Cabinet; during that interval
there has been constant communication between the two
Governments and with the Court of Vienna. Two Cabinet
Councils have been held at our Foreign-office this week; and we
have no reason to doubt that the negotiation is advancing in
a satisfactory manner towards the settlement of a basis of
peace. The time that it has already lasted is a presumption
that no insuperable difficulties have yet been encountered.—
The Press.

GERMAN RECRUITS FOR RUSSIA.—We read in the Pays :
" Several Germans have been recently serving as amateurs
with the Russians in the Crimea. Two of them have just
arrived at Berlin, where they at once became objects of great
curiosity. One of them has just come from Simpheropol, and
the other from Kars, which place he quitted the day after the
unsuccessful assault, and crossed the w hole of Circassia. About
the middle of October the state of things at Simplaeropol was
pretty tolerable. The troops were naturally a little discou-
raged by such a long series of defeats, but there was no want
of provisions, and Imperial recompenses were lavishly distri-
buted. It is believed there that 140,000 Russians perished
during the siege of Sebastopol, and that 30,000 ' have been
crippled for life. The best officers have disappeared, and have
been replaced by young men, not less brave, but very inexpe-
rienced. Sebastopol is about to be declared a holy city. The
soldiers who have left it have almost all of them in their knap-
sacks a bit of wood, a stone, or the splinter of a shell, coming
from the.sanctuary,' as Sebastopol is now called in Russia,
which they send as precious relics to their families."

FRIGHTFUL GUNPOWDER

EXPLOSION.

A frightful catastrophe occurred on Friday at Coseley, near
Sedgley, in South Staffordshire, which has already occasioned
the death of four persons, and injured several others, some of
whom are not expected to recover, in addition to destroying a
considerable amount of property.
It is customary in the mining districts of Staffordshire for
the overseers of pits, either of iron, stone, or coal, and who are
technically called " butties," to keep in their possession large
quantities of blasting gunpowder, which is not unfrequently
kept in places far from secure. _

The immediate scene of the disaster was a block of three
small houses, belonging to Mr. John Cotterill, and situated
at the Coppice, on the road from Sedgley to the Deepfields
Station, on the Stour Talley branch of the London and North-
Western Railway. These houses were occupied respectively
by an old widow, named Elizabeth Jackson, and her daughter ;
by David Millard, a butty collier, in the service of Mr. H. B.
Whitehouse, with a wife and four children ; and by John
Caddick, a bricklayer, his wife and mother.
On Friday morning, David Millard, who occupied the middle
house, went to work at a colliery at Priorfields, and was pre-
ceded by two of his brothers-in-law and a son, aged 12,
named Joseph. After they had been at work about two hours,
a boy of nine years, named Thomas Lear, and who worked for
David Millard, was sent back to the house of the latter to
-procure a quantity of gunpowder from a stock that was kept
in the cellar. The gunpowder was given to the boy by
Millard's wife (since dead), and a second lad, named Samuel
Millard, was afterwards despatched from the pit to fetch horse
corn. He, in order to warm himself, went into his father's
house, but in a few minutes there occurred a tremendous ex-
plosion, which blew up the three houses described, with all
their inhabitants.

Hitherto, however, death has occurred in only the centre
house, which was the immediate site of the explosion ; and
here no fewer than four persons were killed in an instant.
The deceased .are :—Jane Millard, the wife of David, and the
mother of the other deceased, aged 32 ; Samuel Millard, aged
9; Absalom Millard, aged 11 months; and Hannah Millard,
aged 7 years. Two children in the same house were injured :
David Millard, aged 3 years, who is hurt about the head and
loins, but is expected to recover;, and Fanny Allen, the nurse
of the infant Absalom, aged 10 years. This girl has sustained
such severe injuries to the head that no reasonable expectations
are entertained of her recovery. In the first of the three
houses, Elizabeth Jackson, aged 22, the daughter of the tenant,
is injured in both legs, In the third house, the wife of John
Caddick is injured only slightly ; but Hannah Stevens, his
mother, who lived with them, is seriously injured about the
head.

Three surgeons were speedily in attendance, and the
melancholy tidings were conveyed to David Millard, who was
engaged in the pit. Upon reaching the spot,' the first thing
that among the shattered ruins of his dwelling attracted him
was one of the lower limbs of his wife, crushed against the
place where the window had stood, and where she appeared to
have been standing to prepare breakfast. The other parts of
her body were buried beneath the rubbish, and life had for
some time fled from the now shattered. corpse. The father of
David Millard, and the grandfather of the children, was look-
ing about among the ruins when he heard his grandson
David call out from beneath a portion, with a faint voice,
" Oh, grand-dad, do pull me out !" The poor little fellow,
who was lying near the lower step of the stairs, was ex-
tricated, and is expected to survive. Upon further search
the dead body of the girl Hannah was found, also by her
grandfather. Samuel Millard, the boy who was sent for the
corn, was found dead in the cellar, and the infant was lying a
corpse in the arms of the girl Allen.
A fourth house is considerably, injured; but the three
destroyed are now level with the ground.

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