The Sun.
London, England, 1864-04-12 00:00:00

trifling. A hole in the roof or a shattered win-
dow makes no great difference in the outward look
or in the internal economy of the town ; bat as we
neared the Stadt Hamburg our old Feld-post was a
heap of rubbish ; so was the Poste aux Chevaux,
nearly opposite—the red shield, with the Royal
Arms, hanging on the door was nearly all that still
stood; so were the houses, each and all, right and
left, throughout the centre of the town, down to
the Radhaus or Council-hall ; the houses on the
main street, the houses on the side streets branching
up to the hill, or sloping down to the sea—they were
wrecks. Here a chimney-shaft alone was stand-
ing, there a front wall, there part of the roof still
hung, shattered and tattered on the main beam. Day-
light had been struck through the narrow thorough-

fares of Sonderborg. The burgomaster and the
military engineers had been for weeks busy opening
a wide cross street from the Town-hall to the sea ;
but the Prussians had expedited ten times as much
work in hardly as many hours. There was something
almost exhilirating in that broad open space ; people
rambled about iu the ruins wondering with grim
delight how the neighbouring Ucalegon had fared.
There is always some secret savage pleasure in the
contemplation of devastation on a large scale. As
for myself, after two nights' unrest, I felt my head

in a glow, and my fancy wandered freely, conjuring
up old recollections of battered Gaeta, and jumbling
up those blaekAned sbafts and crumbling gables
with the stripped columns and riven arches of the
Roman forum. No less than 90 or 100 dwellings in
one claster were made utterly uninhabitable; about
a score were burnt to the ground, some of them were
still crackling and reeking; the furniture of many
of them, rescued from the ruins, were piled up, a
miserable heap, in the middle of the street. People
moved about, gazing their full, forgetting their own
errands in speechless contemplation of other people's
troubles. Business did not seem to have ceased in
the town; life was not to all appearance extinct.
Moat shops were open, never having been closed,
owners laid no claims to their property, nor did
anybody covet what seemed to belong to nobody,
The two streets sloping down on either side of the
Town-hall were comparatively uninjured, but they

were the dullest and most deserted of the town dis-
tricts. All interest centred on these poor fragments
in the centre. At that window used to sit, and sat
till last evening, a pretty milliner, the most arrant

flirt of the town. There, past that gateway, that
good old doctor stopped you, on hospitable thoughts
intent, and offered you a bed, screened, as he fan-
cied, by the position of his house from the enemy's
fire. Where are the bed and the house now? W hat
has become of the doctor ? What of the milliner P
Safe, somewhere or other, very likely, but their
homes arc no more. In that house Gen, Gerlach dined

only yesterday; further, the officers of the staff we]

corned you with a friendly smile not 24 hours since.
This was the town post-office—that the army post-
office; yonder lies the Holiteinische Hans, long

wonted to refresh us with its rancid Bm6rbrod and

bitter thin beer. Why, our familiar haunts of the
last two months are all blotted out at one swoop;

our dearest associations with beleagured Sonderborg
have vanished like a dream. And these poor in
? Why, to them the haunts of youth and

age, the associations of a lifetime, are gone for ever.
The Prussians made their home a target for their
untried artillery, and the substance of their life
recollections was blown down to a mere blank.

Twenty-two dead and wounded wore picked out
of the ruins on Saturday evening, and fifty•seven
mere were added to the list of ca3ualties in the
night and,on Sunday morning. Women and chil-
dren were among the dead. A young shopkeeper
and his pretty wife had closed their premises, and
were standing at their door ready to leave, when a
shell burst almoa at their feet, and their bodies
were so shattered that the limbs of the one could
not be told from those of the other. Terrible imple-
ments are these shells, and it behoves those who
handle them to consider well whither they are hurl-

ing them. No intimation of the intended bombard-
ment had been given; the Prussians allowed not one
minute for the removal of non-combatants. The
complete razing of Sonderborg, as they must be
aware, would not dismount one single cannon
on the Dybbol bastions, and all the havoc of the
last two days did not weaken the Danish position
by a tittle. Anything more wanton, more object-
less, or void of all result than all this noisy can-
nonade the annals of war have not on record. The
stillness, of which we took advantage to visit the
smoking ruins, was not, as we all believed, the
effect of an armistice. No suspensiort of hostilities
was solicited by the Danes ; no exchange of par/e-
-mentaires took place. The Prussians open fire
when they list; they leave off when it seems good
to them. Yesterday (Monday) there was complete
silence till half-past 1 or 2, then the fire blazed
away until evening. To 'ay their batteries have
been again perfectly idle till this moment (half-
past 1 p.m.), when the thunder is heard again,
rumbling loudly above the roar of the stormy wind.
Truly, the art of war is very difficult to compass, or
the Germans of our time are the merest bunglers
at it. Here they have been for two months
hammering away at Dybbol, and the result is the
profitless destruction of one-third of innocent Son-
derborg.
It is hard to imagine what fuss and what turmoil
can be occasioned by the simple unhousing of 2,000
inhabitants. As I walked past so many helpless
groups, as I passed so many doors gently but inex-
orably, because unavoidably, closed against so many
poor applicants for admission, as I saw so many
well-dressed women, se many tender children stand-
ing in the road beside their loaded waggons uncertain
where to go, at a loss whore to lay their heads, with
every prospect of a wet, unsheltered night, I wondered
how so great a calamity could have condensed itself
on so small a spot of the globe. Why, the firing and
evacuation of Sonderborg are a mere storm in a tea-
pot in comparison with the burning and emptying
of Moscow; yet hundreds of harmless and helpless
beings must even here go through a vast deal of im-
mediate suffering. To hundreds of unoffending
families this mere sport of the Prussians will work
lasting ruin. The stock of the petty merchant, the
employment of the humble mechanic, are gone. The
charity of the country people will not, as far as it
iies in their power, allow their wandering towns-
folk to perish; but military occupation leaves but
little house-room in the largest farms. The Danish
army had rather quadrupled than doubled the ori-
ginal population of Alsen. The 4,000 wanderers
must emigrate to Funen, to Zealand. Heaven grant
that the further they are compelled to go the better
they may fare !
There was some expectation of an attack on the
part of the Prussians last evening, but the night has
gone off in perfect peace• Even the firing that be-
gan an hour ago has died off altogether. It is true
that the war of the elements is, and has been all
day, at its highest. It was frosty last night; there
has been.a cruel wind, with snow storms, the best
part of the morning. This may possibly aeconnt
for the enemy's inactivity. The Prussians, in the
opinion of the Danes, are "fair weather soldiers."
ULKEBOL, April 5, 4 p.m.
After an interval of more than 24 hours the bar-
barous bombardment of Sonderborg recommences.
Many of the inhabitants, reassured by the long
silence, and uncertain as to the Prussians' inten-
tions, thinking that they had repented of their
useless cruelty, have either been lingering on the
spot or going back to it to look after such of their
home as are still standing and their poor contents.
They are thus caught in a trap, and we shall have
many more casualties to deplore.

APRIL 6.
I have not written this morning, nor is there any