The Sun.
London, England, 1855-01-06 00:00:00

The conduct of our official establishments at Balaklava,
Scutari, and elsewhere, may well earn for us the title of
"the European Chinese." Incapable of anything but
the merest routine, unequal to the slighest emergency,
our officials have contrived to do as much to discredit
our national character as the conduct of our regimental
officers and private soldiers has done towards elevating
it. Three hours a ere occupied by the wounded disem-
barked at Scutari in struggling, weak and agonized,
over the quarter of a mile of ground that separated them
from our inhospitable receptacle of misery. Flesh and
blood were embarked and disembarked, tossed and ban-
died about, with no more regard to quivering nerves
and bleeding wounds than if they had been so many
bales of wool or cotton. But why do we speak of the
miseries thus endured in places the remoteness of whose
situation, the newness of whose establishments, offer
some excuse for inhumanity and some paliation for neg.
lect ! Let our readers consider the case of the Himalaya
at Portsmouth, and then say whether they know of any
Christian people so inhuman as those to whom England
delegates the care of welcoming back to their native soil
the bravest and best-deserving of her sons.
On Tuesday last the Himalaya arrived at Ports-
mouth, and, after a delay of 24 hours, ranged alongside
the jetty, and began to unload her melancholy cargo of
sick and wounded—the shaken and mutilated remnants
of the heroes of Alma, of Inkerman, and of Balaklava.
It must have been in itself a touching and moving spec-
tacle, such as the sternest nature could scarcely witness
without pity. Here were men who, exposed to every
hardship, and urged on by no incentive but a feeling of
honour and devotion, by the mere effort of unconquer-
able will and unflinching hardihood had saved our army
from destruction and our country from disaster; and
what now was left of this tremendous infantry, this gal-
lant and dashing cavalry ? Armless, eyeless, footless,
as our correspondent describes them,— rent with shot or
shell, pierced by bayonets, and hacked by sabres, they
staggered on, supporting each other in this melancholy
march, till tkey stood once more on that sacred soil
which had sent them forth to conquer, and which might
almost be supposed to throb under the feet of its re-
turning protectors.
They came ; but who was there to welcome them ?
Everybody knows that Portsmouth swarms with officials,
naval and military, and that, if the Queen had been
landing from Osborne instead of our helpless and crip-
been wanted one of the tale to swell the unmeaning
pp loei cl n
psaonlddierida fleroemeretmhe C
ceremony. ape
there would not have
should have had the
Admiral Superintendent, the Port Admiral, the Liente
nant-Governor, and a host of other officials whose titles
it is net worth now recording, as none of them could
End time to attend to this ordinary duty of hospitality
and humanity, or to see that the noble freight of the
Himalaya was received with all honour, all gratitude,
and all tenderness. The officials were not there, al-
though they had 24 hours' notice, and the disembar-
kation was left to be effected by the invalids
themselves, with such aid as the crew of the
steamer could afford them. But there is one class of
officials never wanting to the duty of saluting an English-
man on his return to his native land. If the Generals
and Admirals were wanting, the Custom-house officers
were not. They were there to examine the baggage of
the wounded soldiers, laudably anxious that no single
pound of tobacco should escape its contribution to the
revenue, and afford an untaxed solace to the miser-
ablewas conducted
c ofte d Sol
nektithees a 0
po
er
njetty,
a convalescence.ndn Theuntil it was
searchn
eluded no soldier or officer was allowed to leave the spot.
thei uco
-
They sat and crouched as best they might in the bleak
January afternoon, those shivering and mutilated relics
o and pondered, doubtless
w
which the country for which they had given all ex-
tended to them in return. There were no ambu-
lances, no stretchers ; there was no one to care
fi
with the
thoughts strstrong
a toon bitter
brrav fore words, on the welcome
d
for them, or to conduct them to their allotted
home, until, at last, after the matter seemed almost
desperate, help came in the shape of omnibuses for
those who could sit, and stretchers for those who
could not ; and the miserable scone was thus
brought to a tardy end. With such a specimen of Ports-
mouth, it were vain indeed to waste criticism or indig-
nation on the miseries of Balaklava or Scutari. How
has war already hardened our hearts and deadened our
sympathies ! Six months ago we were met with the
most violent disclaimers when our correspondent asserted
that our troops were ill fed and ill cared for on their
arrival at the wild and remote shore of Gallipoli, and
now such a scene as we have described can pass at our
principal seaport and arsenal without comment, and al-
most without notice !

Singularly enough, on the very day on which this
ac3ount appeared a contemporary published a letter
from the Queen to Mrs. Herbert most honourable to the
feelings of her Majesty, and calculated to soothe the
miseries and alleviate the sufferings of her \ wounded
soldiers and sailors. The Queen requests to be furnished
with details of the wounded—more interesting to her
than to any one. Her Majesty begs that these poor noble
men should be told of her interest and feeling for their
sufferings, and her admiration of their courage and
heroism. She knows the value of her sympathy, and she
is anxious it may not be withheld. Yesterday her Ma-
jesty passed through Portsmouth on her way
_to Osborne,
and those who could find no time to welcome her
wounded soldiers home attended on her qtrriva,l with
their usual punctuality. Had she asked the gentlemen
who surrounded her on the station with the keys of the
fortress where they were when her poor invalids lauded
from the Himalaya, the question might, perhaps, have
obtained for the next draught of invalids that shall ar-
rive a reception more in harmony with their merits to-
wards us, and the enthusiastic gratitude of the country
towards them.

Her Majesty has broken through official reserve in
order to testify in the most signal manner the warmth
of the feeling which unites the Sovereign of this country
to the men to whom our defence is entrusted. It would
be highly gracous in her, and at an- rate it is the boun-
den duty of her Ministers, so to notice the recent scene
at Portsmouth as effectually to provide for the humane
and careful reception of the next cargo of human misery
which the blast of war may fling upon the coasts of Eng-
land.-Times.

DESECRATION OF THE TOMB.—WEINAR, Dec. 31.
It is generally known that the bodies of Goethe and
Schiller repose in the vault of the reigning family. A
few days ago a stranger was conducted to visit the vault,
when to his dismay the guide found that the second door
was, broken open, as also were the coffins of Grand Duke
Charles Augustus, his wife, and the last Duke Charles
Frederick. The gold brocade above the cere.eloth, and
the rings from the corpses themselves, the gold of the
epaulettes, and indeed whatever was valuable, had been
carried off. It was evident that several persons had
been concerned in this robbery of the illustrious dead,
and the whole town is moved w.th the greatest indig-
nation.