The Sun.
London, England, 1855-04-13 00:00:00

ASTLEY'S ROYAL AMPHITHEATRE.

Lessee and Manager, Mr. Win. Cooke.
THIS EVENING.
Glorious success ! To commence with an entirely new and original
Spectacle-drama of harrowing interest, by Mr. Nelson Lee, called,
rHE FIELD AGAINST IHE FAVOURITE ! No Drama for many
rsinstas created se great a sensation. The interest is most intense ;
the burning of the stables is most terrific, while the Derby race is
most exciting.
After which, a Series of Novel SCENES in the CIRCLE, invented
by Mr. William Cooke.
To conclude with RETURNED FROM THE BALTIC ; or, Jack
Ashore.

A new Military Act Drop, painted by Fenton, has been added to
tat Embellishments.
Ros-office open from Eleven till Four. Stage Manager, Mr. W.
West. Acting Manager. Mr. W. H. Cooke. Equestrian Director.
Yr. w. Cooke, jun.

ROYAL STRAND THEATRE.
Under the direction of Miss Rebecca Isaacs.
THIS EVENING,

Will be performed THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. Cha-
racters by Messrs J. Raiford, Rogerson, and Kinloch and Miss Re-
becca Isaac+, Miss Beaumont, and Miss Somers.
Alter which, KING QUEER AND HIS DAUGHTERS THREE.
To which will be added a Ballet Divertissement.

HIGH WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE.

111 —Morning 24 mtn.aft,er 11 F.yeni ig 0 min. et. 0
To. Vonnow sornings6 aatmaftel 11 j E ming 26 min. a' t. 12

r}J WEATHEB.--Suzi 0111011, April. 13.
TIIEBNONETEB, IN THE SHADE-
-62— laigheiit since noon yesterday.
Mil —lowest this morning and during the night.
&7—this day, at noon.

Besonfrno, 29'66.
warp, S.W.—Light breeze, with dull rainy weather.

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•

LONDON, FRIDAY, APRIL 13, 1855.

The importance of the present crisis cannot be
exaggerated. Much more than Peace and War
hang on the decisions at Vienna. The welfare
for ages of the entire old world is there placed in
the balances. Yet those who assume to hold the
scales exclude the whole of the interested millions
from a sight of the weighing. No " Our Corre-
spondent" is allowed where he is most of all
needed. It is impossible not to fear foul play.
The weights which determine the worth cf every
proposal, every refusal or concession, bear the
stamp of dynasties of Autocrats, of Courts,
of Aristocracies, but not one of them bears the
people's mark. No consideration of the people
will come in except as to whether it may be dan-
gerous to ignore them entirely, or to irritate them
too much. What man in his senses believes that
national freedom, or, except in a very modified
sense, even national independence, will be placed
in the scales at all? That was weighed in
1815 in the balances of the Holy Alliance and
found wanting. At the present, to us odious,
conference the point to be settled is just this--
How much absolute authority each despot can
keep over his subjects, compatibly with
tolerable independence of the other despots.
They would like, as autocrats, to king it at home
without help from abroad, yet rather than lose the
pleasure of incarcerating male patients and flogging
female ones they would uphold intact the power
of the Tartar barbarians before whom they now
tremble. They would rather be, as indeed AU g-
tria and Prussia have long been, lieutenants of a
Czar than the monarchs of free nations. Des-
potism is engrained into the nature and is the
very life-blood of the whole brood of tyrants east
of France. They live on and love crushing
liberty. We do not think Lord JOHN tinctured
with their envenomed hatred of popular rights ;
but his absorbing love of aristocracy falls
in but too naturally with their practical
aims ; and we must fear that this circumstance
utterly unfits him to enunciate at Vienna views
worthy of Englishmen.
Mr. BRIGHT thinks that none of us know why
we have to War, or why we would press the War,
because we at first asked only to thrust the Rus-
sians out of the Provinces. Setting aside that
many of us from the beginning looked as far as
we do now, is it noL the regular, we might almost
say the divinely-ordained, course of human things
that entrance on a right course always dis-
closes additional demands on right principle ?
-WhY' the very Free-traders who caused the repeal
of the co,lish___
would have been content at one
thetr
time
wit, "*wK
a small fixed duty, and only opened
eyes to
truth atrone y 'vaster conquests, as their first
is no discredit ii.rajao thPed, showed them the way. It
has strongly convirkelin'lish people that the War
and. military power them that all the naval
ought to be destroyeoaf ft"Sia n the Black Sea
politicalver ; that a reconsti_
tuted Poland is
eassY tlisprsable ; that
Finland, Bessarabia, Cir
&c., ought to be restored Georgia, 41'
to freed()e.)
old masters ; that, in a word re, or to their
- should come Russia only. If the experience be_
has taught them this, we onl c)-
the
Y regret that
men like Mr. BRIGHT seem incapable of leareinc,
anything from experience, but to be more obsti7
nate for their old oracles, and to be mole deter-
mined to measure all things by the prie-
- of a yard
of cotton.

The spouters on Pea.o3 declaim as if none but
themsetves cared for the lives of soldiers and the
expenditure of public money. The Patriotic Fund,
the innumerable comforts sent by individuals, even
MISS NIGHTINGALE and her corps, are proof to the
contrary. The truth is that war, with all its hor-
rors, is yet a school for the noblest feelings. Not
to mention military honour and glory, which many
Will undervalue, al-though motives not inferior to