The Sun.
London, England, 1855-06-08 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

Pictures from the Battle-fields. By " The Roving
Englishman." G. Routiedge.
I A seasonable reprint of sketches originally pub-
lished from time to time in the pages of Charles
Dickens's, Household Words—sketches descriptive
of scenes wonderfully interesting to mere matter-
of-fact stay-at-homes hardly less than to more ad-
venturous compatriots like our friend the Roving
Englishman. The fragmentary pipers as they
were written, in the first instance, for peacemeal
issue through the weekly numbers and monthly
parts, and half-yearly volumes, of a popular
periodical, were evidently, to the writer's own
thinking, altogether too rambling and di-jointed
for collective republication in their earlier shape,
without being first strung together in something
like reasonable sequence, and ushered in by some-
thing like a formal, and sedate, and argurnenta ive
introduction. After this fashion it is, therefore,
that these animated " Pictures from the Battle-
Fields" make their present separate and substantial
appearance. As additional attractions to the
work, moreover, the letter-press is interspersed
with eight large and graphic illustrations. The
celebrated Zouaves—the most picturesque,
and in some respects the most popular, corps of the
Allied armies before Sebastopol, " the finest sol-
diers in the world," as they were 'called, after
Alma, by the late lamented Marshal St. Arnaud,
their heroic commander-in-chief—figure iu pic-
turesque groups upon the frontispiece. Elsewhere,
throughout the body of the work, the illustrator
introduces the reader now to a narrow " Street in
Constantinople," now to the crowded wharf at
" Varna," now to the choked-up byeways of
" Balaklava," now to' a "Deserted Villa," now
to the snowy suburbs of " Bucharest," and now
to those wonderful fellows the Bashi-Bazouks, each
a sort of bully-ruffian, with a cross of the rapscal-
lion, a Swiss in venality, a Greek in faithlessness,
a delightful mixture of the brigand and the hired
assassin, of the freebooter and the condottiero !
It should be observed, by the way, that the
book is formally inscribed by its writer " To the
Editor of the Times"—the dedication coming to
the aforesaid from, "An Unknown admirer of the
Splendid Abilities, the Chivalry, and Honesty with
which he has fought the good-fight of the people."
A tribute of admiration offered to the journal,
gratefully called among our brave fellows in the
East, " The Soldier's Paper," in remembrance of
other efforts in their behalf besides the amumule.-
tion of the " Times Fund," and its ultimate distri-
bution at Scutari by Mr. Macdonald. As to the
literary contents of the volume before us, that
for the most, we doubt not,• is already familiar
enough to the readers of Household Words, which
is tantamount, we fancy, to saying to many hun-
dreds of thousands of the more intelligent members
of the population. A reperusal of some of the more
animated descriptions will be none the less agree-
able from their being thus substantially collected
together in a separate publication. Though we re-
gret to add that the introductory passages by which
the accumulated sketches are thus brought before us
again, are very far indeed from being comparable
in value, or even in point of style to the original
" pictures " themselves. The " Preface" espe-
cially, spread over some thirty pages—(fancy a
preface nowadays of thirty pages !)—is at once
stilted and frivolous. The worst specimen of book-
making, and that of the most pitiable kind, is the
bookmaking that panders to the popular prejudices
of the moment. In this way there is a great deal
of rubbish poured out of the inkbottle of the
Roving Englishman about Sir Hector Stubble and
Lord Fiddle-de-dee—in tended,no doubt, to be witty,
or at the least humorous, but in reality nothing less
than insufferably tedious, absurd, and extravagant.
What is said by our author a little further on about
my Lord John Russell would be odious from its
personality but that the whole diatribe is suffi-
ciently contemptible—directed, as it is, against one
who has surely done some good in his time, whether
in regard to the cause of civil and religious liberty
or in reference to the wise development of the sacred
principles which are the foundation of our Consti-
tutional Government. We do not fairly get into
the meritorious portions of the work until the
eighth chapter, a chapter brilliantly descriptive of
the wonderful plague of the " Locusts." After
which the Roving Englishman wanders off into
the most bewildering variety of scenes and incidents
—a literary hotch-potch, or olla-podrida, or pot-
pourri, or rechauffee or refacciatnento, so extra-
ordinary, as to be only.comparable to the songs
sung by honest Hickory in the hearing of Chris-
topher Tadpole—in one of which ditties Mr.
