The Press.
London, England, 1856-10-11 00:00:00

,THE PRESS.

All this was " great fun," and was done very good humour-
edly. Those who were charmed with the ball ►ere de-
lighted with the supper, and those who did not dance made
up for their deprivation of its pleasures by the serious en•
joyment of the good things before them.—lb.

- -
The invitations sent by Lord Granville on this oc-
casion were in the ordinary form. France in this
surpassel us :
The invitations sent out by M. de Morny have been con-
sidered very neat in form and style. The English Ambas-
sador and the Austrian Ambassador merely invited the
guest to come and pass the evening with them, without
saying a word of the good company he was to meet. But
see how plain John Bull and his cousin of Austria are
shamed by this elegant phrase in the =oath of the Ambas•
sailor of France :

Sa Majeste rEmpereur et ea Majeste l'lmperatriee ayant Bien
voulu consentir i honorer de leur presence un bet offert par
l'Ambassad eur de France le 28 (it) Septembre, le Comte de
Morny prie Monsieur de lui faire I'honneur d'y assieter.—lb.

A grand chasse was given in the week to the diplo-
plomatic corps and court. If it were remarkable for
anything, it was for the strcng infusion of the mili
tary element. The ground was kept by Cossacks,
every one was in uniform, and the foxes, fat and
scant of breath, yielded up life and brush without
effort at escape. Verily fox-hunting in Russia must
be dull work :

The meet was near an old ruined palace which was built
by the Empress Catherine, and was formerly surrounded
by a deer park, but the place has been much neglected of
late years, and is now in rather a dilapidated state. The
Emperor was to be on horseback at ten, and before that
hour the sportsmen arrived in great numbers. Lord
Granville's barouche, in which ho drove four English
horses himself, was a great contrast to the other carriages,
which were most of them drawn by post horses, harnessed
in the Russian fashion, kilr abreast, and driven by a mujik
in a sheepskin coat. The English Embassy mustered
very strong, and were most of them mounted on their own
horses, brought from England. There were only five
ladies out, four of whom were English—Ladies E. Peel,
Stafford, Margaret L. Gower, and Atlesbury ; the fifth was
a Princess Rariatinsky, a very pretty woman. The Em-
peror arrived about half past ten, in a plain caleche with
four horses. His two sons were with him, and the Grand
Dukes Nicholas and Michael followed. There were all in
military costume, the Emperor in a hussar uniform. His
Majesty got on his horse, a small grey Arab, and rode off
immediately to cover, followed by the field, about 200 in
number. After riding a mile and a half through some very
muddy lanes we came to the scene of action, where the
sport commenced by some coursing. Ham, however,
were not very plentiful in the open, and they proceeded to
draw the covers with a pack of harriers. The hounds
were a set of queer-looking little dogs, which would hardly
have passed muster in Leicestershire, but to make up for
their deficiencies they were accompanied by ten splendid
piqueurs dressed in gorgeous red liveries and mounted on
little Cossack horses. These individuals were provided
with long horns, on which they constantly played, and
when the dogs were running they rode wildly among them,
cracking their whips and shouting. The covers were
small plantations of brushwood, and the mode of proceed.
ing was as follows :—The ten piqueurs took the hounds
into the cover, other piqueurs being stationed outside with
greyhounds, which they let slip upon any unfortunate
animal that looked out of the cover. In this way a great
many hares and plump little foxes, who looked as if their
early lives had been spent in some comfortable hutch, and
did not seem at all used to the amusement, were disposed
cf. Two wolves were reserved for the finale, and were held
down by dogs to have their throats cut.—D. News cor.
At Count Morny's state ball on the 28th ult., the
most remarkable group present was that of the
Princess Dalian, with her son and Circassian at-
tendants:—

They are certainly the finest and most stately men I
have ever seen, although for all purposes of civilised life
they must be considered as little qualified. Their dress
rather conceals than displays the proportions of their figures,
which aro faultless. They are all over six feet in height ;
their hair, which is rather coarse, hanging down over the
neck and low nn the forehead,gives them the appearance of
Indians, but the handsome well-formed features show that
they belong to a higher race. Their heads and necks are
well set on their shoulders, which are remarkably broad
and athletic. He (for one will do for all) is dressed in a
kind of frock of white satin, trimmed with gold lace, con-
fined at the waist by a silver belt studded with precious
stones, from which hangs a curved sword, the handle with-
out a guard, and a long pistol, silver bound, which is thrust
into the girdle at the back. Across the cheat there is a row
of gold and silver flutings, into which are inserted cart-
ridges. The frock comes down nearly to the ankles, and
permits a pair of tight greave like trousers, trimmed with
gold lace, and gathered in folds over the shoe, to be seen.
The shoes are of strange cut and manufacture, and are so
ridiculously small as to suggest a suspicion of Chinese
practices in early life ; but the ease with which the men
walk is enough to prove it is groundless. These wild
fellows stalk through the crowd as if they had been accus-
tonied to ball-rooms all tne.ir lives, and they display a most
fashionable anxiety with respect to the very important sub-
ject of supper.—Times cor.

