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

THE Si ...MPLESWIG-HOLSTEIN WAR.

(From the Timer ~Special Correspondant with the Dania
Army.)
DANIS'a HEADQTJARTERS, SONDERBORG,
FEB. 26.
The game w e are looking on at here is not a very
exciting or edifying one, but neither is it altogether
destitute of a certain amount of grim and painful in-
terest. It is not real regular war, but it connot be
said to be anything like a bonafide armistice. We
are placed between, the Prussians who are afraid,
and the Danes wl'io are unable, to fight—the latter
reduced to numb'ars too insignificant to venture far
from their own, line of fortifications; the former too
prone to listen to that discretion which is said to be
the best par t of valour to make a brave dash at a
posiiion wl'.ich, however strong, is open to the onset
of a storming party, and makes no pretensions to be
impregnab).e. But, although we have nothing like
a general deliberate action to record, or, perhaps,
even to -expect, although time, and the better coun-
sels it. never fails to bring, lack of proper mettle on
the one side, and iron necessity on the other, must
soe.ner or later lead to a suspension of hostilities,
and bring the quarrel upon that field of diplomatic
intrigue and chicane from which both parties still
whrink with Teutonic and Scandinavian obstinacy,
still there is enough of the horrors of war about us
to keep our humane susceptibilities on a perpetual
stretch; there are outpost skirmishes, firing upon
each other's pickets, and filching, as it were, each
other's, precious lives, not quite in obedience to the
rules, of what modern warfare ought to be, where
no`c a drop of blood should be sacrificed, not an
'dunce of gunpowder should be burnt, without
a well-laid plan, a plausible purpose, and a
tangible result. I hope I do not overstate the
number of dead and wounded on the Danish side,
since the retreating army was concentrated upon
its safe shelter of Alsen and Dybbol, nineteen days
ago, if I set them down at about 300 or 400. Only
a few of these lie in the various hospitals which
have been hastily got ready for them at Sonderborg,
Augustenborg, and other places, where I frequently
visit them. By far the greatest part of those who
can bear removal are sent to quieter quarters in
Fanen, in Zealand, or as far as Copenhagen itself.
It would be impossible to deny the Danish sanitary
department of the army the praise and great skill
and carein the treatment of the sick and wounded.
Almost all the poor sufferers I have seen give proofs
of that calm and silent endurance which is charac-
teriitic of all Northern races. The wounded espe-
cially, are invariably cheerful and sanguine. They
sit up in their beds as strangers go past, enter wil-
lingly into particulars of the hurt that prostrated
them, solicit, if unable to hold a pen, the aid of
charitable persons to write to their friends at home,
and for the rest they are proud, and I may say, glad,
of having given their blood for their country, and
only long to be free to join the ranks to new risks
of life and limb for what is to them, without con-
tradiction, the holiest of causes. They are on their
own soil ; they stand or fall for their hearths and
home. The blessings of heaven upon them ; their
blood on the head of those, whoever they may be,
who provoked an unjust or even an unnecessary
struggle !

