The Press.
London, England, 1857-12-19 00:00:00

THE PRESS, DECEMBER 19, 1857.

useful ; but that he would not undertake to define its
exact use. "Thank you, thank yon, Mr. Oldeschole—that
will do, I think," said the very spruce•looking new gentle-
man out of his shirt collars.
In examining the cant of the day on the sub-
ject of " routine," Mr. Trollope lays aside this
half-jesting, half-serious tone, and speaks out
manfully. No such gigantic system as the
administration of affairs in a country like our
own can be conducted without routine; and
our failure in the Crimea, as he very truly
observes, was rather because we had too little
of it, than because we had too much. In a
review of Sir Richard Airey's Addresses, pub-
lished in these columns about a twelvetnontl.
since, this same position was laid down, and
we pointed out that but for the exercise of as
much routine as circumstances permitted,
there would have been far greater waste and
misapplication of stores than actually oc•
curred
We observe that Mr. Trollope is still inclined
to be a little hard upon journalists and critics.
But we put it to him whether the justification
of the clerk and the justification of the critic
do not rest on pretty much the same grounds ?
England is so busy and so populous that she
requires a class of middlemen between Go-
vernment and the people ; and for the same
reason she requires a class of middlemen
between authors and the public. It is mainly
due to the rise and progress of criticism that
the trash of forty years ago has been exploded.
And Mr. Trollope may depend upon it that
the class whom he persists in regarding as his
enemies are in reality his best friends ; and
that but for them his own audience would
still be confined to lady's maids, schoolgirls,
and milliners.

Captivity of Two Russian Princesses in the
Caucasus. Communicated by Themselves,
and Translated from the original Russian
by H. Sutherland Edwards. London :
Smith and Elder.
LET US imagine the inmates of some quiet
English country house, never before disturbed
by any greater danger than a riot at ten miles
distance which a dozen policemen could ex-
tinguish, suddenly and without the slightest
warning surrounded by a mob of armed
savages ; the house burnt, and themselves,
consisting of three young and beautiful
women under thirty years of age, borne off on
the cruppers of the enemy to an impenetrable
mountain fastness—half-naked, sometimes
short of food. sometimes suffering from corn
pulsory uncleanliness, and always in trepida
tion for their virtue if not for their lives—and
there detained for a period of eight months,
and we shall have gained some inadequate
idea of the position of the Georgian Princesses
whose captivity is here related.
The castle and estate of Tsenondahl are
situated in that narrow strip of land which
separates the Black Sea from the Caspian,
about five miles north-east of the town of
Telaff, and thirty or forty from Tiflis. Be-
tween Tsenondahl and the foot of the Cauca-
sian range flows the river Alazan in a south-
easterly course towards the Caspian Sea, and
beyond that runs the cordon of forts which is
the final boundary of the Russian dominions.
Within this double rampart the inhabitants of
the castle had always felt themselves, and had
always been, secure.
In the summer of 1834 the lady of the castle,
the Princess Chavehavadzey, granddaughter
of the last King of Georgia, sometime lady in
waiting to the Empress, and wife of Prince
David Chavelia.vadzey, a colonel in the Russian
army, had arrived with her family at her an-
cestral home. Her own family consisted of
five young children. But besides these there
were in the house the Princess Orbeliani, with
her little boy and her niece, the Princess
Nina Baratta, "a beautiful girl of eighteen;"
also a French governess, one Mine. Drancey,
whose conduct was throughout characteristic.
When this little household first hoard that
some of the mountaineers had shown them•
selves on the other side of the river, they were
troubled with no apprehensions. A few cot-
tages burnt and a few crops destroyed fifteen
or twenty miles off was the worst that could
happeu. Prince David departed to take the