Albert Smith tells his readers about The Brave
Old Oak Getting up Stairs on the Banks of Allan
Water ! Nevertheless, confused though they were,
the songs of Hickory were sufficiently amusing, and
so, for that matter too, are the " Pictures from the
Battle-Fields" by a Roving Englishman.

-Fairy Tales. By the Countess D'Aulnoy. Trans-
lated by J. R. Planche. G. Routledge.
We would venture to place the "Fairy Tales''
written by that charming lady, the Countess
D'Aulnoy side by side, on the same shelf, with the
glorious "Arabian Nights Entertainments." And
we would almost presume to elevate those stories
told (during one thousand and one nights) to the
wife-murdering Sultan by the beautiful Vizier's
daughter, the Sultana Scheherazade, to the top-
most part of our beloved Library of Fiction. Only
that by doing so we should render them rather
inaccessible, placing them out of reach instead of
allowing them to remain handily at our very
elbow. It is related somewhere of Edmund Burke
that he not unfrequently read the whole of the
"Arabian Nights Entertainments" through, afresh,
within the twelvemonth., And, supposing him to
have made it a practice, we would almost fancy
him wishing that the months were a baker's dozen,
so that he might find time to read the Fairy Tales
of the Countess D'Aulnoy during the course of
the odd thirteenth. We are not talking altogether
at random when we say this, honestly conceiving
these said Fairy Tales to be the fitting pendant or
not unworthy sequel of the magnificent Arabian
Entertainments. The present edition of the former
wonderful collection of stories is abotit the best
ever placed within the reach of the lovers of the
imaginative. It is dedicated to " The Princess
Mary of Cambridge," and we regard it as a book
that should be dedicated to no one less than a Prin-
cess. It is embellished with drawings from the hand
of John Gilbert, that most prolific, perhaps, of all
1 living draughtsmen. It is translated and edited
by no one less entitled to that double post of editor
and translator than J. R. Planche, the veteran
chief of Burlesque. We take. Mr. Planche's labour
in the production of this graceful version of the
' " Fairy Tales of the. Countess D'Aulnoy" to be
more than simply a labour of love—to be, in fact, a
tribute of gratitude as well as an evidence of parti-
cular admiration. For no one has dipped more
deeply than Mr. Planche into the magic waters of
that fountain of Fairyland—the current of which
is poured out so lavishly and sparklingly in the
pages of the Countess D'Aulnoy. Shining through
which we behold—what marvels, indeed, do we
I not behold ? Trouping by, in elfine procession—
G racieuse and Percinet 1 the Fair One with Golden
Locks! the Prince Sprite! the Princess Printoniere!
fhe Bee and the Orange Tree 1 the Blue Bird ! the
Golden Branch !and Fartunee !and Finette Cendron !
:and Babiole ! and the Yellow Dwarf ! and the Good
Little Mouse ! and the Green Serpent ! and the
.Beneficent Frog ! and the Beautiful White Cat !
tO and heaps upon heaps of other themes of wonder
and loveliness. Altogether the book is a veritable
1> ox of sugarplums—and blessings say we on the
fairy hand now dead and gone years ago of the
go,9d and ingenious fabricator of this delectable
b on bonniere

EXTENSIVE ROBBERY AT THE WEST-END.—Yesterday
of ternoon the metropolitan police of the C division gave
ini brmation of an extensive robbery having been cotn-
mi tted by the clerk at the well-known firm of Messrs.
Re dmayne and Co.'s, silk-mercers, New Bond-street.
stt Baling and tiling with him upwards of 1001. in cash.
11. e is described to be 35 years of age, 5 feet 7 inches
hitgh, sallow complexion, blackhair and whiskers, sunken
eyes, and dressed in black.
PVILIC HEALTH or ENGLAND, &c.—A blue-book of
21;0 pages, published yesterday, contains the report of
th e Select Committee on the Public Health and Nuisances
B.emoval Amendment Bill. The committee simply report
t o the House the evidence taken„which includes that of
"Dr. Farr, Dr. Snow, Mr. Toulmin Smith, Mr. Alderman
'Copeland, and seven' other gentlemen. From the evidence
of Dr. Farr, who is at the head of the statistical depart-
ment of the General Register-office, we gather that the
average mortality in England is 23 in 1,000. " The town
population of Great Britain," says Dr. Farr, "is now
above 10,000,000, and the mortality is greater in pro-
portion to the whole population than it was in 1821 or
1831." As regards the metropolis, Dr. Farr gives the
rate of mortality in the various districts, it being in
Lewisham 17 in 1,000 ; in Hampstead and St. George's,
Hanover-square, 18 in 1,000 ; in Kensington, Isling-
ton, and Wandsworth, 19 in 1,000 ; in the city of
London and in Hackney, 20 in 1,000 ; in the Strand
and St. James's, Westminster, 22 in 1,000 ; in
St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, Marylebone, Pancras,
Clerkenwell, St. Olave's, Southwark, and Camber-
well, 24 in 1,000 ; in Lambeth, St. Luke's, Bow, Step-
ney, and Poplar, 25 in 1.000 ;in Bethnal-green, East
London, and St. Mary's, Newington, 26;in 1,000 ; in St.
