The Sun.
London, England, 1864-03-07 00:00:00

Biers, a single-minded set of men, the best part of
whose velour is a sense of duty and loyalty, fos-
tered and sustained by religion. Presently the last
burial prayers ware said, the first shove of earth
rattled on the c3ffins, three volleys of m retry rant
the air, the band struck up a tone, and the
living turned from the dead, striving to withdraw
their thoughts from the affecting scene they were
leaving behind by applying themselves to the duties
that lay before them.

Two mails came in yesterday from Copenhagen,
conveyed by a single steamer, and bearing upwards
of 12,000 letters, 2,000 parcels, and 2,000 money
orders for the army. It is reckoned that during these
last 18 days since the army came over to Alsen
every man has, on an average, received sax letters
that every man has got at least one money order,
or registered letter, with money, and a parcel con-
flannel, eatables, drinkables,
taining linen, shoes,
&2., anything that the love of friends at home can
deem conducive to their comfort or pleasure ;
interesting facts all these, proving that every
one of these peasant soldiers, no less than every
one of their peasant-kindred, can read and write,
and bearing evidence, also, to the anxious love and
earnest care with which the active good wishes of
parents, brothers, wives, sisters, or sweethearts fol-
low the defenders of the country. There are hardly
any illiterate persons amoag old or young in all
Denmark; and the soldiers have been for the most
part either too lately recruited, or too recently re-
called to the standard, to be weaned from those
domestic affections which have so strong a hold
upon Northern hearts. It is beautiful ; it is most
laudable! Pity it overtasks the strength of the
clerks of the town and camp post-offices, both of
which fell into the most grievous disorder from the
beginning, and seem hardly in a fair way of re-
, covering from it. The latest arrivals from England
here bear the date of the 15th inst—ele7en days old.
It is almost as far as America!
FEBRUARY 28.

" How long shall we be kept here idling ?" This
is a question only to be answered by another ques-
tion—" What is going on across the lines ?" It
does not seem that any one here knows anything
about the enemy's movements ; it does not seem
that any one cares about knowing. May be, by
this time, the Prussians are draughting out volun-
teers and forlorn hopes, to venture on their great
general assault : may be, they are only toiling about
their heavy artillery, to make ready for:their terrific
bombardment. We are thoroughly in the dark
here, and having already wasted three weeks, in the
expectation of events which never came to pass, we
are afraid to go lest the great drama should happen
to be performed the moment our backs are turned,
and just as we have quitted our stalls among the
spectators.

The Danes, I am told, are the only people in the
world who carry on a war without the aid of spies;
partly because they will not admit that for the
truly brave there can be such a thing as a surprise,
and they profess themselves ready 'or their foe
whenever he may choose to appear, by day or night;
partly also because a man willing to serve as a
spy is as hard to find in Denmark as an adulterer
in Sparta. There are trades and callings to which
a Dane cannot be made to stoop ; dirty work
which he leaves undone, unless he gets a stranger
to do it for him. You find no Danish waiters at a
Copenhagen hotel. A native of the country has no
objection to domestic service, but he cannot bring
himself to be everybody's servant, The part of the
clown or harlequin never was performed by a
Northman on a northern stage. A Dane has no
horror of the theatre,—nay, he is a passionate
lover and cultivator of the dramatic and even
choregraphic art, but he cannot, for the life of him
grin from ear to ear; his ideas of personal dignity
revolt against any exhibition of mere buffoonery.
Even in the Middle Ages, when a jester was an
indispensable article of furniture in a royal house-
hold, the Court of Denmark invariably imported
its Hans Wurst from Germany. Now a spy's
business has nothing in common with
a Boots' outstretched palm soliciting Tails, or with
the wild grimaces of a pantomimic actor. Men of
the highest character, patriots most heroically de-
voted to the best of causes, have deemed their em-
ployment in the " secret service" of a camp as
meritorious and honourab:e as any display of gal-
lantry in the field, But there is something in the
mere name of a " spy" frcm which a Dane shrinks
with unreasoning instinct. The spy's path is a
crooked one, and his step stealthy. The action in
itself is mean, and cannot be raised in the estimation
of its perpetrator by the consciousness of loftiness of
motive. All my efforts to smuggle a letter through
the outposts, so as to gain three or four days upon
the circuitous route followed by the mails through
Zealand and Sweden, have been unavailing, owing
to the same invincible squeamishness even on the
part of the poorest persons here to lend themselves
to what they stigmatise as an " underhand in -
tripe." The feelings of the Danes in these mutters
are akin to those of that honest mountaineer who.
being sent from one of the Forest Cantons to ex-
plore the nakedness of their enemy's land, boldly
knocked at the gates of the hostile city, and an-
nounced himself as "Der Spion von Ur i

