The Sun.
London, England, 1864-04-06 00:00:00

SPIRIT OP

THE NATIONAL SHAKESPEARE
MEMORIAL BUST.
By FELIX 31. MILL Professor of Sculpture, Govern-
ment School Qf Art, published under the special sanction of
the National Shakespeare and Stratford-on-Avon Tercente-
nary Committees, by HOWELL, JAMES, and CO,
Copies will be issued, in the order of registration, to sub-
scribers only, and are executed in—
Wedgwood Ceramic Statuary, 12 in. high, price One Guinea.
French Terra Cotta 15 One Guinea.
~
Bronze 8 I Three Guineas
Subscribers' names received by the agents in Loi don and
chief provincial towns (where copies of the Bust may be seen),
or by the publishers,
ROWE LL, JAMES, and Co., Goldsmiths, &c.,
By appointment to the Queen and l•rince and Princess of
Wales, 5,7, and 9, RE GENT-S MEET, LONDON.
Photographs and prospectuses forwarde I post free on ap-
plication.

THE GLASGOW WATERWORKS.—At the usual
monthly meeting of the Water Committee, held on Monday
—the Lord Provost presiding—it was reported that the
Lord Provost and magistrates had visited the Gorbals
Waterworks on Saturday, March 19th, and the Mugdock
Reservoir on Friday the 25th of March, and that both were
found to be in a state of apparent complete safety. It was, -
however, agreed that while those visits enabled them to see
that the whole works were apparently in a most satisfactory
state, it was expedient, looking to the recent calamity at
Sheffield,to have the whole embankments connected with the
Loch Katrine Works, and also the Gorbal Works, minutely
inspected, and reported on by Mr. Bateman and Mr. Gale,
along with some eminent civil engineer, so that the public
safety might as far as possible be secured. Mr. Gale (the com-
pany's engineer) was authorised to proceed to Sheffield forthe
purpose of examining the Bradfield Reservoir, and acquiring
such information as might be useful to him in the discharge
of his duties. The second quarterly report by Mr. Gale
stated that the quantity of water sent into the city during
January, February, and March last was 18,400,000 gallons
a day on the average from the Loch Katrina Works, and
3,400,000 g.,llons a day from the Gorbals Works—in all
21,800,000 gallons a day, being 2,000,000 gallons a day more
than in the corresponding three months of 1863. • The high
floods on the Clyde on the 14th and 15th of March had car-
ried away a part of the river bank at both the Craston-hill
and the Dalmarnock Works, and the repairs required would
be somewhat extensive. It was supposed that the increased
velocity of the river during floods, through the deepening
and widening operations below the Bruomielaw, had been
principally the cause of the late abrasions of the river banks.
v•AScotonan.

