The Sun.
London, England, 1855-01-24 00:00:00

TURKEY.

CONSTANTINOPL, JAN. 11.
At a dinner given last week by the Austrian
Ambassador to the Ministers of the Porte, he ex-
pressed himself very frankly, and to the following
effect, with regard to the position occupied by
Austria, since the signature of the treaty of the 2d
of December :

"His Majesty the Sultan has repulsed an aggression
which had been unjustly reade, and his brave army has
valiantly defended the territory of his empire. The ma-
ritime Powers have supported his efforts, and his Ma
jesty the Emperor of Austria has concentrated his armies
to give them effective aid, if, unfortunately, the last di-
plomatic overtures should prove of no avail ; and whether
peace be made before or after the war, the pride mani-
fested by Russia shall be quelled. He went on to say that
the time would then have come for Turkey to enter upon a
new era, as, at any rate, this crisis would bring about the
extirpation of the prejudices of race, the liberty of wor-
ship for all creeds, the triumph of right over force, and
the development of important resources for commerce
and industry. The generous intentions of his Majesty
the Sultan in that respect are well known, and, sup.
ported by the most devoted and enlightened mea of his
State, ho will succeed in the noble endeavour of recon-
stituting his great empire by a sage and liberal adminis-
tration. In conclusion, Baron de Bruck observed,
that such a solution of the Oriental question would
perfectly respond to the civilization of the times.'

THE BLACK SEA. FLEET.

FROM THE FLEET, Dec. 31.—The blockade con-

tinues, uninterrupted by any incidents, for a few
shots fired by the steamers cruising at die entrance
of the harbour against the 9011-Iy-erected earth-
works of the Russians scarcely merit the name of
an incident.

The fleet gets more and more transformed into a
steam fleet. With the exception of the Vengeance
and Rodney, there is no sailing vessel remaining,
and these two will likewise take their departure
as soon as tke steamers coming out from England
shall have replaced them. This is a very judicious
vessels are on this
south-west winds are still predo-
minantfew clays ago, it is true,
co
themeasure,al sltl
e windnea onsouthrlfthe
yo
:ee coast.
n
shifteduadl etsot he A. winter sailing
east and north-east, and
brought frost and snow in its wake, but to-day it
has gone back again to its old quarters, threatening
us with rain and sleet. The vessels have therefore
still much to suffer, their cables being exposed to a
continual strain. At the slightest sign of squally
weather they get up their steam, in order to ease
their cables by steaming against the force of the
waves.

former letters about the want of
comparison
action
r an epidemic, is ten
inassistant-surgeonsmy
y in the navy) which makes itself
between the number
I spoke
every day felt, but which in any extraordinary
teiimn eersg emore,ncyu
of vessels commissioned since the prospect of war
and the number of assistant-surgeons who have en-
felte.ll Aas an
tered the service since that is sufficient to prove the
impossibility that they should properly attend to
their duty. In 1854 20 first and second-class vessels
have been commissioned, their crews amounting toat
'least 17,000 men ; besides these, about 5,000 men
have been added to those already into commission,
in consequence of an order to fill up complements.
For all these 22,000, besides numbers of small
steamers and gunboats, only 54 - now assistant-sur-
geons have been appointed in 1854, giving from
400 to 500 to the charge of each assistant-surgeon,
not counting the smaller vessels.
How can one expect that
they Should attend to
their charge after an action ? Moreover, there are
nearly 200 transports which have with very few
exceptions, no medical officer on eoard, and expect
—I will not decide whether rightly or wrongly—
to got assistance from the men-of--war.
It is impossible for any man to do all that is re-
quired of him under such circumstances ; so there
are no persons to blame ; on the contrary, the way
in which the medical officers of the fleet perform
their hard duties deserves the highest praise ; but
the thing will not be altered so long as the position
of assistant-surgeons remains as it is, and so long as
theirposition is not made such as to induce students
of some capacity to outer the service, Which
they
will not do if they have to pass through the ordeal
of the gunroom before they are thought fit mem-
bers of a wardroom mess.
During the last few years before the war the
number of new entries of assistant-surgeons had
been continually dropping off, and, had it not been
for the patriotic feelings stimulated by the present
war, there can be no doubt that the Admiralty
would have had considera„ble difficulty in enlisting
even the services of the 54 assistant-surgeons who
were commissioned in 1854.