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

THE LATE BREVET.

IA letter in a contemporary says :—So we have
at last found out how to celebrate our failure at
the Redan. Something akin to modesty kept us
back for a time. The Park guns hung fire for 24
hours ; the pyrotechuists and proprietors of co-
loured lamps and transparencies advertised in
vain ; the clergy Waited three weeks for a general
thanksgiving, and received at last in its place a
prayer for the better observance of the Sabbath.
Our national rejoicings seemed confined to a pri-
vate bonfire at Woolwich for a select official
circle, and another for Prince Albert's gamekeepers
and gillies. But after a three weeks' struggle
between the varied emotions arising from the
mixed event, the divinity that shapes the ends
of the Horse Guards has hit upon the most appro-
priate mode of celebration. It is quite national.
We have created three Field-Marshals. Let it no
longer be said that England has not a General. A
General, indeed ! She has now three Field-Mar-
shals, made to order, of the best materials, 'and
after the most approved receipt--Lord Comber-
mero, aged
75, and Lord Strafford, who appears by
Dods Peerage never to have been born at all, but
who must be 75 and something more. These, with
Lord Ilardinge, who deserved a better fate, are the
Heaven-born warriors whose genius, energy, and
enterprise we are now to set against Gortschakoff,
Osten-Sacken, and Todtleben, and by whose aid we
now hope to rival Pelissier and Bosquet. Heaven
forgive me the thought, but the bonfires at
Balmoral and Woolwich and the buckram
'Field-Marshals suggest a combination which
seems necessary to the completeness of both
these ideas. What else can be done with these
two venerable lay figures ? If they ever did any-
thing to be made Field-Marshals for, why in the
world were they not made at the time ? But, as
their contemporaries seem to have thought them
sufficiently rewarded, it is rather hard that we
should be called on to supply the forgotten omis-
sion. If we are to go .so far back into history,
would it not be as well to comprise in the next
promotion a few heroes altogether dead and
gone ? Field-Marshal Welfe• would be at least
intelligible, for we should not have to dive into
Hart's Army List or go about asking people what
the men had done. Tasso, I read, gave to a
Prince of Italy his choice whether he would com-
mand him to write of Godfrey's expedition against
the infidels, or Belisarius against the Goths, or
Charlemagne against the Lombards. We have
now three living heroes for the Poet Laureate to
choose from. It will be some consolation for the
less distinguished part we have lately been playing
on both elements to find that we have men who
have done something worth telling. But what is a
baton, and what are these old gentlemen to do with
the bauble, now they have got it ? Nobody can
see it in their hands without being painfully re-
minded of a noisier toy, and an earlier, though
scarcely less competent, age. Even as a stimulus
the reword is too late 'for effect. Make your suc-
cessful general a marshal at once, while the
Gazette lies before us, while the captured city still
sruoulders, and tales of daring are still reaching us,
and, even if the affair be inconsiderable, we may
flatter ourselves that it has given us a Field-Mar-
shal. But it is now evident that in order to be a
Field-Marshal you must take care of yourself and
live to be an octogenarian ; you must be of a noble
family and connexions, or at least a favourite at
Court. If you have a good constitution, good
friends, good fortune, and if meanwhile your coun-
try produces nobody else fit for the honour, in that
case you may hope one day to grasp in your feeble
hands and rest your failing eyes on the baton of a
Field-Marshal, and have the gaudy emblem laid
on your coffin, for the amazement of gaping pro-
vincials.

THE STEAM-SHIP .HIMALAYA.--KEIiTCH

AND YANIKALE.

The Malta Times, of the 25th ult., contains the
following :

" Her Majesty's gigantic screw steam-ship Himalaya
returned on Friday last from Kertch and Constanti-
nople, bound to Genoa, to take on board a portion of
the 10,000 troops the Sardinian Government have de-
cided upon sending. to reinforce their gallant little army
in the Crimea. The Himalaya, it is understood, aftrr
embarking the troupe at Genoa, will proceed direct to
the seat of war, without touching at Malta, taking the
Messina route. On the sth September this fine vesPel
took to Kertch from Balakiava about 130 of the 10th
Hussars, and the same number of the Chasseurs
d'Afrique, a few of the Land Transport Corps, attendant
on our division of cavalry, and two or three English
Artillerymen. The operation of disembarking the
cavalry was performed by the French steam gun-
boats, towing flats, with sixteen men and horses in
each ; but, owing to the weather having become
stormy, it was not completed until the morning of
the 10th. On the following day the Himalaya started
;or Constantinople direct, with a disabled French
gun-boat in tow, which was to have been taken as far
as Cape Aia, near Balaklava, but the wind having come
on to blow strong from the westward the hawsers parted
about sunset, and darkness supervening ehe was unable
to communicate again with the gun-boat, which imme-
diately hoisted canvas, and was soon out of sight. By
the an ival of the Himalaya, we have received the latest
accounts from Kertch, at which place and at Yenikale
the Allies possess a force of some 12,000 men, English,
French, and Turks. At both these places the Allies
are actively engaged in strengthening their. positions,
aed the cavalry scour the country round, causing the
country-people to br7ng in large supplies of cattle, sheep,
and forage, for which they are paid the full value. On
the first night of the Chasseurs d'Afrique going out, they
surprised
a party of Cossacks, em: took 8 of them pri-
soners, but the officer in command escaped by entering a
house in the village, and getting out by a back-way.
The 10th Hussars have taken up very comfortable quar-
ters in a building which formerly served as a seminary
for young ladies, and have changed the hardship of
sleeping on the ground under a Wet for a comfortable
dwelling and luxurious couches. A few grand pianos,
which have escaped the general destruction, may be seen
in the officer.' quarters. A police force has been organised
by the French out of the Tartar population, partly
officered by Poles, and the men are distinguished by a
yellow stripe on their arm. The grain destroyed by the
allies on their first landing at Kert a') is still smouldering
in the magnificent stores in which it was collected.
Heaps of firewood, we are told, are visible here and
there, in the shape of broken and half-burnt articles of
furniture, tables, chairs, sideboards, sofas, pianos, &c.
The Turks have been clearing all the remaining furni-
ture of any value out of the houses, and sending it to
Constantinople for sale ; and all the wood-work of the
buildings is being collected by the French to assist in
constructing the winter barracks they are about to put
up at St. Paul's. All the churches in the town remain
entire, and are still occupied by the priests. On the
anniversery of the decapitation of St. John every bell
in the place was set ageing. At the expiration of five
hours, during which time the bells never ceased ringing,
the priests were requested to desist, which of course
they were obliged to do. An application to allsw of
their baying their usual procession on that day was
denied them. The harbour still shows evident traces of
the late destruction of shipping by fire ; the hull! of
about 20 Russian vessels and three war steamers being
partly visible above water. The Himalaya left yester-
day for Genoa."