The Sun.
London, England, 1855-09-06 00:00:00

been won, if not by trickery, at least by watching for
the weakness or dissensions of their victims. Georgia,
seduced into semi-dependence, was thus incorporated by
an ukase, when every Err inghold had been previously
garrisoned by the wary aggressors. A league with
Fratice against England secured the liberty of seizing
Finland ; a league with England against France tore
Bessarabia from the Porte. The Czars may govern with
inimitable craft the pnvinces they have gained, but,
though successful, they have not been brilliant conquer-
ore. Putting aside the defects of the Russsan cokiier
himself, his want of adventurous valour, his dislike of a
campaign. beyond what ho has learnt to be the limits of
the empire, and his indifference to the schemes of ag-•
grandisement which agitate his master, there are physical
obstacles to success in cases where the enterprise is not
aided by foreign assistance or by connivance on the part
of some ruling man in the state that is invaded. In the
Principalities, although the war was carried on in a
country of great agricultural prosperity, where provi-
sions and means of transport abounded, yet such were
the distances to be traversed before the scene of war was
reached that fatigue and want sleet thousands, and
made the weakened frames of many more easy victims to
the fevers and cholera which lurked in the marshes of
the Danube. A threat of war from Austria extorted
from the proudestof monarchs an unwilling acquiescence
in conditions before contemptuously rejected. This was
probably not from fear of any great disaster to the vast
army which rested on his impregnable fortresses of War-
saw, Zeposc, and Modlin, and against which, as. the
Austrian Commander-in-Chief declared, a force of double
its strength could hardly hope to operate with success.
It. was rather induced by a conviction that the distant
peninsula on which the allies had lauded would require,
if not all his men, at least all the material resources
without which armies must perish. And his calculation
was right. The carts which new enter Sebastopol are
carts from Poland, and, though the army which occu-
pies the heights above the Tchernaya, and which garri-
sons Sebastopol, seems as yet to have been successfully
fed, we know not how much exhaustion the land has
suffered, nor how long it will be before that exhaustion
denies all farther supply. Those who have been terri-
fied by the viii en of Russian conquests rapidly achieved,
who tremhled for ConA-,ntinopie as they now tremble
for Anatolia and its cities, fall into the error of judging
warfare in a halfsavage land by the conquests of a
mighty genius in the long settled and wealthy countries
of Western Europe. The highlands of the Asiatic fron-
tier, the desert and arid plains which succeed them, are
not to he s‘vept over as the armies of France marched
from the Rhine to the Danube. Great wealth, great
genius, vast resources, a long period of time, and, above
all. the inattention of the world, are necessary for
even the conquests which Russia may be believed to
have rally meditated, much more for those popularly
attributed to, her. _ _ _ _

But natural difficulties form ,p,nly•se khe first obstacles
_
to such su':cesses as the Russialicarfatippe'ised to have
anticipated. There are large EUrOt-lein armies in the
east, and, though they seem diffitrult to move, a cautious
general could, no doubt, have Prebodings on the sub-
j-‘ct of an advance from Batotmi, which would compel a
retreat and the relinquishment of all that many months
had gained. Nor are moral causes wanting which ren-
der the hope of permanent conquest, or even temporary
occupation, one hardly to be cherished
,by the Czar.
Whatever the state of the Ottoman doulinions, whatev, r
the character of the Turk himself, it cannot be doubted
that the Asiatic empire has in these4atter days been
united and centralised. In the remembrance of men
not old the Sultan was little more than the suzerain of
a hand of half-independent Pashas, who always disre-
garded their master's authority when they were strong
enough to withstand it. It was through such magnates
as these, and through the proud and headstrong chiefs
of the soil, that Russian influence worked. But Mahmoud
destroyed the feudal proprietors, and a rebellious gover-
nor is a being of the past. Where is the Pasha of
Erzeroum, wielding almost a monarch's authority, who
could sell the Sultan's cause ? Where is the Georgian
dynasty which reigned in Bagdad? Even the wild tribes
are quiet. Kurdistan may be safely traversed, except
when some adventurer raises his standard for the sake
of plunder. Rocks and deserts, the presence of allies,
the strong authority of the Sovereign, all join with the
weakness of the enemy's armies and the distance of his
supplies to ward off danger from the land which has been
the subject of so wide and groundless a panic.
We cannot but repeat our regret that Omer Pasha
has been taken from the field of his late useful, though
less brilliant !about,, to be sent on such a mission as has
been recently announced. We only hope that the
spring will see his return to the Crimea, and his co-ope-
ration in the movements which will be necessary against
the Russian=, even though the town of Sebastopol he
taken. His absence from his army has been immedi-
ately followed by confusion and uncertainty, and those
who know anything of native Turkish Pashas will
dread to see a force in movement under one of them.
We trust that the cessation of alarm will restore to the
allies one of they most distinguished generals. Their
are dangers and hardships enough in the present war
without a submission to imaginary terrors.

