The Northern Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1857-01-07 00:00:00

FRANCE.

PARIS, MONDAY ENENING.
Although many of the Paris journals continue to
announce that the Conference met on Saturday, I
repeat that the fact is not so. lam also informed
that the expected meeting yesterday did not take
plale, although it will very likely be stated confi-
dently that it did. There is reason to think that the
firmness of England and Austria has surprised as
much as it has annoyed the Russian and French
Governments. The Nord, accounting for the
repeated postponement of a second meeting of the.
plenipotentiaries, says that instructions are waited
for from several quarters on the subject of fixing a
day for the evacuation of the Principalities and the
Black Saa. Our plenipotentiaries will not, I firmly
believe, budge an inch from the position they have
taken up, which is not to evacuate upon the strength
of a mere paper tracing of the new Bessarabian
frontier, hut to wait till the metes and bounds are
detuaily laid out and agreed upon .by all parties.
The body of the Archbishop of Paris was em-
balmed yesterday.

Semeof the Paris journals, and in particular the
traeers, the clerical organ, seem to imply that
Verger is insane. No doubt any man committing
so heinous a crime can scarcely be considered in a
healthy grate of intellect, but all the answers given
by the assassin in the course of the preliminary
interrogatory, evince a singularly cool, clear, and
determined mind. In the whole of his conduct
prior to this last terrible act, there are strong proofs
of a perverse and ill regulated disposition, but none
Whatever of his being a man incapable of sane
refie Aion, and irresponsible for his conduct.
The preparations for the lying in state will
certainly not be complete.] till late to night, but it
_ is thought that all will be ready for the admission
of the public to morrow. The chapels ardente is
constructed in one of the four large rooms on the
ground floor of the palace. The body will be
.exposed on a dais of black velvet, supported by
silvered columns. The face will be visible. On
either side of the chapel will be an altar, at which
priests will officiate during the whole time of the
lying in state. All the rooms of the ground
floor are hung with black, and escutcheons with
the arms of the deceased are placed at intervals.
The_motto l':_Major autem korum est eharitas" is
thought to be peculiarly 'applicable to the late
l'en)ectecl metropolitan. As at present arranged
.I.IID public will be admitted to morrow from 10 to 4.
The assassin. was again interrogated. this morning
Irt theMazas prison by M. Treilhard, the Judge of
Stn.structiett. •• He gave his answers With the same
coolness as before, and avowed his intention to kill
:the Archbishop. The examination was concluded
to, day, and the prisoner Was committed for trial
c.!4 the Assize Court of the Seine. There can be no
noitht that the terrible, event throws immense
additional power into the hands of the Emperor.
he high and influential post of Archbishop of
Paris, will, of course, be given to some one selected
with a view to the political influence that he will
exercise over the clergy, and through them upon
their flocks. There is a rumour, which I think no
leans incredible, that the Emperor's relative, the
Abbe Lucien Bonaparte, who has only just entered
oly orders, will be the new archbishop.
A elockmaker of Chauny (Aisne) has been sen-
;enced to three years' imprisonment for using
-u-
-...llaulting expressions towards the • Emperor and
salting expressions
and also for having said that the man
W,11,°, in 1848 shot the then Archbishop of Paris (M.
'"re) deserved the cross of the Legion of Honour.

PRUSSIA.

- BERLIN, JAN. 4.
The Mereure de Souabe of this day states that the
Permanent committee of the Wurtemberg chamber,
--in reference to the demand made by certain depu-
ties, is unanimously itself in fayour of a protest
against the passage of Prussian troops. The cont-
. mittee, moreover, required a communication on the
Present'state of the negotiations on the subject.
The Assembly of the Bourgeois have just pre-
' ' 'elated a petition to the King of Wurtemberg,
Praying hira,toavoid tho dangers that threaten the
Material interests of society.

