The Sun.
London, England, 1855-04-10 00:00:00

~•TjE ~.

LONDON, TUESDAY, APRIL 10, 1855.

second Sinope massacre to acid to the sanguinary
laurels of the Muscovite.

The third course propounded is, that Russia
eiould engage to reduce her naval force in the
Black Sea within certain specified limits ; while
France and England should be permitted to keep
up a fleet of equal strength, Now, the efficacy
of such a step would entirely depend on the good
faith of Russia. The Bear who submitted to the
paring of his claws well knew that, they would
grow again during his winter's slumber, and
that he could again carry on his depredations
with unimpaired vigour. Many splendid speci-
mens of naval architecture might grow up at
Nicolaieff without anything being heard of their
progress, until they sheltered in the well-protected
bay, prepared for any enterprise. Promises so
closely allied to pie-crust; and so likely to meet a
similar fate, cannot then be accepted as a satis-
Letory settlement. Wherever we look, whatso-
ever we consider, we are the more confirmed in
our original opinion, that the demolition of Sebas-
topol is imperatively required, and that by no
other means can we obtain that which our Minis-
ters are so fond of talking of—an honourable and
permanent peace.

MA HMOUD PASHA, the Vizir of Yanina,
several years ago, after sipping coffee, and
smoking tobacco, and quaffing sherbet with the
Hon. ROBERT CunzoN, was left by that amusing
traveller, sitting cross-legged on his red-cloth
divan "in great wonderment at the English
Government paying large sums of money for the
transportation of criminals, when cutting off their
heads would have been so much more economical
and expeditious !" Everybody who has read (and
who has not ?) that most delightful book, the
" Visits to the Monasteries of the Levant "—a
worthy companion volume to KING SLA ICE'S
" Etithen," and WARBURTON'S " Crescent and the
Cross "—will remember, doubtless, the incident
here alluded to, related, as it is, after a fashion
the most comical, by one whose almost every
word proves him to be evidently gifted as a
humorist. "Incurring any expense," says
the son of Lord SCARSDALE, when relating
the circumstance with all his twinkling
appreciation of the ludicrous " Incurring
any expense to keep rogues and vaga-
bonds in prison, or to send them away from
onr own country to be the plague of other lands,
appeared to him [the Vizir of Yanina] to be an
ex: raordinary act of folly ; and that thieves should
he fed, and clothed, and lodged, while poor and
honest people were left to starve, he considered
to be contrary to common sense and justice." Ob-
serve ! however, this is not all. Mark ! what fol-
lows. Listen to the comment pronounced upon
that opinion of MAHMOUD PASHA, pronounced
with an air so deliciously serio-comic, by the
"celebrated Milordos Inglaisis" who records it—as
he afterwards reports of himself to the awe-in-
spired Monks of Mount Athos, the " great ally of
the Sultan's and of all the captains of all the
men-of-war that come down the Archipelago !"
Mr. CURZON adds, in reference to the views
entertained in the matter of Prison Discipline,
isy the long-nosed Turk left by him squatting
upon the red-cloth divan, pipe in mouth, and be-
wildered beyond the poVver of language to relate,
at our preposterous system of criminal legislation—.
" I laughed at the time at what I thought the
curious opinions of the Vizir of Yanina ; I have
since come to the conclusion that there was some
sense in his notions of criminal jurisprudence."
And so that droll memorial of an Anglo-Oriental
talk about the beat way of dealing with rascality
terminates.