CARRIAGE-WAY THROUGH ST. JAMES'S.
PARK. • - - •
( Prom the Daily News of this day.)
The slave whose office it was to remind .the. Roman
General amidst his triumphs that he was still a mortal,
was a wise institution. And indeed, if, as we hear,
there be 4ny plan for the destruction of St. James's-
park in serious contemplation, it seems that even a mob-
compelling member for Marylebone may, in the satur-
nalia of official success, require to be reminded that,
although he has assumed the purple of Privy Council-
lor, and taken his seat in the Cabinet, he does not there-
fore become irresponsible or immortal. Sudden elevation
produces strange effects, and without question the rise
of Sir Benjamin Hall—the plausible and the patriotic—
has been singularly rapid. It is scarcely a year since
Lord Palmerston, then 'Horne Secretary, smarting under
a defeat inflicted upon him by Sir Benjamin, with a
dexterous malice which anticipated failure in office and
some loss of popularity, thshst the victorious member
into the office of Minister (if Public Health, at the very
time when the fearful ravages of the cholera rendered
such an office most undesirable. But the sturdy and
ambitious baronet was not dismayed, for he accepted
the office, and applied himself so vigorously to its
duties, that he hal lately been rewarded with
a seat in the Cabinet veld the Chief Commissioner-
ship of the Board of Works. Installed in office, he
inaugurated his reign by directing the band to
play on the Sunday in Kensington Gardens,.
and, in his eagerness to enjoy the beaming faces of a
delighted constituency, he repaired in person to the
spot, and even had men posted at the gates in order to
note the numbers of those who came to enjoy the musi-
cal feast. What Minister could be more thoughtful of
the public wants ? Certainly none, has shown such bold-
ness in his endeavours to satisfy them.
But suddenly a change came over the spirit of his ad-
ministration. We are assured—and, unless certain
enormous poles placed at ominous distances are capable
of another interpretation, we are inclined to believe the
story—that a scheme is in contemplation for making a
carriage-way through tie very centre of St. James's-
park, from Marlborough-house to the Birdcage-walk.
The object, we are told, of this gothic improvement is
to satisfy the demands of those who live on the other
side, in the neighbourhood of Westminster and Pirilieo,
and, at the same time, to avoid the necessity of Allowing
all sorts of carriagesto use the drives already constructed
roand St. James's-park ; fot it is obvious enough that if
these drives were opened to the public no new road
would be required. But these drives, it seems, are sa-
cred. They may be desecrated by plebeian feet, but
none by the horses and carriages cr those who, for va-
rious reasons, are refused the entrée. So that to main-
tain a foolish distinction, as mysterious and as hopelessly
inexplicable as the distinctions observed at some petty
German Courts, the most beautiful portion of St.
James's-park is to be replaced by a turnpike road, and
the Park itself, small as it is,. must be cut in half.
If there is one spot more delightful than another, it is
the gardens of St. James's. From the very centre of
the roar of London you pass into the delights of rural
quiet—noble trees, green sward, and shady walks. Here
the jaded Londoner, freed from the distracting cares of
business, delights to recruit his exhausted energies, or,
abandoning himself to reverie, to lose and neglect the
creeping hours of time. To deprive the rich man of
such a retreat is cruel .enough ; but surely there is no
one who of an evening has watched the toil-worn arti-
zans, with their hard-worked wives and pallid children,
pouring in troops through every gate to enjoy an hour
of noisy pastime, who would willingly curtail, by a
single toot, the space dedicated to their recreation.
The delightful gardens now threatened with destruc-
tion are about an eighth of the size of of the spacious
Hyde-park. Surely the loud-tongued pertinacity with
which the 'oilers in carriages and the denizens of Rot-
ten-row urged the Goverronent to-adhere to their pro-
mise, and to insist on-the removal of the Crystal Palace,
has not yet been forgotten. The luxurious patriots of
that day acted, or professed to act, frorn,no selfish mo-
tives. They rose on behalf of the lungs of London.
The strip of land between Rotten-row and the great
thoroughfare to Kensington was, they cried, the first
step towards the building up of the parks ; nor should
any exception be made now on behalf of a Crystal Pa-
lace, one of the wonders of the world. The struggle
was successful, and we rejoice that it was so. But
what amount of damage to the public would the Crystal
Palace have inflicted had it remained where it rose, com-
pared with the annoyance and disfigurement of a turn-
pike road through the centre of the gardens of St.
James's ?
It has, indeed, been boldly insinuated that the Court
is the author of this design, net unworthy of the Van-
dale. The thing is incredible. ,These very gardens of
St. James's were, if we remember rightly, arranged as
se now see them by his late Majesty King George the
Fourth. They are one of the few, the very few, things
which serve, however slightly, to relieve the sad selfish-
ness and profligapy which marked the career of that
miaerable mac. Lis not possible tbhyathtohtahtinßgoysoalmlaudcyh,
a thoughtful awahoasne clairacteritdlfferencies dtois.tihnegruseisifhed and
re-
gard for her, subjects, will show.herself less alive than
any_of her Royal predecessors-44n Charles 11. and
George 'IV. --to the time-hallowed: efijo3iments of
her poorest subjects. Nor, indeed, will we permit
• Quoins to (19_4t t4t3 O. `cot as is Wormed of