•
I\l9l'4ES OF A TOUR FROM MOSCOW TO
THE CRTME-A,

, At half-psst eleven o'clock at night Tula seemed
l'''' last lace in the world to suggest comparisons
'lf tither Sheffield or Birmingham. It was as silent
( „. , ,
, ;4( Its lifeless as a . village on the steppe, and
almost as dark. As our carriage rumbled, creaked,
cl jolted through the long, 'broad, straight
i street,
Ice, , 'the faint and infrequent lamps by the
rostones, only revealed the white walls of the
long lines of two-storied stucco houses, some
i. 'inouldering and splatchy with decaying window
brairni ea and ricketty doors, others rejoicing in the
e,9."‘"? glories of a new coat of plaster, and
-a—n,P,l43'ing new rampant lions and griffins and
• ef'n'e,s in plaster on their portals, which the action.
~,()it,-, few winters will reduce into the most unintelli-
' "le, terse, and fragmentary chaos. Not a soul
71,•v,isible,excePt the usual watchman rousing out
1 "'s' box as the tarantasse carne near, and
le , nun,
"dizide • r, his halberd and.uttering strange. chal-
- „inges, with a poor affectation of vigilance as we
c,—.Bsed• No glare in the: sky, reflected from active
rdi, entre eflife.and heat below, spoke of skill and
211tstry still working, watchful and energetic; no
g tongues of flame from slender necked chim•
treys licked the heavens into a fiery glow ; no dull
tilttv•Y thud or ponderous anvil pulse warned us
a'
the heart of labour was beating strong, full,
Et
I ohsonest in that wide expanse of human habita-
r; in fact, anything so unlike Sheffield as Tula
~ ',`'llid not be imagined. We had a long gingling
'rive through any number of versts of muddy
• str
(!eets, and then a sudden halt at a huge and
i).l.'son looking building, at which our courier
~18111011nted from his cold perch, and from which
' w".'",erce I a hairy hooded mujik waiter, the staple of
(x.ruekt co -iversation was the eternil " Niet, niet"
x'-'4,, 0 ! nu-!). Indeed if it be true that the first notion
°I a Frenchman on gaining possession, temporary
t''' i'l permanence, of the smallest patch of terra
Jfina, is to stick up a board with "C'est defendu
'e,'! something or other upon it, there is a sort
of moral link between him and the Raski,
Whose ruling principle is contained in the
Word " Niet" (pronounced Knocate), which
folibserves him everywhere for the obstruction of
erty, progress, travelling, civilisation, and com-
fort. , Here it succeeded for a short time. We
W.il ere told there was a " Holshoi Gortinnitza"
t
Nrther On, and we resumed our track through
. ail mud profound, till the tarantasse arrived
tome• Et narrow lane—the first we had seen for
relne months ; which absolutely refused to
receive the work of the Moscow Long acre
''',z:tnin its aperture. The driver persisted for
Se ra° time in his efforts to force a tarantasse
,:tie six feet wide into a space only five feet
iWide, but suddenly it seemed to strike him as a
le,ul t thing to de so early in the morning, and
of ,Pulled his houses up short at the opposite side
tioLue street. The result.of a desperate consulta
the,le German was that we should drive back to
th ;_nn we had left, for coachee did not know where
aitu °ig hotel (or the Holshoi Gortinnitza)
wns
Nye ated, and we could see no One to ask. Indeed
its plst byrecollected that one piece of advice given to
we a Russian was never to, ask any questions if
~,h,s._,,
uad nted to see anything or do anything, for we
ollueal be sure to be stopped or refused, but that if
Aide,eted in Russia as if he had the right on his
wouldrY one would suppose he had, and no man
of
naieSllMe to stop him. Through deep pools
Diiiier and lifeless streets we worked our way, and
front fr " el) once more at the entrance to the hotel,
feeble .e.
tb-,,, first floor windows of which there was a
stairea:earn of lights. AS we walked up the stone
It feeble' greasy and covered with mud, there was
iii, e attei t
ed in hole 131) to arrest us by some man who
teed It . at the basement, but we paid no at-
14te the 43 h'mp and succeeded in groping our way
eeeded, eating saloon, from which the light ro-
ntroug cSuided thereto by clink of glasses, and a
"our of tobacco. Ita was a large room, fur-

nished with a table in the centre, 2 or 3 small side
tables, and two straight backed stiff leather sofas.
The table was covered with a cloth foul from the
stains and exurvice of many meals ; the floor was
strewed with papiros (cigarette) ends, and was so
dirty that it was impossible to ascertain whether it
was wood or stone, At the sides of the table were
seated some half dozen persons—two of them offi-
cers, eating their suppers, smoking lustily, and at
the end of the room a small family party were en-
gaged at tea, the prominent member of which. a
baby in full cry, maintained its position with un-
flagging spirit, as we found out afterwards, till
an early hour in the morning. The first care of
the long-booted waiter •was to tell us we could not
sleep there : his second was to signify that we
could get nothing to eat. However, with that
courtesy which is, I am bound to say, unfailing
among educated Russians, one of the officers came
to our help, and, addressing us in French to ascer-
tain our wants, soon caused the Tcheyelek to eat
his words, and ourselves to get a supper, which
was hot and welcome—even although it consisted
of cabbage soup and tough pig. In the midst of
it our courier came in to inform us that the taran-
tasse had various strains which would require
caulking, and divers injuries demanding immediate
repair. Soon after midnight the company was
reinforced by the arrival of a party who had just
arrived in post carts from Kharhoff, and who
seemed jaded and dirty, and soon proved that they
were hungry. One of them an elderly man, after
a long scrutiny, addressed us in English, and began
an interrogatory conversation in a style not un-
common in Russia and America—" Are you going
South ?" " Yes." "To Kieff ?" " No." "To
_ _