These thoughts occurred to my mind yesterday, as
for the first time since we came here I found leisure
to attend the ceremony, which is here performed
regularly twice a week, Monday and Thursday, of
consigning the dead to the turf of Sonderborg
churchyard. The church of Sonderborg, a large
but unadorned and somewhat barn-like edifice, only
conspicuous for a tall slanting room and tiny wooden
spire, after the common fashion of local ecclesiastical
architecture, rises on a culminating spot on the hill,
only overtopped by the various summits where
windmills are erected, and by a bastion or battery
called the Church battery, and destined to guard
the narrowest passage of the Sound, in the event
of the Dybbol position falling into the enemy's
hand is most extensive, charming even at this
bleak and gloomy time of the year. It commands a
long reach of the Sound towards the north ; to the
soathewese and south the broad sheet of water called
the Vemmingbund, with the open sea as far as the
round headland terminating the Broager peninsula,
and the strip of land enclosing the Horup Hay. Ia
front, looking westward, it is only bounded by the
waving eminences of the Dybbol position, crested
most of them with their batteries, and sweeping at
will a vast extent of the open country beneath. The
landscape was in the main yesterday white with
snow, but here and there the eye rested on dense
woods, the dark bare timber of which broke warm
and genial through the monotony of the desolate
winter scene. Tne churchyard at Sonderborg must
bo in the summer a lovely spot, a large tract of table
land, planted with thriving beech trees, tall and
tapering; rather indeed a parklike cemetery of
modern times than the narrow "God's acre" which
ancient niggardliness squeezed up between church
and parsonage and set apart for the city of the dead.
There were about a battalion of soldiers gathered
on the spot, a military band, bat very lately sent
hither from Copenhagen to cheer the dulness of our
beleaguered existence, the officiating chaplain, a few
officers, and still fewer idle spectators. The soldiers
seem fain to pay the honours to their dead en famille.
It was by them that the grave was dug. Their
carpenters made the coffins, their own hands con.
veyed their beloved comrades to their last abode,
lowered them into it, threw the mould upon it, The
bodies to be interred were 22. The coffins were
taken one by ore from the deadhouse where they
had lain for the last three days. Rough, uncouth
boxes they were, smeared with coarse red paint, but
still they were coffins, and I could not help admiring
the piety and charity which in the midst of the toils
and cares of a disastrous warfare, in the midst of
incessant and exhausting labours at the trenches, at
the barracks, on the field, found leisure to provide
the nobly slain with six boards and a score of nails,
in obedience to the Northern notions of funeral
decency, and with a loathing (which I can respect,
even if I do not understand it) to give dust to dust
with nothing but a shroud between what was flesh
and the earth with which it must so soon com-
mingle!
Well ! the coffins issued forth from the deadhouse
one by one, each borne by six stout men, whose
strength seemed barely equal to the exertion the
dead weight demanded of them; one by one they
wound round the avenue leading to the cemetery,
till the whc le sad convoy had passed under the gate
leading to the mournful field where their burdens
were to land. As we walked in the rear of the
slowly moving procession, with the harsh notes of
the bugles grating on our ears, we went past more
than one monument erected in commemoration of
the Danes who
of 1849-50; men
perished in the field during the war
who fought and suffered in this
same Schleswig-Rolstein quarrel, which they flat-
tered themselves their blood had for ever settled,
and which now opens afresh, athirst for new
blood, and with no good prospect of a more satis-
factory or more permanent arrangement.
A monument of that description, by the way, was
raised soon after 1849, at Flensburg, and it bears,
as a trophy in honour of the many dead that lie
under it, a colossal bronze lion of Denmark. The
report goes round the Holstein papers that the
Prussians have pulled down, or intend pulling
down, the harmless memorial ; but the Danes here
have too good an opinion even of their enemies
to deem them capable of such an act of wanton
vandalism.

diers, a single-minded set of men, the beat part of
whose valour is a sense of duty and loyalty, fos-
tered and sustained by religion. Presently the last
burial prayers were said, the first shovel .of earth
rattled on the coffins, three volleys of mlketry rent
the air, the band struck up a livelier tune, 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 dattes
that lay before them.

Two mails came is 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 six letters 3
that every man has got at least one money order,
or registered letter, with money, and a parcel con-
taining linen, shoes, flannel, eatables, drinkables,
&c., 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 among 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 overtaaks 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 latestZarrivals from England
here bear the date of the 15th instsmeleven days old.
It is almost as far as America!

