The Sun.
London, England, 1864-02-02 00:00:00

SPORTING INTELLIGENCE

T A.TTERS,kLL'S—MoNDAY.

There was a very good attendance this afternoon, and
betting was carried on with some spirit, especially on the
Chester Cup and Derby. For the former 100 to G was offered
against Anfield, but nothing would induce backers to invest
at the price, Blackdown was the lion of the day, and after
1,000 to 40 had been booked about him several times 20
"fifties" were accepted, the lika odds being also noted in
favour of his stable companion, Accident. Carisbrook and
Muezzin were each in force at 25 to 1, and towards the close
of business Change, about whom there were some warm in-
quiries, would have been supported at 33 to 1, to money.
",Vhitethorn, the reputed "cock of the north," was in consi-
derable demand, 33 to 1 having been taken kindly. 40 to 1
each was offered against Lord Westmoreland's three, with-
out a response. The Two Thousand was very little touched
upon, the few bets quoted below being only to small amounts.
Scottish Chief continues to improve his position in the
Derby betting, for which he is again first favourite, but al-
though his followers and retainers all spoke well of him,
offers of 10 to 1 would not tempt them to give him any fur-
ther support ; later on, however, 2,100 to 200 was snatched
up and divided between two stanch adherents of ." the
Chief." Paris was decidedly "fishy," 13 to 1 being freely
offered. Coastguard was such a hot favourite that all the
14's to 1 were caught up in no time, and as only 13 to 1 was
afterwards obtainable the commission in his favour could
not be executed. The two " dark" cracks, Forager and Blair
Athol,wero somewhat mysterious, 1,000 to 55, or a fraction
while
toeltBhe
I,being accepted about Lord St. Vincent's hone
northern champion WAS friendless at 18 to 1. Ilis-
torian was firm at his previously-quoted price-23 to 1
(taken). The retrogression of Paris was followed by the
advance of his stable companion, Idler, who was backed in
quarters where something is usually known at 30 to '
(taken freely). 1,000 to 30 is the pons asinoi um over which
Ackworth is unable to pass for the
present, while his stable
companion, Copenhagen, se ems to be creeping up to him.

Liverpool Cotton Market—This Day.

Mark _
Market very quiet. Sales, perhaps 2,000 or
3,000 bales. Import, 4,064. Previously, 4,053.

SIR CHARLES TRLVELYAN has knocked himself
up by overwork. lie has been advised to leave Calcutta,
and has proceeded on a trip to the north-west to recruit his
strength, He will spend two months at Delhi.

(BY ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH.)
HARROW RACES—This DAY.
LIO HANDICAP PLATE.

Flower Safety
Reindeer
2
Tiney
3

Fourteen ran.

SELLING STAKES.

Restive
1
Elise
Atlas , '
Seven ran.
GUARDS' CUP.

Cheviot
Useless Brute
Johnnie
3

DENMARK,

(From the Special Correspondent of the Times.)

COPENHAGEN, Jan. 26.
I have been the best part of three days on my
way from Kiel to Copenhagen—a fact sufficient to
e7.--plitin the exceptional condition of the country in
these stirring times of forthcoming war. I have
passed from the camp of the Gcrmnr] Greeks to that
of the Trojan Danes ; from the advanced po3ts of
the Austro-Prussians to the strongly-guarded lines
of the Dannewerk. The movements of neutral tra-
vellers are as yet unimpeded, and my progress was
only delayed by some of those hindrances and petty

annoyances that ar© inseparable from crowded
trains, belated steamers, and overwrought post-
horses—the great machinery of locomotion being to
some extent clogged and unhinged, but not wilfully
broken up or interfered with.
I left Kiel on Sunday morning, without a single
soldier of any description, under prof.ection of its
most inoffensive citizen-guard. The Prussians had
come no farther than Plon ; and I found the Ausz•
trians at Neumunster. The train left me for two
hours at the latter place, and, having nothing better
to do, I sauntered along the endless main street of
that straggling market town, and inspected the
whole long line of the Martini Brigade, as, issuing
forth from its night quarters, it mustered in several
detachments along the road in the gray of the morn-
ing. In what part of the empire its regiments are
recruited I know not, nor could I make out, I could
fancy myself in W allenstein's camp. My ear was as-
sailel by every variety of uncouth Sclavonian jabber
with a mixture of Istrian, Dalmatian, and even Vene-
tian dialects. Dark and dingy they locked, an ugly
set of Croatians :and- Grenzer for the most part,
with hollow cheeks and lank bodies, as gaunt and
wolfish a set of marauders, to judge by external ap-
pearances, as ever was let loose upon an ill-starred
country; verygood soldiers, I dare say, long endur-
ing, venturesome, amenable to a strong discipline.
Their meat was plentiful, their bread excellent,
their kettles were boiling, and they seemed at peace
with the good Holsteiners, at whose expense they
fared so sumptuously.
Travelling in Germany, or for that matter in Den-
mark, is slow work, but it has this good in it—that