Kharkoff, then " Yes." " Ah, and are you re
turning to Moscow ?" " No." " Ah, then, you
are going to Odessa ?" and so on till it was our
turn to ask questions, and we found out
that he was an Englishman long settled in
Russia ; so long, indeed, that he had forgot-
ten his country, but without acquiring any
love for that which he had adopted, although
he had a great notion of her power and of
her future destiny. Still he had been so twitted by
his Muscovite friends about the failure of our
assaults on the Redan that he was very anxious to
know the cause of our want of success, for, said
" though I know the Russian is brave, and
will fight till he is shot or bayonetted, I think an
Englishman with fair play, and, above all, with such
good arms as he has, will always be more than a
match for him " Again, there was a little out-
burst of nationality when he asked " Why did you
make peace so soon ? Another year, and Russia
would have been driven to the last extremity, for
she would have had no clothing nor arms for her
soldiers ; her trained men were being fast used up.
and the pressure for men and beasts of burden was
beginning to be insupportable just as you made
peace." He told us he had been twice in the
Crimea during the war ; at one time just after the
battle of Balaklava, and he was " shocked" when he
saw English dragoon helmets hawked as trophies
about the towns of Southern Russia, and heard the
enemy's account of our charge. These dragoon
helmets must have belonged to the heavy cavalry-
men who were dismounted by the fire of the Rus
sian artillery early in the morning, and who threw
them away as the cavalry retired out of range. He
described the approaches to the Crimea as pre-
senting scenes beyond conception or description,
and, judging from our subsequent experience, he
had good reason for what ho said. Our friend was
apparently a cavalry contractor, or something of
the sort, for he was very " horsey" in his talk,
and described the condition of the poor quadrupeds
in moving terms. " The nobles and serfs were
alike distressed and miserable ; the prices of food
were rising every day, and as for the hosses, it was
really dreadful. The roads had become like the
bottoms of half-drained canals, and the whole coun-
try was cut up for miles by the passage of carts and
beasts of burden in search of firm ground and better
tracks to and from the Crimea. According to him,
the Perokop route was the most frequented, as the
country near Tchongar became so deep after a few
months' traffic, or a few days of bad weather,
that it was impossible to use it. Only couriers,
Government messengers, and light carts traversed
it till the country dried up, or was hardened by the
frost or the sun. It was his opinion that there was
a considerable difference made in the treatment of
the French and English prisoners in favour of the
former, and that it was in consequence of the orders
from head quarters, and done with a purpose, and
this assertion was corroborated by reports which I
heard afterwards at Odessa. All this, and much
more, was doled' out to us in broken words, and
with many glances at his companions and at the
rest of the people in the room, and the poor man
would have been horribly frightened had he known
he was speaking to your special correspondent, but
he had no cause to fear, for I could give him a most
satisfactory certificate of attachment to the Russian
Government, although lie did not like their habits
of procrastination in the matter of roubles or the
smallness of their pay iu public departments. I
might have learnt much more from him, but that.,
the horses of his vehicle were at the door, and he
had to continue his journey to Moscow. The rest
of the company retired to bed, with the exception
of the baby and its immediate family circle, and
we were left to shake down on the rigid sofas
with hard and slippery leather covers, which
ware much more severe than the floor, but the
latter was impossible on account of the dirt,
and 80, with bones sore all over from bumping in
the tarantasse for two days over a rough causeway,
we stretched ovreelves on our coats, propped our
heads on writing desks or boots, and were soon
sound asleep—so sound indeed that, as we heard
next day, three Russion officers, who arrived about
4 in the morning, complained to the waiter that they
could not eat their breakfast, we snored so loud !
This may account for the fact that, as we rubbed
our eyes. and looked out from our sofas on
the long table about seven o'clock next morning,
we encountered the most hostile expression
and looks on the faces of those three unhappy
gentlemen, who surveyed us with great severity of
countenance while we essayed to wash (all three)
in a small mug with a pint of water in the bottom
of it. After some time they got tired of this, and
took to smoking and spitting on the floor instead,
all but a militia officer who came over and minutely
inspected our clothes, brushes, soap-dish, and tra-
velling bags. Of course the first thing after break-
fast that one would wish to see in visiting Tula was
the Government manufactory. There is, it appears,
some controversy respecting the quality of the arms
made at Tula. So far as my opinion goes, it
is decidedly inferior to that of the arms of any
other country with which lam acquainted. The
heavy cavalry sabres aro the only decent specimen
of Russian manufactures I ever saw, and they are
principally made in Siberia. If any one wishes to
see what a Russian musket is like, he has only to
visit any of our public exhibitions and to judge for
himself. He will find the stocks ill made, old-
fashioned, the woodwork very badly executed, the
locks indifferent, and as for the barrel, which may
be the best part of the piece, he: will find that it
will bend very readily from a smart blow (that is,
if the proprietors will allow him to make the
experimentum in corpore), and that, however good
the iron may be, it possesses nothing of the dura-
bility of our hardened barrels, which are yet soft
enough for the proper resistance of the charge.
After the Alma our men destroyed thousands of
stands of arms by taking up the Russian firelock
by the muzzle and striking the stock against the
ground. Generally the wood at once broke, the
look flew out, and the barrel curved round as
though it were lead The stocks were found to
be of a white wood varnished black, and to be very
small at the shoulder plate, so that the recoil must
be rather sharp at the shoulder.
The Russian bayonets are better than the fire-
locks, though they are rather too soft, and will
bend with a good thrust against a hard substance:
And yet they are proud of their supposed prowess
with the bayonet, and
say—" We know bur arms
are not equal to yours, but we depend' on our
bayonets.' It certainly was Suvaroff's favourite
weapon (his name in Russian is spelt "CybapOba!")
and he taught his regiments to use it himself. Any
of our officers who were .at Alma or Inkerman can
recollect how easily the Russian firelocks were
broken, and how bad many of them were. Their
rifles, made by J, P. Malherbe, of Liege, were ex-

