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

HIGH WATER AT LONDON HRIDOX

T as DAT —zio ormuF 55 min-after 6 I Ev. ning 30 min. al 7
To- loart,m—liornia, 14 :ntn.after 8 I Evening 7 min. aft. 9

second Sinope maitsacre to add to the sanguinary
laurels of the Muscovite.

The third course propounded is, that Russia
should 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-crusts, and so likely to meet a
similar fate, cannot then be accepted as a satis-
factory 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.

Man-morn PASHA, the Vizir of Yanina,
several years ago, after sipping coffee, and
smoking tobacco, and quaffing sherbet with the
Hon. ROBERT CURZON, 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 KINGSLAKE'S
" Eiithen," 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
our own country to be the plague of other lands,
appeared to him [the Vizir of Yanina] to be an
extraordinary act of folly ; and that thieves should
be 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 oomment 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. Cußzox adds, in reference to the views
entertained in the matter of Prison Discipline,
by the long-nosed Turk left by him squatting
upon the red-cloth divan, pipe in mouth, and be-
wildered beyond the power 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 best way of dealing with rascality
ternstalood,a-

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
down before him in his hall of audience, one after
another, those weighty blue-books which have
since appeared, year after year, in the form of
Reports upon Convict Management, by Lieut.-
Colonel 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 puffed, amazedly, cver his eternal
chibouk as lie 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- I
ment and reclamation !

Since the period in which Mr. Curtzox 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 actually accomplished of what was
then only vaguely hoped for, in the development
of the great scheme of Penal Discipline which ap-
peared so ridiculous in the eyes of the Vizir of
Yanina. A variety of costly experiments have,
during 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 gone, 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, toe may be
allowed to wonder in turn, if he had learnt, as
any one may learn, from Colonel Jzsn's last Re-
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
13,9°01. An item in the statistics about
'
Convict Discipline which we should have
reilzisirhed of much to
Yanina, if have commended to the
Vizir
only that he might have
his neat pinch dropped it, with tihof tobacco, into
pipe--to have smoked
it, thereupon, at his leisure,
the bowl of his everlastingpicpontemplatively !

In another part of our impression will be fount
a letter of remonstrance from a body of men who
certainly have reasonable ground for complaint.
In 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. NEwDEG,ITE, in answer to the charge
that the disasters of the army were to be attri-
buted to the great number of gentlemen who were
officers in it. The Hon. Member, in his opinion,
had made the most triumphant answer by showing
that where the system had broken down, " where
evil had arisen from want of capacity; of entrgy,

of intelligence, or of accurate and zealous per-
formance 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 depa,rtment,
which were not officered by the aristocraoy 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 devoted 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 of 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
zealous 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-
MULE 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
tliem 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
PaLmEnsroN • can persuade it to find the cause
elsewhere. His efforts can only drive the nail
nearer home.

TILE SUN, LONDON, TUESDAY EVENING, APRPII, 10, 1855

VISIT OF TIIE EMPEROR OF TILE
FRENCH TO THE QUEEN.

COURT OF COXIMON COUNCIL.

yesterday a special Court, which was numerously at-
tended, was held for the purpose of considering what
steps should be taken by the Corporation fur the pur-
pose of testifying their respect for the Emperor of the
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.

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

" That an entertainment suitable to the dignity of this
city be provided on the occasion at the Guildhall, at which
Ma Imperial Majesty the Emperor and the Empress of the
French be requested to honour this city with their pre-
sence.
" That the Right Hon. the Lord Mayor, the Recorder,
and the Sheriffs, attended by the Remembrancer, do wait
upon his Imperial Majesty the Emperor of the French,
and humbly request him, ieo the name of this Court, that
he and the Empress will vouchsafe to honour them with
their Royal presence at an entertainment in the Guildhall
of this city, on the occasion of the presentation of the
address.
" That it be referred to the said committee to take the
proper measures 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 Al-
dermen 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.