FEBRIARY 28.
How long shall we be kept hero idling ?" This
is a question only to be answered by another qnes-
tion—" What is going on across the lines ?" It
does not seem that any one here knows anythng
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 for 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 Wurat from Germany. Now a spy's
business has nothing in common with
a Boots' outstretched palm soliciting veils, 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 honourable as any display of gal-
lantry in the field, But there is something in the
mere name of a " spy" frcm which a Dine 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
1 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-
trigue." The feelings of the Danes in these matters
are akin to those of that honest mountaineer who,
being sent from one of the Forest Cantons to °a-
plore the nakedness of their enemy's land, boldly
knocked at the gates of the hostile city, and an-
nounced himself as "Der Spion on Uri !"
But, although we know next to nothing of mili-
tary matters beyund 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-
clamation of Frederick of Augustenburg ; there the
Austrians forbid it. To-day the Schleswig Holstein
flag is palled down ; to-morro wit is the German
black, red, and gold tricolour which becomes parti-
cularly obnoxious, Marshal Wrangel snubs a depu-
tation from a National 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 hie
post. An Austrian commander winks at the mob
breaking into the unfortunate Amtsmann'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 were anxious to be united to Germany,
but they are not a little astounded at having drawn
three Gerksanies 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 J 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,equal to the task of self-government. In
Schleswigfillly the placemen were not
exclusively Danes,
but mostly attached to Danish interests, and, as I
expected, the advance of the German " liberators"
could not fail to drive them from their places, strik-
ing thus at the foundations of social order, and
plunging the country into hopeless anarchy. Gen.
Gablenz, applied to at Schleswig,
other places, by the citizens who at Flensburg, and
were only anxious
to hear and to obey," answered that he was a sol-
" Since that time statesmen
dier and no statesman."
have followed in the wake of soldiers. Commis-
sioners of the great Powers have taken upon them
selves the administration of the province, but these
Commissioners know nothing of the mind of their
Royal and Imperial
mind themselves. Hence everything is
masters, for the good reason
that the said masters know nothing about their own
provisional,
and contradictory ; what was done yesterday is sure
to be undone to-day, and to-day's measure will not
fail to be defeated by some new dispo,ition 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,
r e besetting the Commissioners' doors, all eager
for the good things that may lie in their gift, For
one of these hungry hounds into whosa mouth a

While we were discussing such matters, in an
under tone, awed by the simple solemnity, the
funeral convey had nached the goal of its short
journey, the coffius were laid with reverent care,
one by one, in the spacious grave, not piled up
one upon another, as it is done with the poor
at Bethnal-green or Hackney, but all side by
side in several rows, like the cells in a beehive, till
everyone lay in its appointed place, according to
their numbers, the coffin of a Prussian among those
of his death-reconciled foes, and the last of the
coffin-bearere, helped by the han ls of his comr. des,
emerged from the deep trench which was soon to
be levelled over the bodies. The chaplain stood
now upon the brink of the grave, and his prayers
and exhlrtations sounded very solemn and imposing
and his blessings on the brave ones who die for the
sake of their Fadreland and his well-timed allusions
to the One who died for the common Fatherland
of all mankind were listened to in deep silence
and with visible emotion by the assembled sol-

bone may be thrown a hundred are sent empty
away ; and these do not easily go back to their
kennel, but keep whining and snarling, appealing
to the Bund, to the great and little Fatherland, to
Heaven and earth, against the Austro-Prussian dog
in the manger, who hesitates about devouring
Schleswig, and will not suffer it to be devoured by
others.

However natural and even reasonable may have
been the yearnings of the Schleswig-Holsteinersl
after union with what they call their country, it is
not likely that they will at any time fall under any
German Government one-tenth as good, as provident
and liberal as that of their late Danish masters.
The Danes, as I have had frequent occasions to
show, carried their leniency to their disaffected
subjects to a fault. There was hardly a country in
the world where freedom of speech and action was
carried to a greater extent. Not only privy con-
spiracy and rebellion but even arrant treason were
winked at. Flensburg patriots, as I saw with my
own eyes, went over to Kiel to swear allegiance to
the Prince of Augustenburg, both in their own
name and in that of their townspeople, and they
came back to their homes unmolested and un-
challenged. The Danish soldiers billeted upon the
country people were as inoffensive, as rcspectful, as
indifferent to the sour looks of their hosts, as
tolerant of ill disguised insult and ill treatment as
so many angels. After all the convulsions of 1848.9
there was hardly an instance of a political prosecu-
tion in Denmark. Some of the self-banished
patriots shunned their country, as they had left it
for their country's good ; but Denmark had no
Spielberg nor Nisida. Amnesty was extended to
nearly all who would accept it.
It is not so with the men, justly or unjustly,
accused of Danish sympathies who are now tarry-
ing in the Duchies. The so-called patriotic leaders
hunt them down without mercy, they set up a mad-
dog cry after them, and the Austro-Prussian rulers,
who ought to see justice done to all parties, are too
ready to back:these curs in their full cry. A newspaper
is forcibly suppressed in Hadersleben because " it
was published in the Danish language ;" and the
Flensburger Zeitung is bidden to publish Copen-
hagen news as " foreign intelligence," under the
heading Ausland. The number of citizens, office-
holders, schoolmasters, and clergymen who are
compelled to seek shelter from popular fury, either
here or in Jutland, or even in the enemy's country,
at Hamburg or Lubeck, become daily more alarm-
ing. The Schleswig-Holsteiners were tired of their
Danish King Log, but have little reason as yet to
be satisfied with their Austro-Prussian King Stork.
They are disappointed, wrathful and fretful, and
they vent upon thot,e who can make no resistance a
displeasure which they dare not exhibit before the
new taxmasters they were in so great a hurry to
have among them. The national German party are
anxious, above all things, that the Duchies should
be thoroughly and radically revolutionized. It suits
their purpose to exaggerate the ill-feeling of the
people against the Danes, to rouse them to all
sorts of riot and mischief. Nor are the Commis-
sioners of the two great Powers, especially the
Prussians, at all earnest in their endeavours to allay
popular fury. There is no man in Sch leswig-
Holstein, no man in Prussia, Austria, or the minor
German States who clearly knows what he is driv-
ing at or what weuld answer his purpose best. A
vague instinct prompts almost all parties to give
mischief full swing, that time may show what is to
come out of it all,—what chances each may have to
fish in the waters all have contricuted to trouble.
Talk of personal union, new Constitutions aim-
ing at an equitable acknowledgment of the claims
of rival nationalities ! Why, if Schleswig-Holstein
ever came back to Denmark, its present occupiers
will take care that it shall be so fully disorganized
and subverted that Denmark herself will find it
hardly worth having.

