The Sun.
London, England, 1855-03-24 00:00:00

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LONDCP.,T, SATURDAY, MARCH 24, 1855.

The co of determination of England at the pre-
font imment is very remarkable. Like Lord
LYNDIMAST, in his admirable exposure of Prussia,
when We say England we distinguish between the
Court. and the people. It is difficult not to sus-
speet •a Court with which the do-nothing ABERDEEN
was The favourite, and difficult not to fear its
present influence with a Prime Minister who one(
waa reprimanded by the Sovereign whom he nos
IterTeS. It is, however, a striking fact that in this
land of business men and oper.atives not a public
Meeting of any class can be brought together
which does not insist on the justice and necessit3
e the War, which does not demand terms humb-
ling and disenabling to Russia, and which doe:
not in many instances assert the necessity of re-
storing Poland as the eastern barrier of Europe.
Commercial men believe their operations to be if,
some degree interfered with by the war. Our wotk-
Men conceive that it has something to do witl
the price of the quartern loaf, and with the de
viand for labour ; shopkeepers understand that o'
the millions squandered on transports no portipn
Oan pass into their tills ; yet everywhere the feel-
ing is the same—that the objects of the War mus,
be attained. The incurable extravagance, anC
the defiant, unbusiness-like, and aristocratic ap-
pointments of the Government are witnessed with
inward groans, and yet the groans are far deeper
if there is any suspicion of diplomatic weakness
and faithlessness.
It is in this attitude of calm preparation for
sacrifices that England determines to have het
way with Russia. The task seems more and
more difficult, yet we perceive not a breath of
fear or hesitation. The only fear expressed is
at of a peace unworthy of our past sacrifices.
Vienna is more dreaded than Sebastopol. Th(
news from the latter place we can hardly say im-
roves. We are indeed thankful to read of thc
returning health of the troops, of the completed
railroad, and consequent saving of heart-sinking
toil, of poney-races and dog-hunts as a relaxation

from siege duty ; but w also hear of increased

itussian activity in advanced earthwork; and of
vast supplies of ammunition and reinforcement,
of troops arriving. We cannot overlook the fact
that if we are in a better position than when we
arrived, that of the Russians is fully as much im-
proved. Looking all this in the face, the deter-
mination of the country is fixed—Sebastopol
must be disarmed. The sentiment of France is,
no doubt, stronger than ours on that point. It
would seem to be absolutely impossible for the
Empero• to leave Sebastopol a maiden fortress.
It would be fatal to any Cabinet here ; but then
the supreme power is, in fact, the Cabinet ; the
nation which elected him the only Parliament,
and it would pronounce him unworthy of France
if his first military effort were a failure. The
domestic consequences of mortifying an (let:ply the
Vrench biro of martial glory no one can foresee.
trappily it is not a mere sentiment of shame
It of military glory which bears on this question,
either in France or England. Sebastopol is a
convicted Pirate's nest. The perfidy and cowardice
of Sinope has damned,
it and its fleet to eternal
infamy. But every day of the siege has made
its destiny more and more manifest. Its bound-
less stores of ammunition could have had but one
object. It was a naval and military depot against
agaoiuusstatall Asia
Minor, and especially against c
the Euxine,
all the coasts of
Suppose Russia once master of that capital, the
shores of the Bosphorus strongly fortified, and
this vast arsenal behind it, and not only would
the Black Sea be indeed a Russian lake, but al

the East, and Italy, and eventually- farther we 3
too, would come completely under her dominan

influence. It will be fatuity indeed if Lard JOHN
and our Cabinet c:nisent to leave a gun or a ship
of the lino in Sebastopol. IL nus ho

—gibbeted--as a warning to all Ras p)aterity.
Nor that alone : Nicolaieff must share its fate,

and every roLber fortress on the Enxine must be

also surrendered. Russia 111:13t have nothing in
the Black Sea but protection for her trade. She

must be cured once for all of her conquering pro-
pensities there.