it allows ample leisure for reflection. I gazed at those
low bred, coarsely •clad, unwashed, scampish-looking
instruments of the Kaiser's might ; I thought of the
Ilundreds of thousands following in their rear if
needed. I added the half-•million of Prussians and
other Germans embarked with them in the same
enterprise, and bethought myself of the bread and
meat these myriads and myriads had been devour-
ing since the reconstitution of the German States in
1814 ; I thought of the check they had been on pro-
ductiun, of the terrible impulse they had given to
consumption in their country, and of the little good
they had been to it either for offensive or defensive
purposes, the Prussians boasting of no other laurels
to their standards than those reaped in the blood-
less campaign against the Baden Republicans in
1818 ; the Austrians wearing out their strength

against their master's own subjects, unable to over-
c,ima the unarmed Magyars without Russian sup-
port in 1849, unfit to hold a position of their own
choice against the French or even against the de-
spised Italians in 1859, driven from fat Lombardy,
after no more than a two fields' experiment, leav-
ing their chivalrous young master to console him-
self as he best could with the fond conceit that " all
was lost but honour."
And now this million and a half unfieshed Austro-
Prasso-German bayonets are all turned against the
breast of comparatively helpless Denmark, and it
may b 3 that those two emulous Powers which never

agreed upon any one point since the close of the
S3ven Years' War, and all the 86 Confederate
Princes who never were anything but a faggot of
loose sticks in matters of home or foreign policy,—
it may be, I say, that Prussia, Austria, and the
Band will give proof of great unanimity and go to

work with a will now that the aim of all their

efforts is to strip a third-rate monarchy of one of its
provinces, Low that they are six and thirty to one,
and, as they fancy, the man to be hit " has no
friends."
At Rendsburg, on the Eider, a few Saxon officers
were still at the railway station on the south side
of the river. They were the last troops of the Bun d
still in the front line, and they were ready to march
to the rear as soon as their Austro-Prussian betters
should come up to supersede them. Anon the train
conveyed us over the narrow, ricketty bridge of the
Eider, and at once the scene was charged, as if by
magic. We stood on Danish soil, and no sounds but
those of the Norse language greeted our ears. Tail
Danish officers, blue-eyed, flaxen-haired—as if all
sprung from Harold Haarfager, crept into the nar-
row second-class carriages, stooping to get admit-
tance, and very meth at a loss how to dispose of their
long legs and of their bright-scabbarded broad-
swords,

I was not a little struck, from the moment we

crossed over to the Kronwerk at Rendsburg, by
the universal prevalence of the Danish language ;
ail the more forcibly struck, as I had travelled over
a good part of the Duchy of Schleswig only a few
days before, and the whole population with whom I

came in! o contact spoke German, the only difference
bF.ing• between 'nigh and low Gaman, It was not

long before I perceived that German was a tabooed
latigue.ge wherever the lordly Dane showed himself,

The nationality of the Schieswigers is precisely the
grelt point on which the whole question at issue
now hinges, and it is gcod policy for a native of
the Duchy who has both tongues at his command
to humour his northern master whenever he comes

into contact with him by the use of the Danish, re-
serving his German idiom for those patriotic meet-
. ings where he drinks his beer to the prosperity of
Varerland.

Nay, the feelings of the Dane have been so
soured of late against anything German that the
mere address in that tongue on the part of a
stranger who cannot muster one word of Danish
calls forth a scowl upon his interlocutor's counte-
nance, and makes the latter forgetful of his innate
courtesy and good breeding; and it is only upon
perceiving his mistake, and being assured that no
offence was meant, that he meets you on the neutral
ground of French or English, and readily puts him-
Belt out of his way to oblige you by all kind offers of
Basistan co.