RAILWAY INTELLIGENCE,

CORNWALL.

The half-yearly meeting of this company was held at
Truro on Friday—Mr. R. Tweedy in the chair.
The report, an abstract of which has appeared in The
Sun, was taken as read.

The Citxtnate.N, in moving the adoption of the report,
announced that two gentlemen had been sent to Falmouth
by the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company to inspect the
dock and railway accommodation. They arrived the day
before, and were that day making a thorough examination
of the works, and had expressed themselves very well satis-
fied with what had been done. He had no doubt they would
report favourably to the Mail Packet Company and to the
Government, and that Falmouth would before long be the
point of arrival and departure of the mail packets. This
would greatly improve the prospects of the company.
Mr. T. `VooLLCOMBB seconded the adoption of the report,
and the motion was agreed to nem con.

rectors, £2l to the auditors, and the secretary's salary was
fixed at £3OO per annum. The meeting was then made
special, and the directors were authorized to raise on deben-
tures £O,OOO, at 5 per cent., and the proceedings termi-
nated.

The retiring directors—Messrs. H. Barrow and R. R,
Broad, and the retiring auditor, Mr. Rogers, were unani-
mously re-elected.

A resolution declaring the forfeiture of 181 original shares
of £2O each for non-payment of calls was agreed to, and a
vote of thanks to the chairman and directors concluded the
proceedings.

THE LONDON, MONDAY EVENING, MARCH 7, 1864.

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS,

but Mr. Layard has passed over a sentence which
will give rise to some discussion. On the 7th of
January our Ambassador at St. Petersburg writes
to Earl Russell, reporting a conversation with
Prince Gortschakoff. (Page 504.) In that conver-
sation the Prince remarked, " it was in his opinion
most desirable that the action of Austria and
Prussia should not be separated from England and
Russia in any question of moment; the four Go-
vernments happily now thinking and acting in
harmony on a question still more important than
that of Holstein and Schleswig ought not on this
matter to be split into two camps opposed to one
another." What is this question—Turkey, or
Poland, or the Rhine? Has our Government really
been reinvigorating the Holy Alliance, as the Em-
peror of the French seems in another despatch to
think? Russia, Austria, Prussia, and England act-
ing in concert—what on earth does it all mean ?