Something put the little King of Mingrelia out of
temper, and he made a scene :

The boy is about nine years of age, but it was perfectly
astounding to witness the precocity of his anger; he
stamped his tiny feet, and clapped his hand on his side as
it to draw his little sword, and his eyes flashed fire—in
fact he presented such an exhibition as would have imme-
diately called up associations of birch•brooms in the minds
of the most humane of masters, and visions of the more

SATURDAY,

gloomy portions of the paternal mansion and bread and
cold water diet in strong-minded mothers. His mother,
poor lady, was quite distressed. She would no doubt ha' e
given him every diamond on her head at that moment to
appease the royal rage. In the middle of it all one of the
big men sees something is wrong, and makes his way to
the prince; as if by some secret sympathy two or three
more of them are beheld hastening from distant quarters
of the house. They soothe him, bending before him with
the utmost reverence; they bow and smile, and speak de-
precatingly to the urchin King, and at last his Majesty
Iloks up at the biggest of them, relaxes his brow, laugh!,
gives his hand to his mother, and sits down beside her to
lock at the dancing.—M.

Russian "cheers," and their notion that the
bayonet is the national weapon, are thus alluded to
by the corresoondent :
The cheering of the people and of the soldiers was load
and enthusiastic, in spite of the weather. " Cheer*" is
not the proper term. It is rather the simultaneous utter-
ance of a shout of " God preserve the Czar " in a high
tone, and finished sharply and abruptly. To some who
were there, the sound might have recalled the cry which
two years Ego they heard on the banks of the Alma, when
some of the 3.2nd Regiment issued out of their intrencl.-
ments and charged with the bayonet—of whoa], by the bye,
few ever got back. I have observed—par parenthise be it
said—that there is a sort of national vanity common to all
nations respecting the use of the bayonet. We talk of tin t
weapon as our peculiar arm—the British bayonet, as it is
called, is supposed to have virtues no enemy can resist.
Well. the French officers talk in just the same way ; they
are always speaking of the weapon as the great engine of
their infantry, and of their driving the enemy before them
a la fourchelle. Whether the Austrians have the coolness
to speak in that fashion I cannot affirm. I rather think
the Prussians do indulge in reminiscences of old Frita's
bayonet practice. I know that the Russians esteem it as
a national arm, and are rich in recollections of victories
achieved by its use. They speak of an attack with the
bayonet as being one po Malicia (in the Russian fashion),
and it pleases them to think, even yet, thatif their columns
had not been cut up, as they aver they were, from a distance
by an army armed with rifles, they would have driven the
allies across the Alma with the bayonet. Their formation
of attack is intended, they say, to give that weapon its
greatest potency. " Confound those rifles and long-range
arms," say they. " Our superiority in war, founded on
the bayonet, will depart from us. We were battered, not
beaten out of Sebastopol."—/b.

The contentment of the lower classes at all the
great public exhibitions is very remarkable. The
mujik is the most modest, long-suffering, and least
demonstrative of human beings :
There is an amount of tranquil contentment among the
lower classes in Russia which can be seen nowhere else.
In no other country in Europe could the experiment of
filling the royal palaces with the " mob " be tried with
certainty of the result. The police, indeed, take care that
no stranger of doubtful disposition shall come into a
country where the monarch moves about amid his subjects
without guards or state. Where else could you collect
about half a million of people, and let them stand for
hours in a soaking rain after the business for which they
had assembled was over. and not hear a voice of complaint,
or see the smallest token of dissatisfaction ?-Ib.