Giles's, Westminster, and in Greenwich, 27 in 1,000 ; in
.Holborn and West London (City), and Shoreditch, 28 in
1,000 ; and the same in Bermondsey and Rotherhithe
in St. George's-in-the-East and Whitechapel, 29 in 1,000;
in St. George's, Southwark, 30 in 1,000 ; and in St. Sa-
viour's, Southwark, 33 in 1,000. It has been shown
that the mortality of London is 24 to 25 in 1,000 ; in
Paris,flerlin 2itBisi
in 1,000
osoaom;e ; in Turin
in
Genoa, it is 26
ninl,oooin 1,
; inol,oo ;it
yons.
33 in 1,000 ; in Hamburg, 36 in 1,000 ; in Moscow, 3E
in 1,000 ; in St. Petersburg, 41 in 1,000 ; in Stockholm,
39 in 1,000 ; and in Vienna, 49 in 1,000.

17ft PE ,1 L 1 A2sIEIN ri'.

HOUSE OF COMMONS_YESTERDAY•

PROSECUTION OF THE WAR. —ADJOURNED
DEBATE.
Mr. S. HERBERT—Sir, I have risen thus early in the
debate because I imagine it is the wish of the house, if pos-
sible, to compress the discussion within the scope of this
night—(hear)—and I am anxious to leave time and room
for others whom I think it is important that we should hear
before we arrive at any decision on this question. The
hon. and learned gentleman who has just sat down has
made an attack on my right hon. friend who sits beside me
(Sir J. Graham), upon grounds which no doubt he thinks
are conclusive against him, but which I trust in a few sen-
tences to convince him are fallacious. He says, in the first
place, that in a despatch written by the Duke of Newcastle
so far back as June last, a despatch which was produced
before the committee of which the hon. and learned gen•
tleman is chairman, the Duke of Newcastle pledged this
country to make no peace until the fortress of Sebastopol
was captured or destroyed. Let me say, so far as these
words are concerned, that is not a correct quotation. The
Duke of Newcastle never said there shall be no peace. He
said there will be no prospect of pedce—(hear, and
laughter)—no prospect of peace until we can deal to
Russia such a body blow as seen induce her to submit to
the terms we hope to get. (Hear.) The hon. and learned
gentleman cheers that. See back to the first despatch in
which the Duke of Newcastle says, "Bear in mind
that if the Russian generals make no demonstration
of any further onward movement, it may become essential
for the attainment of the objects of the war that some ope-
rations of an offensive character be undertaken by the
allied armies ;" some operations actually of an offensive
character, but being part of a defensive system they should
be to that extent defensive operations. Me goes on "No
blow that could he struck at the southern extremities of
Russia would be so effectual as the taking of Sebastopol,"
The Duke of Newcastle conceived that to be the heaviest
blow which could be dealt to the Russian empire.
Si.' J. PAKINGTON.—Is that the despatch of the 10th
of April.
Mr. S. HERBERT.—Yes, and then comes the subse-
quent despatoh of the 29th of July. Ido not see how,
after those despatches, the honourable and learned gen-
tleman can say the Duke of Newcastle ever said we
could not make peace till the fortress was taken ; for
how can he reconcile that with the face that in the
despatch there is not one word of imperative injunc-
tion, but the general is told it is left to his discre-
tion ? (" Hear, hear," from Mr. Roebuck.) Yes, but
the discretion was not left because we would not make
peace without it, but to undertake operations which, if
successful, would, more than any other, force Russia to
accept terms of peace. Is that the plain and obvious mean-
leg of the expression? (Hear, and a laugh.) The hon. and
learned gentleman laughs, but I ask him, if the capture of
Sebastopol was to be a condition of peace, why iu the four
points did it not appear? (Hear.) My right hon. friend the
member for Southwark in his eloquent and impassioned
speech said, "if you do not take Sebastopol you will have
to return to England and furl your banners in disgrace."