SATURDAY REVIEW.—The Opposition un-
doubtedly takes up with great force any point on
which it happens to fasten, because its leaders have
now the strength of a great following, and because,
if a contest is provoked, it feels the pleasure of con-
scious power. It criticises the administration of
affairs, not only from a vague sense of duty and in
the interest of the nation, but because it thinks its
turn for administering affairs may come soon. Nor
can it be said that mere criticism of this sort ends
in very little, and that the Opposition has no solid
and tangible standing-ground unless it is prepared
to advocate, and if in office to pursue, a totally dif-
ferent policy from that to which the Government
has adhered. It is true:that it is a misfortune to the
Conservatives that they have no distinct policy,
and this is in some measure the fault or rrinci-
ples they profess and the chiefs they serve under;
but it arises in part from the leaders of the Conser-
vative party being brought at present under in-
fluences which equally affect the leaders of the Go-
vernment, and to which loyalty and respect for
sorrow dispose them, as politicians, unduly to yield.
But even although no distinct policy may be pro-
posed, it is still open to the Opposition to contend
that the administration of affairs is such as to call
for the disapprobation of the house. The present
Government came into office mainly on the ground
that the relations of Lord Derby's Ministry with
France were not sufficiently cordial. Lord Palmer-
ston did not contend that England ought to have
adopted a different policy in the Italian war.
He did not wish we had landed troops at Venice
or crushed the Austrian fleet, but he induced his
supporters to think that we ought to be more
friendly with France and to show our sympathies
with her more plainly. In the same way, at the
present time, the Opposition may agree that Eng-
land is not called on to fight Germany, and that
Denmark must be left to herself as Poland was, but
it may contend that a change ought to be made in
our way of treating continental nations, and that
we should not give reason to suppose that we in-
tend to afford our friends material assistance unless
we are quite clear that this is oar intention. There
is as much ground for saying that this would be a
basis of policy distinct from that of Lord Russell, as
there was for supposing, when the present Ministry
was formed, that Lord Palmerston's policy towards
France would be different from that of Lord Derby.
At the same time, although the Opposition may
make it clear that the administration of affairs, and
especially of foreign affairs, admits of a palpable
distinction being drawn between that which is and
that which should be, and although this is quite
enough justification for an Opposition, it by no
means follows that, even if on this particular point
they are right, it would be for the benefit of the
country they should come into office. A change of
Ministry is at any time a very serious thing, and,
with so many clouds hanging over both the New
and the Old World, a change of Ministry would be
more serious than usual. In this particular de-
partment of foreign affairs the Conservatives hap-
pen also to be especially weak. They would have
to face either the glaring incompetence of Lord
Malmesbury or the deep distrust of the character of
Mr. Disraeli which prevails, not only in Parliament
and in the country, but in the Conservative party
itself. Nor is it to be denied that, however con-
vinced Lord Derby may be of the necessity
of maintaining our present neutral attitude,
there would be a general feeling that a war would
come more easily if a Conservative Government
were in office, and that the very apprehension of
this is itself an evil. It is reasonable that a party
so strong numerically as the Conservatives should
feel themselves entitled to their turn of power, and
the country would gain by the many able men to be
found on that side having the advantage of official
experience; but for the present it may be doubted
whether, either for the country or the Conservatives,
there is anything better than that they should still
be the Opposition, but a powerful and vigilant
Opposition. An accidental circumstance also contri-
butes to make it just now more necessary than usual
that a vigilant and powerful Opposition should
exist. The Times has ceased to have any opinions
of its own. Whatever Lord Palmerston and his
colleagues say it applauds; whatever they do it
proves to be right in the very nature of things;
whatever blunders or faults they commit it excuses
or passes by in silence. The motives which have
led to this complete identification of the .7imes with
the Government are, we may be sure, of the most
honourable kind; nor, if personal feeling intervenes,
is it any disgrace to pay the tribute of even an ex-
cessive respect to so old and distinguished a states-
man as the occupant of Cambridge House. But it
is a public lose that a journal which deservedly
stands so high, and which contributes so largely to
the formation of public opinion, should have been
induced by zeal, or admiration, or gratitude, to
give up altogether the task of criticising a pArti-
oular Ministry. When, in the course of time, a
Conservative Ministry takes office, we may hope that
the Times will feel the invigorating effacts of
the change and return to that attitude of impar-
tial criticism wnich alone is worthy of the highest
order of English journalism. The Conservatives
well deserve to have a fair trial, and to be treated
with the respect due to a body of men who repre-
sent so much of the wealth and force and so many
of the traditions of the country. But we may be
sure that there will be plenty of room for fair cri-
ticism in the conduct of a party which is led by
men so dangerous as Mr. Disraeli and so weak as
Lord Malmesbury and Lord Chelmsford, and which
necessarily, from its very constitution, stand to some
degree in antagonism to that great though vague
and sometimes dangerous movement which de
rives its impulse from the advancing thought of
the modern world.