We confess to some misgiving 3 re3pecting our
tepresentative at Vienna. He has ever been a

ready tool of the COBURGS, and well we know
what they want. Lord JOHN wants the grand
essential of the hour—greatness of mind. Nicho-
las far surpassed him in conceptions worthy of a
statesman. Lord JOHN is so habituated to the
life-long compromise of a Whig senator that he
cannot easily rise above political bargaining. His
not wishing to diminish the territories of Russia
is as fatal to his reputation as a foreign statesman
as his finality folly to his character as a liberal
politician. We have no doubt whatever that
were Lord JOHN Russ= known to be a hopeless
subject for the manipulations of Russian cunning,
were it known that his terms were, the coasts of
the Black Sea as well as Sebastopol dismantled ;
and if that be not conceded, Poland to be re-
stored—that Russia would grasp at the alterna-
tive which she now professes to reject as an in-
dignity. We fear Lord JOHN'S character and
views are just what will embolden Russia to ask
what she would have known to be hopeless from
9. PITT or a CANNING.

We do not wonder that our aristocracy feel
ashamed of what they have now to do. They
have smiled on or tolerated the villanies of Russia
so long—they have so helped to nurse the vanity
and ambition of the late CZAR through all his
atrocities and treacheries, that they must feel
rather awkwardly in having to curtail Russian
power and influence. It must, however, be done,
at a reasonable cost now, or at a tremendous one
ere many years are past. Consideration for Rus-
sia bas been the bane of this whole struggle. She
is a purely barbarian power, with no claim to
influence or respect but that of vast size and brute
force, and she cannot appreciate consideration.
She repaid permission to pass the Pruth by into-
lerable barbarities in the provinces ; and the
sparing of Odessa by firing on the stranded Tiger.
In like manner she would repay the toleration of
a battery at Sebastopol by increasing it again gra-
dually and insidiously to its present strength, and
the sparing of the dockyards of Nicolaieff by build-
ng fresh ninety-gun ships for another Sinope.
Let our Cabinet take care how they consent to
Coburg and Austrian terms of peace on behalf of
the English people.

IThe ulterior consequence, we all know, of the
I celebrated Act 16. and 17 VICT., c. 99, has been
the virtual abolition of the punishment of trans-
portation. Its immediate result has been the
detention amongst us of an increasing multitude
of criminals, who would otherwise have been con•
veyed away in ship-loads to Van Diemen's Land
and Western Australia. We have, therefore, by
relieving our colonies from a very undeserved in-
fliction, multiplied rather considerably our own
difficulties, anxieties, and responsibilities. All
this has been simultaneously a national act of
ustice, and a national act of magnanimity. It
will, we doubt not for a single instant, be regarded
by the future annalist of Great Britain as au
event demanding the most earnest, if not the
most eulogistic, celebration. Whatever evils may
devolve upon ourselves from the remarkable
change upon which we have thus daringly, and
even let us say generously, adventured, must be
aceepted in expiation of the wrong hitherto in-
r dieted by us, during an interval of years so pro-
tracted and deplorable, upon our remote and un-
)ffending possessions. Conspicuous among the
inflictions requiring in this manner to be endured
for a while as courageously and uncomplainingly
is may be well practicable under existing circum-
stances, is the exceedingly apparent one already
adverted to, namely, the enormous increase iu
the number of felons in the United Kingdom
tunually undergoing the penalties of incarceration.
It is so far satisfactory, at any rate, to know that
the energy of our authorities steadily continues to
i:eep pace with the numerical enhancement of
,heir responsibilities. Under their vigorous and
intiring manageinent of the principal Convict
Prisons, and of the subordinate penal establish-
ments throughout the country, no difficulty has
yet been experienced in the way of providing for
au- prisoners, male and female, adult and juve-
ill; an adequate amount of accommodation. Pro
vision has in this respect been carefully secured
oeforehand, insomuch that every exigency has
been hitherto effectually anticipated. In testi
mony of this—take the most recent and sufficient
illustration.
During the year 1853 the total number of
;onvicts having to be provided for, somehow or
)then, within the twelvemonths, amounted to
9,227 altogether. While accommodation for
9,408 prisoners must be recognised as having
seen forthwith placed betimes at the disposal of
Government by the provident and energetic Board
)f Directors over whom Colonel JEan has so long
smd successfully presided in his twofold capacity
Is Chairman, and Surveyor-General of the Prisons
)f England. How it was that this terrible multi-
tude of criminals (9,227) became distributed—in
what proportions and for what reasons they were
listributed—whither and under what circum-
dances they were distributed—we have recently
taken occasion to explain in these columns with
;ome degree of particularity. A gigantic change
'las since then taken place by reason of a compre-
hensive modification of our entire system of cri-
minal jurisprudence. It has been decided by the
Legislature that recourse must no longer be had
to the old., worn-out, exploded, obsolete plan of
wholesale -transportation. Exactly 700 out of the
9,227 before mentioned were shipped from these
Naiads to our distant colonies during the year