"J . C.," in one of his letters to the Times this
week upon the corn countries of the Continent, gives
a passing description of the famous grotto of
Adelsberg, while en route from Laybach to Trieste :
At Adelsberg we visited the deservedly famous natural
grotto, probably the most wonderful thing of the kind in the
world. A considerable river runs right into a mountain
of limestone by a great natural arch, which contracts a
short distance inwards so as barely to admit the waters.
Above this arch the grotto is entered, and fcr two hours
the visitors are conducted through its marvellous chambers.
The first great cavern is lighted up, and the roof is seen
covered with stalactites, while in the grim depths below
the roar of the subterranean river is heard. Wo cross it
by two natural bridges, and, lighted by torches, pass on
from one wonder to another, till, after half an hour's
walk, we are told to stoop down to pass through a con-
tracted archway, and bending lowly we enter a chamber
worthy to have been the hall of Pluto. It was all lighted
up, and the further end, from the peculiar form of the
stalagmites on the floor, and the fretted roof made by the
pendent stalactites, seemed like a great orchestra ready
to begin. Once a veer this chamber is used for festivity,
and then 4,000 of the peasantry assemble and dance in it.
Continuing our explorations we every moment pass some
new etalactical curiosities, some shaped like a pulpit,
some like the drapery of a curtain, some like an organ
high on the screen of a cathedral; here one towering up
like a great palmtree ; there another forming from its
thic.; and hanging foliage a fit resting place for the dead.
Fantastic shapes there are also—some like a monkey, a
dog, and one like an old man smoking. We had now
walked about two miles into the heart of the mountain
through these subterranean caverns, and at this point
found ourselves approaching the innermost and grandest
chamber of all. It had been lighted up, and from a great
depth below we saw far into the glimmering caverns—first
a mount called Calvary, and then behind it, one after an-
other, immense pillars of stalagmite standing up some
thirty feet from the !bor. while far above is beheld a white
roof, perfectly free from stalactites, and looking grandly
large in its bareness. This chamber cannot be much
less in size than the dome of St. Paul's. It is a solemn
thing to look at, for all return from it with a subdued tone
and voice, as if they had been in the more immediate
presence of a Power whose greatness was beyond con;
prehension.

OCTOBER 11, 1856.

THE EARL OF CARDIGAN AND COLONEL
BUCK, M.P.
COLONEL Bucies reply to the letter of the Earl of
Cardigan, published in last week's PRESS, has ap-
peared this week:—

Hartland Abbey, Oct. 2,1&76.

My Lord,—My letter of the 20th was intended to convey
is a few words a reply to yours of the 18th, containing an
extract from the Daily News paper. It seems my attempt
has failed to please you, and, having no wish to evade the
expres3ion of my feelings upon the subject, I gratefully
avail myself of the opportunity which you have afforded
me fur giving a fuller interpretation of my speech at Tor.
iington.

You are anxious to know why your speech at Leeds
appeared to me unsatisfactory. My dissatisfaction, in
great measure, coincides with the much severer condemns-
lion which you will find in the Times newspaper of Sep-
tember 4th. This newspaper is no scurrilous portion of
the press. It can hardly have escaped your notice, and I
yet wait for the violent language with which you question
* statement contained in it, that your speech at Leeds
*" was a falsification of history ," the writer in that news-
pi.per said more : indignantly lie adds, " England failed
utterly in playing a great part in the late campaign. From
the beginning to the end, mistakes, quarrels, short-sighted.
Delis, want of skill, want of common professional know-
ledge, marred the exertions of the British army. From
the first reconnaisance in Bulgaria to the last attack upon
the Redan there were, on the testimony of highplaced
officers themselves, proofs of unmistakeable incapacity and
folly. The men died, the horses died, the hospitals were
without stores, the camp without victuals. A brigadier-
@ezieml of cavalry (your lordship) executes a movement
which the general of division declared to have impaired
his forces, while the general of division orders a charge
whiok Pais subordinate (your lordship) takes every occasion
to sneer at as indicative of ignorance, or worse."
Such sneers and such insinuations against your late
,commanding officer cannot fail to disgust others than the
writers in the Times newspaper, and again call to our
ressollection how the horses starved under your command
with stores at Balaklava—distant about seven miles ; how
Y 0 • lordship, leaving your companions, your privations,
and ).our command, sought the comfortable shelter of your
yacht—.' act of generalship unrecorded in the history of
other cava.h7 commanders.
Your lord,:hip has done me the honour of writing a
very interesting account of some portion of the cavalry
affair at Balaklava. As the friend of Captains Nolan and
Lockwood, I have not failed to gather the details of their
gallantry and death. Your lordship, however, may be
aware that individuals, newspapers, a book written by a
Mr. Ryan, mid to be bought at railway stations, have ques-
tioned your skill and judgment with reference to another
ration of that battle, and your lordship may, perhaps, on
a figure occasion complete your narrative by giving
details of the skill, judgment, and coolness with which
you rallied and drew off your men from that terrible en-
counter.