At Flensburg we left the railway, and proceeded
by diligence to Apenrade and Hadersleben ; hence
we crossed the Little Belt from Aatoesbund to
Assens ; from Assens we drove across the island of
Nyberg ;
F -ten to
a steamer conveyed us from the
latter place to
s ue near Korsor in Zealand ;
whence a railway brought us in five hours to this
place. Both the Great and Little Belts are now
almost entirely free from ice; and, although the
steamer chose to stop at Raleloe, and to land us by
sears of small boats, forwarding g ns to Korsor by
postchaises, we found at Korsor steamers on the
point of quitting the
harbour; from which we in-
ferred that it must be as easy to get in as to go out,
and concluded that the navigation was by this time
altogether unimpeded.
All along the road, by land and water, we met
handreds of old soldiers, chiefly from Schleswig,
Who obeyed the orders lately issued by the Danish
Government, calling under,arms as a reserve all the
men bound to service up to thirty-five years of
age. Most of these men seemed aware that there
is a language spoken among the gods and
one used among mortals. They conversed in Ger-
man amongst themselves, and were ready with their
D,:nish whenever there was a chance of being over-
heard by strangers. Some of them were old sailors,

familiar with the Western and Southern Ocean '
tir_,yr spoke English almost as well as their native;
Itiglage ; they were an intelligent, well-informed
stA of men. Tney told me it was not without re-
pugnance that they undertook this weary journey :
that their hearts were with the Germans, and it was
very hard they should have to bear arms against
their own friends and countrymen; that they should
have to follow the standards of those very Danes
ag Linst whom they fought 14 years Ago. They added
that they would fain have followed the example of
many of their friends who had gone over to Hol-
stein, only that they were not so sure Schleswig
might not remain Danish, Eater all, when they would
fiad themselves banished from their homes during
their lifetime. They assured me tha t Denmark would
have little cause to be satisfied with their services j

feud with these of the ;3chleswigors and Holsteiners,
which she held in her ranks against their will; that
on the first shot being fired they all wouA I ass over
en masse to the finemy ; that the who'e of their
Duchy was German to tho core, and th t even some
of those belonging to the Northern Provitlces who
actually could speak nothing bat Danish were all
devoted to the German cause.

Of course, I did not take these words to the letter,
nor did I believe the Danish cause as hopeless as
they made it out ; what most forcibly struck and
amazed me, however, was the boldness and readi-
ness with which they gave utterance to such
thoughts before a perfect stranger ; for, although
I suppose I do not look like a spy or an in-
former, still I never told them I shared their
feelings in any way, nor gave them any reason to
believe they could rely on my discretion. Surely
some fire must be smouldering where so much smoke
appears ; and if only one-tenth of what I every-
where hear is true, :Denmark will have no little
trouble in guarding against such friends, if ever the
day comes in which she is to guide them against her
enemies.

JANUARY 27.

I find the position of affairs here one of consider-
able " tension." The Austrian and Prussian Mini-
sters have riot actually left yet, but they have taken
their leave long since, and have only been detained
by the difficulties of embarking either here or at
Korsor. The navigation, as I said, is thoroughly
free at the latter place, and the two diplomatists are
expected to start this evening by the 7 o'clock train
to Korsor.