853 : 100 by the Sibella to Gibraltar ; 600—
namely, 296 by the Pyrenees, and 304 by the
iea Mark—to Western Australia. This convenient,
but at the same time unjust and blundering sys-
tem, we repeat, has since then been abolished ;
the notable enactment, 16 and 17 VICT., c. 99,
'aving virtually done away with punishment by
transportation. The convict population of the
Unitcd_Kingdum must hcaocfor4ll be provided for
within the limits of the United Kingdom. Accom-
modation consequently must be found, not as in
1853, for 7,760 prisoners out of the aggregate,
for the year of 9,227, but for 9,227 as a mini-
mum ! Whether it has been so arranged we have
shown by the simple but adequate statement—
that already by the 31st of March, 1854, provi-
sion for no less than 9,408 criminals had been
placed by the Board of Directors at the disposal
of her MAJESTY'S Governmeat. The ac:;enarn
la-
tion so secured was, as a matter of C3tlr33, of
various descriptions. It included provisions in
t(irkeisntweady for 620 juveniles, at Parkhurst ; for 700
females at Brixton ; for 1,048 in the invalid i
°pots ; for 2,950 in separate cells, whether in
3,3Altda,bWlish4knaeenneltcsl'
) e°llltY- or borough as at Bath
or in the noble Geyer/mint
at Millbank awl Pentonville ;
beyond t 3, for as many as 4,090 in
the p
saa:%.ldl this,
for public werks—vii.,
450 on bearci the Warrior, 526 on beard the
D3feuce, 572 (for the able-bodied) at Dartmoor,
1,020 at Po? tsmoath in connection with the
)ckyard, anil 1,520 at -eortland in connection
with the Ord: lance and the Breakwater. It must
be manifest f rom these brief and comprehensible
statistics-3* atistics carrying MI no further than
up to the .15;1st ,of March, 1854, that is to say,
nearly a year from the present period—that the
tamest d esirable energy and activity, judgment,

and forethought, have been manifested by the
intelligent body of administrators entrusted with
the responsible office of caring for the proper
management, discipline, and distribution of our
formidable army of felons—our vast Mad increas-
ing criminal population. The real extent, the
relative value, the actual importance of this timely
display of energy, activity, judgment, and fore-
thought by the distinguished Surveyor-General
of Prisons, and his not unworthy collaborateurs,
can alone be understood after a careful considera-
tion in detail of what we have here been enabled
only to speak of in generality. It may then be
recognised how much a wholesome routine, guided
by an active patriotism, may contrive to effect in
the way at once of rapid improvement and of
systematic and symmetrical organisaticn. Would
to HEA.TEN the example thus shown by the officials
entrusted with the discipline and management of
our Convict Prisons had been emulated, in some
measure at least, by other departments in our
*lmplicated scheme of Administration ! However
invidious it may seem to specify any Department
particularly, let us say, for example, by that of
the Commissariat