Your lordship evidently requires from me some explana-
tion of my allusion to the sums of money paid for your
advancement in the army. Considering your lordship and
Colonel Morris to be types of the two differing systems of
promotion in the English army—your lordship represent-
ing that of advancement by money without distinguished
merit; Colonel Morris, on the other hand, illustrating that
of advancement by distinguished merit in the field before
the enemy in India and in the Crimea—l congratulated
Colonel Morris upon having achieved by merit what it was
reported your lordship had attained at the cost of between
30,0001. and 40,000/,

My attention was called to this matter by a return which
was circulated among members of the House of Commons,
giving the dates of promotion of every staff officer who had
served or was then serving in the Crimea. Your lordship's
promt.tion, without any distinguished, or, I believe,
foreign service, was by far the most rapid of any officer.
In May, 1824, your lordship was a cornet; in December,
1830, you obtained your lieutenant-colonelcy. lour lordship
was subsequently removed from the command of your
regiment for organising a system of espionage in your
orderly room by which you gathered matter for a court-
martial upon Captain Wathen, a distinguished officer.
Captain Wathen was acquitted of the charges preferred by
your lordship, and you were removed from the command
of your regiment. Notwithstanding this, your promotion
went on, and in 1848 you obtained your colonel's commis-
sion. I confess, upon looking over this return, I en-
deavoured to ascertain from those acquainted with the
Horse Guards' machinery how your lordship had attained
such rapid promotion. I failed in understanding the
process, but I was informed your lordship's advancement
had cost you 34,000/. Jf your lordship to secure your
advancement were compelled to expend so large a sum,
the inference can only be that an officer without such
resources would fail in his advancement in the British
army, and that money—not merit—decides the destiny of
her officers.

I shall be happy to join ultra• Radicals or any other class
of politicians during the next session of Parliament in
securing for the army a more just and efficient system of
promotion.

I believe, with you, the British public, although liable
to deception, in the end judges a just judgment of the
merits of her servants, and I will conclude with one more
short extract from the same article in the Time. newspaper
of September 4, " That no such oratory as has been lately
listened to should he allowed to blind the public to facts
which less partial communities daily comment on. While
in the eyes of both allies and enemies our army was re-
duced to a contingent by the incapacity of its chiefs, no
provincial speeches at home can permanently raise the

'THE PRESS.

character of the men who thus worked its ruin, and
lowered the national fame."—l have the honour to remain,
my lord, your lordship's obedient servant,
Gioll4l STIICLZY BUCK.

The Earl Cardigan, &c.

AGRICULTURAL MEETINGS.

LORD CHARLES RUSSELL presided at the Bedford-
shire Agricultural Meeting held last week, and in
the course of his speech on the occasion referred to
the question of agricultural statistics. The subject
he thought rather equivocally dealt with :
One scarcely knows the opinion of the agricultural
world upon the subject. Some are for and some are
against it; but no one appears very much in earnest about
it, for no one lays his shoulder to the wheel to collect the
general opinion. If agriculturists were really in earnest,
and really desirous to cast off the certain stigma under
which they will labour as long as people are under the im-
pression that they want to keep back something, they
would collect the opinions of all persons interested in the
question, and then, either through their representatives in
Parliament, or by means of a deputation to the Home
Secretary, make known their views and wishes to the Go-
vernment of the country. I say this, because I am
anxious that the agriculturists should, as a body, stand as
well in the social scale as it is possible for them to do.
They stand at the present moment almost as high as any
body of men can, and no human being has a right to com-
plain of them, or to throw at them the charge that they
profess what they do not practise ; and if some are a little
dissatisfied, and sneer at the agriculturists, while at the
same time they expose their own ignorance, it is owing to
the fact that the farmers have opposed the collection of
agricultural statistics. Let them, then, put theirshoulders
to the wheel and remove that stigma, and then they will
occupy as high a position as any industrial community in
the universe.

SIR JOHN PsitiNoToll, M.P., was present at the
Worcestershire Agricultural Meeting held at Worces •
ter last week, and in the course of the evening
alluded to the prosperity of the manufacturing and
agricultural interest
When he spoke of the prosperity of the farmers he
wished to guard against being supposed to allude simply
to those high prices which, undoubtedly, had been in
some degree caused by the circumstances of the war, but
which, he was happy to think, would, to a certain extent,
survive the war. He believed those prices had been for
some time higher than was consistent with the interest of
any class. He did not believe that the occupiers of the
land would desire—and, if prudent men, would not desire
—that the prices of agricultural produce should remain so
high as they had been during the last two or three years;
but, on the other hand, they had a right to hope—and
they must hope—that prices would not 'elapse to any low-
ness of range which could not be borne by the farmer in a
manner consistent with that prosperity which was in a
great degree to be attributed to his own energy, spirit, and
skill, but in some degree also to the circumstances of the
times in which he lived.