The rumours respecting the mode in which the
" Third Point" is to be carried into practical
.operation are assuming greater consistency and
verisimilitude. Is-miens propositions have been
earnestly canvassed, by which it was asserted the
great desideratum cottd be achieved. We confess,
however, that the only tangible solution of the
doubtful problem is that offered by the demoli-
tion of Sebastopol, and the other Russian fortifi-
catione in the Euxine, together with the with-
drawal of the whole, or by far the greater por- '
tin, of her navy from these waters. Anything else
that has been suggested seems pregnant with future
evils, and utterly inconsistent with the permanent
and linking peace which it should be the great
object of the assembled diplomatists to secure.
The best of these suggestions is that -which
would totally exclude everything appertaining ts,
war from the Black Sea, and transform it merely
into a commercial lake, rendering it a mare
daunt= in the widest signification of the phrase.
This course, which it is said was supported by the
French Government, would, of course, involvt
the demolition of Sebastopol, together with al
other fortifications in its vicinity, and the exclu-
sion of armed vessels of any nation. The onl3
objection thereto is the universality of its charac-
ter, and that would also imply the demolitioe
of the Turkish fortifications and fleet, as well as
those of her assailant. 'Now, in the first place,
Turkey has done nothing to warrant any such de-
mand. • She has committed no act of aggressiot
on any of her neighbours ; on the contrary, she
spared no exertion to obtain an honourable peace.
She did not for a considerable time even treat the
invasion and occupation of her territories as a
easics belli, but tried negotiation and rnediatioe
until it was too clearly manifest that both were
futile. Besides, the Turkish fortifications are of
a purely defensive character, while the Russian
are as entirely the reverse. The Ottoman forts
are requisite for the protection of the capital, the
most vital spot in the nation, while the Russian are
only useful as " standing menaces" against her
neighbentrs. It would, indeed, be absurd to de-
mand that the teeth of the lamb should be ex-
tracted as well as those of the wolf. Not only
might the former rely on its antecedents, and
plead its invariable peaceful character, but it
might also show the utter impossibility of turning
the tables on its quondam, assailant, or making an
onslaught on the ittpias family, even though the
bead of the house had been deprived of its for-
midable: fangs, and its claws had been closely
clipped. Besides, the armies of Russia would
still remain in formidable proximity. to Constan-
tinople, for which there would be no real security
if Varna and the other impediments to Russian,
aye„or Austrian progress, were removed. There
is a wide difference between offensive and defen-
sive weapons, which should not be lost sight of by
the diplomatists assembled at Vienna.
Another suggestion, but one wholly impracti-
cable, is that which proposes that Russia should
maintain her forts and fleet intact, while
Franee and England should be at liberty—.
if they. thou:4'l3 proper to bear the enor-
mous entiay_to maintain an equivalent naval
force, and to construct equally impregnable forti-
ficatiimS on 'the • Turkish territory. Incidental to
_
this resolution was the modest proposition that
the I,l*Ttle and Dardanelles should be thrown
open to 114 .vessei
s of war sailing under the Rus-
sian, as well as the French
Turkish-fla , English, or even the
gs , th
at, in fact, Russia would pro-
fit by her aggresekm, in obtaining the coveted op-
portunity of free access to the Mediterranean, and
what would be almost tantamount to
an impreg-
nable naval station on its shores.
It is needless
to say that such a result could not for a moment
be sanctioned—a result which would completely
annihilate the independence of the Porte, and
place it at the mercy of its unscrupulous oppreasoi
whenever it seemed desirable to consummate in
Jong continued course of persecution. Besides,
-
we have recently stated, supposing that the
as
Western Powers
were willing to sustain the enor-
mous and ruinous outlay, there could be no surety
while the new fortification,
during the interval Wh
were hi course of construction. " Rome was
not built in a day." For a quarter of a
century the workmen wero never idle at Sebasto-
pol. We have all seen how easily Boinarsund was
captured, in consequenee of the non-completion
of the _ place, when another year might have
chingel'it -into t; Baltic Sebastopol, and rendered
it completely iampregr*ile. We tie uct wan' a

of intelli;gence, or of accurate and ze dous per- I
fun:lanai.: of duty, it was not that the gentry,
not that the aristocracy, not that the noblemen
in the army were at fault, but persons be-
longing to other classes of the community." It
-was the medical department, the commissariat
department, and the transport department,
which were not officered by the aristocracy where
the system had broken down and the main cause
of the sufferings complained of were to be traced.

Dexterous as Lord PALMERSTON is in debate,
and deveted to the interests of the aristocracy, he
was hardly so happy as usual in his remarks in
this instance, and certainly cannot feel surprised
that the officers of the commissariat department
have addressed an expostulatory letter on the
subject of his speech, through their chief, to the
Minister ef War. The obvious, if not legi-
timate inference, that in his Lordship's opinion
they were not gentlemen, was sufficiently galling,
but to be charged with being " wanting in capa-
city, energy, intelligence, and in the accurate and
z, aloes performance of duty" by one in his Lord-
ship's position was not to be endured in silence.
In stating their complaint, they allude to the
impropriety of the charge at the present time,
intimate that it is not for them to point out the
cause of failure, hint at the disadvantages under
which they labour, and challenge from Lord PAN-
MERE a just appreciation of their services. With
an appeal of this sort, couched in manly and be-
coming terms, every Englishman will sympathise,
and though we think they have exaggerated Lord
PALMERSTON'S meaning in respect to their relative
gentility, the sentiment that, " while they conduct
themselves honourably, it matters little with what
families they are connected," will meet with gene-
ral approval. As to the grave charge, unjust
and ungenerous as it is, it is not necessary for
tkem,to disturb themselves further about it. The
country is pretty well satisfied as to the cause of
the disasters of its army. It knows that without
proper heads departments cannot go right, and
that it is not in Red-tapism to carry on efficiently
a mighty war. Knowing this, not even Lord
PALMERSTON can persuade it to find the cause
elsewhere. His efforts can only drive the nail
nearer home.