Is that so ? What would have happened if, 10 days ago,
Russia had accepted the limitation you required as a con-
dition of peace? (Hear.) That was what the late Mr. Sheil
would have called a rhetorical artifice." The whole
error consists in this fact, we are making confusion of two
things essentially distinct—confounding the operations of
war, which are the means to an end, with the end itself.
We have a war party, we have a peace party, and subdi-
visions of both, with different objects and different antece-
dents or points of departure. Take the party which is of opi-
nion the time has come when the country may with honour
to itself, and with material advantage to her interests,
make an honourable' safe, and prudent peace. How is
that point urged-by those who hold that opinion? We
have the hon. member for Manchester, who has from the
first objected to the war, and who has, let me say, in
speeches of consummate ability and earnestness urged
those opinions, and with a courage which does him credit,
for he stood almost alone against an immense amount of
popular feeling, which he resisted in the consciousness of a
sincere conviction in the opinions he advocated. Then we
have my right hon. friend his colleague (Mr. Gibson) who
disapproved of the war from its commencement, but does
not share all the opinions of his hon. colleague. Then we
have those sitting immediately behind me, who were, like
me, advocates for a war for which they shared some por-
tiic of the responsibility—(hear)—and willing to bear it,
thinking they can justify it. We think it is not right
to assert that there is anything inconsistent or disho-
nourable in those who were advocates for war to attain
certain objects, when they think those objects have been
gained, to become the advocates of a peace as a natural
consequence. The hon. baronet opposite (Sir E. B. Lyt-
ton), to whose speech I listened with the pleasure which
all must have felt, as it was essentially the speech of a gen-
tleman and a scholar, asked, " How comes it you who
were advocates for beginning war are now advocates of
peace?" Well, that begs the whole question of what has
happened since. (Hear.) I now, calmly looking back at
the history of the war, recollecting the circumstances from
-which it sprung, the attitude of Russia towards Turkey,
the imminent danger to the latter Power, and recollecting
what I held then, as I hold now, as one of the greatest in-
stances, I must say, brigandage—for we have no word in
English which suits it—and violation of the public law of
Europe—the invasion of the principalities by Russia—
well, I hold all those opinions now, but I ask who can avoid
feeling the weight of responsibility ? And, I declare before
God, I know nothing more painful, more grating on the con-
science of a man than having to give, even as an humble
member of a Government, his ay or no upon a question
which involves such fearful consequences and exposes his
country to such fearful hazards and distresses. (Hear.) It
was, then, in no spirit of levity, and not adopted without
weighty consideration of the great interests involved, that I
came to the conclusion that my voice should be given in
favour of a declaration of war. I justify it to myself by the
magnitude of the objects we sought to obtain. Those ob-
jects we specified and stated over and over again in public
documents, which are historical—in treaties with our allies.
I will tell you what the objects were. They were the abro-
gation of that network of treaties by which Russia held
Turkey in her grasp—(hear)—they were the abolition of
that exclusive claim to a protectorate of the Christians
which would have given them a right of interference dan-
gerous to Turkey—the freedom of the Danube. Those were
objects of paramount importance, and were specified in
public documents, and in our agreements with France, Aus-
tria, Turkey, and Prussia. In not one of those documents
was there any mention of "limitation." Our objects were,
u!parate from that; limitation was the child of after-
growth. The army, it is said, is now in a better con-
dition, and, thank God, so it is. The hon. and learned
member for Enniskillen (Mr. Whiteside) cheers me, and I
am glad to say that in his speech the other night he made
an approach to accuracy upon this subject, for, in speaking
of the number of soldiers that had perisbed, he said we had
lost half of our army. That is a gradual subsidence from
old exaggeration. We did not lose half nor a quarter of our
army, although, God knows, we lost enoueh, for, from the
last returns—and they are fearful to contemplate—l find
that upwards of 13,000 men have, since thefirstdeclaration
of war, fallen victims to the swordor disease. But we should
be cautious how we exaggerate these numbers. We should
recollect what may be the effect of our doing so,„ how much
we may thereby damage our position with regard to nego-
tiations. The hon. and learned gentleman says, that suc-
cesses have been obtained because three traitors have been
expelled from the Cabinet, and there are stories circulating
all over the town as to my right hail. friend (Sir J. Gra-
ham) being the man who prevented the expedition to
Kertch and the bombardment of Odessa. I regretted to
bear the hon. member for the West Riding, in his able and
eloquent speech deprecate in some respects our successes at
Kertch, and say that the corn taken by us was private pro-
perty. Now, I read in the newspaper to-day the state-
ment of General Pelissier, taken from the Moniteur, upon
that subject, General Pelissier, says,—
" Advices received from Kertch, dated the 31st of May, an-
nounce that, on the refusal of the military authorities of
Genitchi, situate on the northern extremity of the tongue of
land of Arabat, to give up the Government stores and 90 ves-
sels laden with provisions for the Russian army in the Crimea,
the squadron, under the orders of Captain Lyon, bombarded
the place, drove out the troops, and destroyed all the stores.