TlMES.—Successive telegrams have for three days
told throughout Europe that the Daniell city of
Sonderbnrg is under a process of deliberate destruc-
tion. First it was announced that the Prussians
had, without any previous warring, or any notice
to remove the women and children, commenced
throeing shells into the city. Next. day London
and Paris and Berlin and Vienna heard that nearly
a third part of the town had been burnt down, but
that the cannonade had ceased. Then it was told
that the intermission had not been of long continu-
ance; and the succeeding account was that Sonder-
borg had been bombarded for 48 hours, and that 80
townspeople, women and children, had been killed
or wounded, and that the city was then deserted.
If it be true that the non-combatants who were not
killed are all driven out, it is, perhaps, of less im-
portance that the bombardment should now be
stayed; but we have no reason to be certain that it
is not at present going on, and the probabilities are
that Sonderborg is still being battered into a mass
of rubbish by way of practice to the Prussian ar-
tillery. This is not a fable imported from the
other end of the earth, it is a reality passing before
the eyes of Europe. These people, who are killing
women and children, and burning their habitations,
and these poor wretches, who are being burnt in
their homes like bees in their hive, are amovg us.
We can almost hear the guns that are doing the
butchery ; we might communicate by telegraph in
a few minutes with the actors. The King of
Prussia, or the Emperor of Austria, or the Empe-
ror of the French could in an hour send a tele-
graphic message into the Prussian camp which
would explode with greater power than any shell
there and blow away the seige itself. This story of
death and wounds, and rushing away for safety, is
not a fictitious tale of woe, to be mourned over in
maudlin tones of sympathy ; it is an acting atrocity,
which might have been stopped. It is a continuing
series of cruelties which Europe has allowed to
go on under the eyes of all, and which is even
now pagsing without a protest. It is a hard,
lisugreeable fact. It would be easy to dress up
a rhetorical picture of the scenes that are occurring
in the city of Sonderborg, and it would not be diffi-
cult to imagine in horrible detail the events of a
bombarded city. But we do not care to appeal to
people who must be moved by sensation writing,
and can only act upon sensation impulses. We hope
that the great bulk of the people of Europe will be
able without any such aid to c mee to the conclusion
that as the bombardment of a city must be either a
dreadful necessity or an execrable crime, the bom-
bardment of Sonderborg, being without necessity,
can only be a crime. It may be unavoidable to
bombard a city, or even to raze it to the earth. It
war did not pursue its objects without consulting
the dictates of humanity, there could be no war. If
a city stands in the way of the object of a war, it
would be useless to protest against its destruction.
Such an act must be, no doubt, the most ungrateful
task to which a soldier can be set ; but if the
necessity occurs he must do it. It is scarcely pos-
sible, however, to imagine a case in which a. Com-
mander can be placed under the necessity of choosing
between his duty towards his cause and his duty to
give such full notice of his intention to destroy a
city as may enable the non-combatants to leave it.
There are no examples nowadays of a city being
shelled intentionally without full previous notice
being given. If some rare instance should happen
in America, we apprehend that even General Butler
would not undertake to defend so cruel a blunder.
We accept, therefore, the statement that the bom-
bardment of the city of Sonderborg was commenced
without notice only as a grave accusation, which it
behoves the Prussians to disprove, under pain of
universal condemnation, but which we shall not
completely believe until the opportunity for disproof
has been neglected. But let us suppose that the usual
conditions of civilised warfare were observed by the
Germans. Let us suppose that it is entirely by their
own fault that these obstinate Danish women and
children, clinging pertinaciously to their firesides,
have been killed and wounded. Let us believe that
the intention of the Prussian went no further than
to drive them to bivouac in the clear northern air
while he levelled their houses for some strategic
purposes. Even this mild exercise of the rights of
war would seem to require for its defence that it
should not be done in the mere wantonness of power,
or in the mere lust for the infliction of human suf-
fering. It needs not, perhaps, a good object, or a
moral object, or a wise object to rescue a military
operation from theeategory of a mere odious cruelty,
but still it ought to have some object. What possi-
ble object, however, can the Prussians serve by de-
stroying this city, and the people inside it ? The
war itself has ceased.to have an object. Every shot
that is fired is fired in pure waste ; every death that
occurs is a human sacrifice at a shrine which has
not even an idol. There is not only no object in
this war, but there is not an excuse for any military
operations of the commonest kind. It may be ima-
gined, perhaps, that, even without any defensible
military object, if two squadrons of Danish and of
Prussian horse were to meet in the open, the
instinct of fight, old hatreds, and recent emulations I
might send them on each other cleaving and pierc-
ing. Hot blood and high passion would excuse
this in the eyes of Europe, although, after the con-
flict was over, the residuum of all this effervescence
would be sad and repulsive enough. But to pour
shot and shell into a town for forty-eight hours, to
burn houses, and mutilate a wretched little village
crowd, all in cold blood, and to do this when there
was nothing to be decided by war, and the whole
matter had already been submitted to arbitration—
fie upon it—it is an abuse of the privilege of a belli-
gerent to be brutal. How is it that such a waste
of wickedness is committed? The Germans are
not naturally a cruel race, loving cruelty for its own
sake. Why should they inflict such useless woes
upon these poor Panes? Perhaps, a reason may be
found in the pretension of the Prussians to be not
only a very military but also a very philosophical
nation; Their military philosophy takes the form
of ingenious, subtle inventions. They have artillery
cast on the most profound philosophical principles ;
they have strategic problems which have been only
as yet half reasoned out. Beautiful in theory. their
arms and their tactics have not for half a cm•
tury had the advantage of actual exercise. These
poor Danes are to the Prussians what his dogs were
to John Hunter and his frogs to Orfila. They pro
pose to practise vivisection upon them. Up to this
time the result has not been especially satisfactory.
The rifled cannon may be very good, and, indeed,
the best opinion is that they are very good ; the
breech-loading rifle is supposed to have answered
very well in the field, and some of us are rather
envying the Prussians their invention ; but, rot-
withstanding this, the character of the Prussian
army was never at a lower ebb than it is at this
moment, and lookers-on are apt to calculate with
some dismay that if they can do no better than this
against a little victim, what would they be able to
effect against a gigantic oppressor ? Is there no one
to lift up his voice against this European scandal?
Is it only when they have something ridiculous to
propose, or some fictitious enormity to denounce, or
something preposterous to ask for, that the gene-
rous sympathies of our Humanitarians ate awake
and active? Here is a case of wilful waste of
bloodshed, it is capable of being whipped up into
any quantity of froth, and it is red enough to create
and to warrant more than the necessary point of
horror. Why is it that this absolutely unnecessary
warfare is going on without a protest ? Here is a
legitimate opportunity for the interposition of the
public opinion of Europe. Voices raised in this
cause would have their echo, and words well spoken
would have their result. Shall it be said that while
every baseless story that finds its way from the ex-
treme East has its rhetorical exponent, a city in the
very midst of Europe can be deliberately pounded
into dust while no one calls attention to the per-
sistent outrage, and no one makes a call upon our
human sympathies ? We have never taken shave
ehave
with the professional Humanitarians,
but we
no hesitation in this instance. It is not a proposi-
tion to be argued, but a truth self-evident, that the
continuation of this bloodshed in Denmark after the
Conference has been agreed upon is not only 0
European scandal, but a great public crime.
HERALD . —We receive every day fresh and more
painful illustrations of the neutrality of the
British
Government in the American quarrel. The
impar-
tiality of Lord Russell is shown chiefly by a feeble
compliance with every act of usurpation of the
Northern taction—a concession of every point which
may be claimed to their advantage—a cringing de-
ference to the tyranny of the most disreputable
Government of modern times. Whenever there is
any matter at issue between North and South in
which the British Ministry is compelled to decide,
there seems to be no question of its decision being
given in favour of the only Power which it allows
to be in existence between Canada and Mexico. I
is difficult to say what the Northern people have
done to deserve this at our hands, that while the
world at large recognises in North America two
Powers contending on very equal terms, each exer-
cising in their own territories the functions of sove-
reignty,at our officials should yet speak of the Govern-
ment Washington as the Government of the