We wonder very much how the Vizir of
Yanina would have looked from either side of that
long nose of his, if there could have been tumbled
.town before him in his hall of audience, one after
mother, those weighty, blue-books which have
;ince appeared, year after year, i❑ the form of
Reports upon Convict Management, by Lieut.-
fiolonel JEBB, the laborious and energetic Sur-
veyor-General of the Prisons of England. How
his Highness would have glowered over
those elaborate arrays of statistics ! How he
.would have puffid, amazedly, cver his eternal
.:11ibouk as he turned the leaves of those Parlia-
mentary records of what has been done in all this
long lapse of time in the way at once of punish-
ment and reclamation !

Since the period in which Mr. CURZON wrote
that most charming volume which has won for
him a high and lasting reputation among the
travelled contributors to our popular literature,
much has been aetually accomplished of what was
then only vaguely hoped for, in the develop.rent
of the great scheme of Penal Discipline which ap-
peared so ridiculous in the eyes of the Vizir of
Yloiina. A variety of costly experiments hare,
luring the interval between then and now, won
for us a whole world of experience. So that
already the changes effected seem to us in
the retrospect but little short of the
miraculous. Insomuch so, that among other
marvels we have already made provision
within the limits of the United Kingdom
for the housing and disciplining of from 9,000 to
10,000 convicts altogether. There being, as we
have recently taken occasion to explain, in Eng-
land and Scotland alone, cells scattered here and
there for the accommodation of nearly 3,000
prisoners doomed to undergo the proba-
tionary punishment of separate confinement.
While upwards of 4,000 others are capa-
ble of being safely and usefully grouped to-
gether upon some of our great public works, as at
Dartmoor, or Portland, or Portsmouth. Beyond
which, the time has even now arrived when we
may look back, as upon an evil already virtually
dead and gene, upon the monstrous system of
wholesale transportation to remote penal settle-
ments. If the long-nosed Vizir marvelled so
much over the folly of spending hundreds and
thousands of pounds sterlingon our criminal popu-
lation, what would he have thought, we may be
al!owed to wonder in turn, if he had learnt, as
any one may learn, from Colonel JEBB'S last Ro-
port to the Home Secretary (p. 96, Appendix),
that the total value of convict labour at the Wool-
wich-hulks, at Portland, and at Portsmouth, may
be estimated for the year, last past, at just
78,920/. ! An item in the statistics about
which we should have
relishedCjnvict IDnuiscchiplintoe
have commended to the
Vizir of Yanina, if only that he might have
dropped it, with his next piuclo of
havetobasmoked
into(
the bowl of his everlasting pipe-'-to
it, thereupon, at his leisure, contemplatively

In another part of our impression will be found
1, letter of remonstrance from a body of men who
certainly have reasonable ground for complaint.
En the debates on the mismanagement of the War,
in February last, Lord PALMERSTON remarked
that there was great truth and force in the obser-
vation of Mr. NRWDEGATE, in answer to the charge
that the disasters of the army were to be attri
buted to the great number of gentlemen who were
:Akers in it. The Hon. Member, in his opinion,
had made the most triumphant answer by showing
that where-the system bad broken down,
"-where
.r1"6113 *acf-of. 600:4:y, -617,sitra-

THE SON, LON DON, TUESDAY EVEN] Ni-10, APRIL 10, 1865.

ViSIT OF TEE EMPEf?On OF TIIE

FRENCiI TO THE QUEEN.

COURT OF CONDION COUNCIL.

Yesterday a special Court, which was numerously at-
tended, was held for the purpose of considering what
steps should be taken by the Cc:rporatinn for the pur-
pose of testifying their respect for the Emperor of ti:e
French on his approaching visit to her Majesty.
The discussion was conducted with closed doors.
The following resolutions were unanimously agreed to
amid enthusiastic cheering :

" That it be referred to a committee now to be appointed
o make the requisite arrangements for the presentation of
,he address in the Guildhall.

" Tint a committee be now appointed, consisting of the
Lord artyor, the Aldermen now present, and one com-
moner from each ward.

" That an entertainment suitable to the 411.1nity of this
city b•-_, prc.wiled on the occasion at he Guillhall, t.t which
his Imperial Majesty the Emperor and the Empress of the
French be requested to honour this city with their pre-
sence.

"'f bat the Right Hon. the Lord Mayor, the Recorder,
an 4 the Sheriffs, attemle.l by the Reumml:rancer, do wait
upon hi Imperial 24,,je.$ty the Emperor of the French,
an,l humbly request him, in the name of this Court, that
ho anti the Enipress will vouchsafe to honour them wiCu
their Royal presence at an entert4itimeut in the Guildh,ll
of this city, on the occasion of the presentation of the
at.blreAs, _ _

"That it be referred io the snid committee to take the
proper theaziures for conducting the entertainment, for
fitting up the Guildhall, and to report from time to time
to this Court, if necessary."
A committee, composed of the Lord Mayor, the Ai-
derann present, and a commoner from each ward, was
immediately formed, and they retired at once to an ad-
joining room, and commenced their labours.
The Court then adjourned.