So far as I can make out, the Danish Government
have put themselves altogether in the right. They
have offered to make all such concessions as it is in
their power to make. To repeal the November
Constitution, in obedience to the demands of Aus-
tria and Prussia, by a mere, Royal decree would be
tantamount to a coup detat, to trespass on the
King's part upon all the rights of the Danish peo-
ple. No monarch could venture upon such a breach
of the law with less hope of success than Christian
IX., a Prince who has but lately come to the Throne,
and looked upon till his accession as a stranger to
Denmark. All the Danish Government could pro-
pose to do was to refer the matter to the Rigsraad,
or national Parliament, which should be speedily
called together for the purpose.
The present Ministers are popular here, and they
expressed great confidence,—indeed, positive cer-
tainty, that they would be able to bring the majority
of the Rigsraad over to their views, to obtain their
consent to the abrogation of the November Consti-
tution, and to the framing of a new national com-
pact, by which the Duchies should depend upon
Denmark on the terms of a mere personal union.
No apprehensions are entertained here of popular
movements in the city. The Ministers of Prussia
and Austria had, however, it appears, strict instruc-
tions to insist upon a full and immediate compliance
with their demands, and, as the King of Denmark
could not, owing to the above-stated reasons, give
in, the march of the Anstro-Prussians to the Eider
frontier has become inevitable. From their posi-
tion on the Eider their ultimatissimuna will be for-
warded to Copenhagen, with an injunction to the
Danish forces to withdraw from their k)osition in
Schleswig. Before an intimation of that sort the
Danish Government could no more hear of negotia-
tion than a duellist could consent to explanations
when brought upon the ground pistol in hand'.
Contrary to the opinion entertained by most people
in the Duchies, and to some extent, also contrary to
my expectations, a collision on the Eider appears
now to be utterly unavoidable. What the issues of
such a conflict may be no man can foretell; for, on
the one side, the German Powers are likely enough
to bring into the field what they may consider an
irresistible force; and, on the other hand, the Danes
are said to have mustered 70,000 combatants in
Schleswig. They are almost providentially favoured
by the weather, and they are too well known for
their bravery not to offer a most gallant, desperate
resistance. Should a first success favour their
efforts, there is little doubt but the sympathy of
Sweden, and, perhaps, other Powers. may be enlisted
in favour of what is materially the weaker side.
Let the Danes only be on their guard against defec•
tion or treachery of theirSchleswig-Holstein soldiery,
and, owing to the advantage of position, the strum
gle may still be less uncquai than mere numerical
odds may seem to make it.

JANUARY 2b.

As I informed you by a telegraphic despatch last
evening, the expected departure of the Ministers of
Prussia and Austria did not take place. It had
been positively asserted yesterday morning, and it
was generally believed in the diplomatic circles,
that those two gentlemen were to leave by the 7
o'clock p.m. train for Korsor, there to embark for
Ee,kerntorde, but it was later in the day understood
that their journey was put off for a day or two. The
alleged cius?, of this delay was the imperfect state
of steam navigation, as the Bay of Eekernfordo was
supposed to be still obstructed by ice. Thesame, how-
ever, was sail cf the harbour of Korsor, and I had
opportunity, as I told you, to see with my own eyes
that steamers could leave the wharf at that place
with perfect freedom ; and what I saw of the Bays
of Eckernfor de and Kiel before I left, four days ago,
leaves me no doubt that, with the warm weather
and the heavy rains we have had since, every trace
of ice must by this time have disappeared. It is
possible that these two distinguished diplomatists
evince greater anxiety about the perfect safety of
their movements than would be shown, under the
circumstances, by ordinary persons. The simple fact
is that they tarry here, and, although any suggestion
en my part that they may be detained by some hope
of a peaceful arrangement of their difference with
the Danish Government is scouted and treated with
contempt by the knowing ones, although they assure
me that, having taken their formal leave of the
King, its sent censjs d'etre deja parks—still there
lurks about my mind some suspicion, which will at
least make me very careful to send you a telegram
in proper time to assure you that they are actually
and bodily gone.

Rumours of an intended arrangement proposed
by Prussia to Sweden, with a view to detach the
Duchies of Schleswig and Holstein from Denmark,
and to unite Jutland and the islands of Zealand and
Funen to Sweden and Norway,'so us to form a great
Scandinavian empire, have, I am told, circulated in
the newspapers, and will have found many unbe•
lievers. I am, however, in a position to assure you,
upon very good evidence, that the Prussian Govern-
ment have actually made advances in that sense to
the Swedish Minister in Berlin. To what ex-
tent the head of that Government, M. von Bis-
mark, knew and approved the proposal I am not
in a position to state, for Court and Cabinet are not
altogether one in Berlin in every respect ; but that
the Swedish Minister communicated such an offer
to his Government at Stockholm I believe to be a
positive fact, as it is also, I think, a matter of per-
fect truth that the Swedish Government not only
rejected the offer, but resented it as the gravest
insult. You know I would not take upon myself
to make such statements had I the least doubt as to
the sources of my information.