The returns which were monthly made to the Board of
Trade showed that the commerce and manufactures of
England were never in a state of greater vigour than of
late, and no man could shut his eyes to the fact that the
prosperity of commerce and manufactures, and also that
of the landed interest, were attributable in no small de•
gree to the immense influx of the precious metals which
had marked the last few years, and whieh he believed would
beneficially operate in future. Nor was that all. Those
few disastrous years had taught them that the practice of
agriculture was governed by the same laws as any other
occupation; that the time had gone by when the man who
had neither money enough nor wit enough for any other
profession might take a farm and say he would try and live
upon it.

With reference to agricultural statistics, he con-
sidered it most desirable to obtain them, especially
for the benefit of the agriculturists themselves :

He did not believe, however, that they could be collected
effectually without the good will and hearty cooperation
of the farmers themselves. He believed and hoped that
some system would be discovered in England not in-
quisitorial in its nature which would give satisfaction to
the farmers and arrive at the desired object. In con-
clusion, he remarked that the prosperity of the land was
not simply the welfare of an individual farmer, nor of a
class, nor of a district, but the welfare in a most
essential degree of the great community of which they
were all proud to be members, and of which he believed
the landed interest was the soundest and most enduring
support.

Numerous other speeches followed in the course
of the evening on the subject of agricultural
statistics.

Mr. H. litmsos, a celebrated agriculturist, of the
Vale of Evesham, thought there would be no advan-
tage in these returns, but to show to the world
everything the farmer was doing, nor did he think
it was necessary to know the exact amount of every
crop grown. Agriculturists should be content and
let well alone ; and when they went to market it
should be to buy or sell at the market price, without
making speculations as to what quantity of any par-
ticular article remained in the country. A much
less healthy state of things than the present would
exist under a system of statistics which would
foster speculation, and unduly raise or depress the
markets.

Sir T. E. WnwnioTow, M.P., said he was not one
of those who thought great advantages would result

979

from the adoption of them; still he thought they
should be tried. He suggested that they should be
tried first in a simple form, and be confined to oh•
taming information as to what crop each acra was
planted with throughout the country, leaving for
future consideration the question of stock and other
things.

THE SURREY AGRICULTURAL ASSOCIATION held its
annual meeting at Epsom on Thursday. Mr. H.
Drummond, M.P., Mr. Evelyn, M.P., Mr. Alcock,
M.P., were present, and spoke severally upon the
question of agricultural statistics.
Mr. ALcocx was of opinion that the farmers
should not he subjected to any legal compulsion in
the matter, but at the same time be would recom -
mend them, if they wished to avoid anything
of the sort, to freely and fairly furnish the
returns. The hon. member further remarked upon
the injustice of the malt and insurance taxes, and
made a few practical remarks upon the system of
modern farming and the employment of steam-
power, &u.
Mr. EVELYN, M.P., replying for the county mem-
ber, disapproved of agricultural statistical returns.
He did not think they were of much value except to
enable the foreign merchant and speculative dealer
in corn to undersell the farmer. Alluding to the
late war, he observed that during the struggle the
agricultural class had manfully supported their
Queen and country. Having passed triumphantly
through that war he sincerely hoped that our Minis-
ters would not engage the nation in another on ac-
count of King Bomba.
_

Mr. HENRY DRUMMOND thought that people and
nations were going mad after statistics. It was per-
fectly absurd to suppose that agricultural statistics
were of the slightest use, and it was nothing but
nonsense to pretend that any advantage could arise
to the farmer from their collection. The hon. mem-
ber then alluded to the question of the malt tax,
and admitted that he must do Mr. Disraeli the
justice to say that he was willing to take off half the
malt tax :

But by whom was he prevented ? Why, by the same
gentlemen who cry out, " Oh, dear me, don't tax the poor
man in the articles of his consumption. No, no; tax
realised property." They were great advocates for taxing
realised property. " Well, then," thought Mr. Disraeli,
" what is so much realised property as a house ? I'll put
a tax upon houses." But what was the consequence? AU
London got up in arms. Every large provincial town got
up in arms, and declared how shamefully they were served.
By what? By his putting a tax upon what? Why, upon
realised property.
Mr. Drummond then referred to the bad quality of
the beer drunk in the present day, told how small
was the quantity of malt used in a hogshead of
porter, and concluded his speech by declaring that if
the malt tax were repealed, and good beer given to
the people, more would be done to reform the morals
than all the other trumpery schemes now advocated.