But, although we know next to nothing of mili-
tary matters beyond our foremost lines at Dybbol, we
hear not a little of what concerns the political con-
dition of the Duchy of Schleswig since the best part
of it has been given up to the triumphant invader.
There are many people, it seems, to issue orders and
to dictate the law from Rendsburg to Hadersleben,
but it is very questionable whether there is any man
able to make out what is wanted of him, or willing
to submit to the ruler's will, even when it is very
clearly conveyed to him. There are three nomi-
nally acknowledged Powers in Schleswig, and
there are a variety of secret agencies striving
to bring them all into collision, to counteract
one by the other, and to undermine their autho-
rity. Here the Prussians countenance a pro-
dalmatian of Frederick of Augustenburg ; there the
Austrians forbid it. To-day the Schleswig Holstein
flag is palled down ; to-morro w it is the German
black, red, and gold tricolour which becomes parti-
cularly obnoxious, Marshal Wrangel snubs a depu-
tation from a Nation :;l Verein ; and Prince Frederick
Charles, his Royal master's cousin, hob-nobs with
them. A Prussian General declares that not one
of the Danish officials shall be removed from his
post. An Austrian commander winks at the mob
breaking into the unfortunate Amtsmanu's house,
and spiriting him away in the dead of night on
the snowy high road, with helpless wife and family,
tramping at his heels. The Schleswig Hoi-
steiners wars anxious to be united to Germany,
but they are not a little astounded at having drawn
three Germanies on their neck. It was always an
arduous task to serve two masters; but here is a
case of three patrons to be obeyed, the behests of
each of them in flat and flagrant contradiction with
the good:pleasure of the others.

Holstein, as I told you, was governed by the
Danes entirely through the instrumentality of
native officers. Left to itself by the withdrawal of
the Danish army, that Duchy continued to be the
compact and well organised State that it always
was, fully equal to the task of self-government. In
Schleswig the placemen wP.ro not exclusively Danes,
o
but mostly attached to Danish atnhieshGinterests,emran
d
as
expected, the advance"liberators"
could not fail to drive them from their places, strik-
Plungingu3 at the foundations of social order, and
Plunging the country
into hopeless anarchy. Gen.
Gablenz, applied to at Schleswig, at Flensburg, and
other places, by
the citizens who were only anxious
" to hear and to obey," answered that he was a sol-
dier and no statesman." Since that time statesmen
have followed in the wake of soldiers. Commis-
sioners of the great Powers have taken upon them
selves the adnainiatratiou of the province, but these
Commissioners know nothing of the mind of their
Royal and Imperial masters, for the good reason
that the said masters know nothing about their own
mid
cnd th
trad emselves. Hence everything is provisional,
anonictory ; what was done yesterday is sure
to be undone to-day, and to-day's measure will not
fail to be defeated by soma new disposition to-mor-
row. A swarm of adventurers, the so-called pat-
riots, either of the Duchies themselves or from some
of the adjoining States of sympathising Germany,
are besetting the Commissioners' doors, all eager
for the good things that may lie in their gift. For
one of these hungry hounds into whose mouth a