That a dismemberment and the extinction of the
Danish monarchy is a scheme that has often busied
the brains of German statesmen is a point that ad-
mits of no doubt, In Berlin and Vienna, and
throughout Germany, Denmark is as plainly doomed
as the old sick man upon whose inheritance Nicho-
las
Russia9f
German
great a hurry to reckon.
T
patriots, whom I found most earnest
in the cause of the emancipation' of Schleswig and
Holstein from Danish thraldom, are by no means
unjust to the fine qualities, "the high spirit, the
chivelrous bravery, the genius,eherh hasn
nation, worth"
Danes. It was and is a g
estimation, as far as it goes. B nt the Danes,n° of the
they
e
say, "reduced to their present condition, are only
a small flock, the mere fragment of nation."
They have a luminous past behind them, and they
show a good countenance even in their present re-
duced circumstancns. But it is a nation whose race
is run, whose history for one or two centuries only
marks a period of not ignoble, but irresistible de-
cline. A nation of 1,800,000 souls, barely serviy.
ing the calamities of 1801 and 1807, stripped of
Norway, reft of hat. colonies, and placed in one of the
most important positions as keeper of the Sound,
has no right to Live. The Danes are only a branch
of the great Sy andinavian family. Their aspira-

tions should turn towards a reconstitution of the
great Northern. Empire. Those three kingdoms
which once obeyed one scep.,:re, and were only torn
asunder owing to the improvident misrule of a
Danish tyrant, must bo yearning for reunion.
Give Germany that of Denmark which is German ;
give Sweden and Norway what is Scandinavian.
The only obstacles in the way of such a settlement
are a dynasty and a capital. With the exception of
Christian IX., who reigns in spite of himself, and
of Copenhagen or Stockholm, which might very well
become alternate seats of Government, such a con-
summation would be a real gain and a blessing to
all parties concerned, and to all the world besides.
It was as interpreter of these somewhat wild
dreams in Germany that the Prussian Government
tempted Sweden with the arrangement lately pro-
posed. The Berlin Court and Cabinet are aware of
the little popularity they enjoy throughout Ger-
many, but they are also aware that the statesman
who succeeded, either by diplomatic craft or by
might of arms, in wrenching Schleswig-Holstein
from the Danish dominion and adding one more
German crowned head to the 36 great and petty
Princes who occupy so much space in the muster-
roll of Royalty of the Almanach de Gotha would by
that territorial addition to the already too wide
soil of Fatherland secure for himself absolution
from a multitude of sins of misgovernment—past,
present, and future. Alive as they are to national
feelings for what concerns themselves, the Ger-
mans too readily forget that other people also
have an individuality which they may be anxious
to preserve ; that the Danes, however defi-
cient in numbers, boast a long, glorious,
and powerful existence of their own ; that, however
closely allied by blood to the Swedes, however
strongly relying on their support in the present
straits, they are no more ready to become Swedes,
to merge their own even into a kindred nationality,
than the English would be, for instance, to amalga-
mate with the Saxon or Norman people with whom
they claim common descent. The Danes have suf-
fered serious losses—indeed, they are reduced to a
small flock ; but they have always held their own in
Europe with honour; they knew how to command
the respect of their very victors at the time of their
differences with Great Britain ; they know how to
stand their ground against German encroachment
at the time that this odious Schleswig-Holstein
question was debated 15 years ago. Whatever might
have become of Turkey without the help of the
Western Powers in 1854. Denmark is no sick old
man, to give up the ghost without a struggle. It is
absurd for Prussia to propose to share with Sweden
the hide of a living lion. Were even Denmark alone
in the contest, the Dannewerk could not be stormed
without shedding torrents of blood. iThe impending
war between Denmark and Germany may eventually
lead to a closer union between the three Scandi-
navian kingdoms ; but this union need not be the
result of a political subjection to one sceptre, nor of
a fusion of three distinct nations into one people. It
may be a union springing from native attraction and
affinity, resting on the ground of reciprocal esteem,
and cemented by a mutual readiness to take up each
other's quarrel as a common cause. The three
nations may give the world the example of a politi-
cal combination in which, while each of the com-
ponent parts preserves its own individuality, they
may be as one to all the rest of the world.
I understand the Danes are busily at work con-
structing a railway line in the rear of the Danne-
werk from Klosterkvo to the Treene. Two-thirds
of the enterprise are already accomplished. Every
one must feel the importance of' such a means of
communication along a line of fortifications which
was deemed of too great an extent for the number
of its defenders.

RAILWAY INTELLIGENCE,

LONDON AND SOUTH-WESTERN,

The directors of this company have resolved to recom-
mend to the proprietors, at the half-yearly general meeting
on the 11th inst., that the dividend for the half-year ending
on the 31st of December, 1363, be at the rate of 5} per cont.
per annum on the ordinary capital stock of the company.