The enemy has thus lost, in four days, an immense quantity
of provisions, four wir steamers, and 240 vessels employed
exclusively in provi,ioniug the troops in the Crimea."
(Cheers.) On the other hand, I think the press is now, in
its leading articles, drawing inferences from the successes
which are not justified by the facts, for it is talking as if
Arabat and Genitchi were already taken. But, although
we have bombarded the one and destroyed the stores at the
other place, we are not yet in possession of them, and we
must not, therefore, think, because of the successes we have
obtained, that we are already masters of the Putrid Sea. I
hail these successes, because in war success is the best road
to peace—(hear, hear)—but if, after your objects were at-
tained, you still went on for mere military success, your
criminality would be great. (Hear, hear.) This nation is
a generous nation, and 1 believe that if we have success
(as I trust in God we may) the difficulty will not be to
extort sufficiently high terms from Russia, but there will
be a feeling in this country, to care nothing for terms, to
say—we have got what we wanted, we have taught Russia
a great lesson, let bygones be bygones; and the difficulty
will be to get public opinion to back diplomatists in ask-
ing for any terms at all. I will now revert to the speech
of honourable and learned member for Plymouth, who
looked upon my right honourable friend as a traitor for
having prevented the execution of the operations which
have since been undertaken. Eager and anxious officers
are said to have been urging the Admiralty to undertake
those services, and from my right honourable friend are
supposed to have proceeded the chilling orders to refrain
from carrying out measures which would have facili-
tated our operations. Now, I have the permission of the
Noble lord it the head of the Government to read some
despatches upon this subject, and I will first take one dated
October 13, 1854, because it comprehends several points.
" The Secretary to the Admiralty to Vice-Admiral Dundas
" Admiralty, Oct. 13, 1851.

Sir,—l am commanded by my Lords Commissioners of
the Admiralty, with reference to the operations of the fleet
under your orders, to call your special and particular atten-
tion to the necessity of exercising the utmost vigilance and
care in preventing the movement of craft of all descriptions
proceeding out of the Bay of Kherson and the River
Dniester, and I am to signify their directions to you to take
every precaution in your power to prevent communication
with the Crimea from ports in that direction. My lords are
further of opinion that, whenever the means at your dis-
posal will admit, proper measures should be concerted with
your colleagues in command of the allied forces for obtain-
ing au entrance by the Gulf of Kertch into the Sea of Azoff,
with a view to interrupt the communications of the enemy
with the eastern shores of the Crimea, to which their lord-
ships have always attached the greatest importance. In con-
cert, likewise, with your colleagues, my lords consider that
no opportunities should be lost to occupythe attention of the
enemy by frequent attacks upon all parts of the coast extend-
ing from the mouths of the Danube to the isthmus of Perekop,
and that any proper opportunity for the bombardment of
Odessa should not be omitted."

(Hear.) That is my answer to the hon. and•learned gentle-
man. (Cheers.) I now wish to say one word in defence of
Admiral Dundas. I should be the last man to cast imputa-
tions on those who are absent, but I am bound to state
that there was a conclusive reason why Admiral Dundas,
who was himself eager for the attack on Odessa, did not
undertake it. Admiral Dundas wanted to make the at-
tack ; he had prepared means for it, but he was prevented.
What stopped 'him ? Why, it was the opinion, given upon
strategic grounds, not only of the English, but also of the
French general, that the destruction of Odessa would libe-
rAte troops, which would immediately be sent to the
Crimea. The generals were firm in that opinion, and it
was in consequence of their urgent request that Admiral
Dundas felt that he could not undertake the operation.
(Hear, hear.) lam not giving my opinion as to whether
.he strategic reasons assigned by the generals were sound
)r not, I am not competent to do so, but I say that they
entirely acquit Admiral Dundas. If there is any doubt as
to the intentions of my right hon. friend, then at the head