THE NORTHERN TIMES.--LIVE ,POOL WEDNESDAY.

cellent, bgtthe muskets, which bore the Tula mark,
and had been originally flint, but were changed '
to detonators,: were far inferior to the French,
English, Turkish, or German percussion musket.
The Government has no' doubt learned this, and it
is intended at once to reorganise the manufactories
at Tula, and, as I heard, to !lace an American at
the head of them. In that, at all events, the
Russians will have imitated our example. Colonel
Colt deft Moscow a few days before we did to
inspect the Tula works, with the view, I believe,
of introducing his machinery for pistol making,
but Ido not know with what result. However, a
revolver exactly on his principle was shown to us,
the price of which' was.somewhat less than £4, and
the manager of the magazire said that they had
made several thousands of them during the war
for the use of the army,—Tinges.
. •
THE PIKE WATER.

• TO THE EDITOR OF THE NORTHERN TIMES.
Sir,—ln your impression of yesterday you
inform your readers dint the Pike water has at last
arrived in LiverpoA and that you yourself had an
opportunity of examining it. Now, Mr. Editor, are
you aware that the mains from Green lane are con-
nected with the 44 inch pipe at the Old Swan, and
that, in consequence of such connexion, the Green
lane water can be passed along the mains as far as
Prescott. That it has so been passed I have
every reason to believe, and hence the many recent
complaints of scarcity of water in the town. This
piece of legerdemain is only in keeping with every
other matter connected with the Pike—falsehood;
deception, swindling, have marked every step in
its progress, and the present is only another case
in point.' If the quantity and quality of the Pike
water is to be fairly tested, then let the committee
give orders that the whole of the engines cease
pumping for one week at least, and that the supply
be delivered exclusively from Rivingtcin. This
course they are, in common fairness, bound to
adopt, at the same time permitting those who have
opposed the scheme the opportunity of ascertaining
that good faith was being kept with the public.
We hope that the fact of Mr. Bennett being now a
member of the water committee will not have the
effect of closing his mouth, but that to-morrow
he will tell us all he has seen and all he knows on
the subject; that he will moreover inform the town
as to the actual cost of the scheme up to the present
time, and the probable cost ere the works are finally
completed, as well as their actual condition on his
last visit.—Yours, &c., Aqua PQRIE.

of the township ; and, for that purpose, wished to make
the library as efficient as possible.
Mr. Bailiff hoped that the township would not bo put to
the ixpinse of paying rent for two places.
Mr. Harrison replied that, there need be no apprehension
of that, as the library committee had the power of gi ing
up the present building at any time they pleased.
The amendment was then put, and lost by 10 to 3. The
proceedings were accordingly confirmed.