LONDON REVIEW.—In answer to a question in
the House of Commons, Mr. Layard, on Monday
-
ktiee revelation of the. position
night, made a fun,. -
eference to the Deno-
which we have taken up in :
German conflict. Denmark, it seen;:; has a ship of
;_ard in
war in course of construction in a private
this country. When hostilities were impending,
the Danish Minister informed our Government of
the fact, and offered to atop the work if we desired
it. Our Government did desire it, and orders were
given to that effect. Oa the remonstrances of the
shipbuilder, however, the vessel was allowed to be
launched, subject to the Danish Minister giving his
word of honour that she should not leave this coun-
try without the leave of the authorities. The con-
duct of Denmark in the affair had been, Mr. Layard
observed, marked by the most perfect good faith.
There is no doubt that it was marked nqt merely
by good, but by chivalrous faith. Denmark went
out of her way to inform us of what we might
possibly, though certainly it could not be supposed
that we should probably, regard as a breach of
neutrality, from which eventual embarrassment
might spring. But the question for us is, whether
we are in this case bound to be thus neutral or not,
and if we are not, the next question is, by what
motive this position of neutrality is forced upon us ?
Now, as to the first question, it is to be observed
that the Dano-German war is not one of those in
which we can profess to stand wholly aloof, hold-
ing nothing but an abstract opinion on its merits,
or a barren sympathy with one of the combatants.
It is caused by infraction of a treaty to which we
were parties. It is an assault, in our avowed belief,
utterly unprovoked, upon a State with which we
are bound in alliance. We may decide for our-
selves that we are not so far involved as to be
obliged to draw sword in the quarrel, yet we are
certainly not therefore neutral. It is not merely
our opinions that are ranged, with absolute unani-
mity, on the side of Denmark, in regard to the
justice of the quarrel. But it is that engagements
solemnly entered into by us, in concert with other
Powers, have been deliberately trampled underfoot
by the German States. It is admitted on all hands
that we have in these circumstances an ample casus
belli, if we think fit to exercise it. This is
admitted even by our Government, which long age
warned the intending invaders that if they took up
arms" Denmark would not be found alone." Now
we may choose to leave Denmark alone. But it is a
wholly different thing to say to her that we will
not only fight for her, ba that we will not suffer
her to obtain chips and arms by purchase from us.
When we have declared the attack unjustifiable in
the eye of public law and of European interests, it
is certainly a very strange proposition to lay down
that we shall give to the breakers of law and dis-
turbers of Europe all the benefits of law and all the
encouragement of impartiality, and shall prevent
the weaker party, the victim of violence, from pro-
cluing the means of defence. If, then, neutrality
is pushed to such excess in such a case, not called
for by law, we may next ask why we have adopted
it ? The frank answer will be given, that it is be-
cause, if we had not, Austria and Prussia would
have declared war against us. We may take leave
to doubt that assertion. Each of these Powers has a
good deal too much to do at home without declaring
war against Great Britain. Both together are un-
able to crush Denmark, whose total population is
less than that of London. It is not very probable
that, with Poland and Venetia in their rear, they
would proceed to declare war against Great Britain,
But supposing they were really to make such a
threat, what then? Is this country really sunk so
low that she dare do nothing, however right and
just it be, if a foreign despotism announces that it
will consider the act a casus bell' ? We know,
indeed, that we are already in that position as re-
gards Russia. A Government despatch, declaring
our recognition of Poland as a belligerent, was
stopped by telegraph because Russia announced
that she would regard its presentation as a casus
belli. Trio lesson has not been lost. The Germans
know that we have crouched, like a whipped hound,
beneath the crack of the autocrat's knout, and they
too threaten us with their casus belli if we give
cou .itenance to the gallant little nation for which
a new partition is in preparation. And it seems
Lord Palmerston's Government shrinks back at the
menace, and gladly accepts Danish magnanimity as
our protection from the danger. How much lower
are we to sink before we have drunk the full cup of
humiliation ?

ExAmlNEß.—Colonel Crawley has found a worthy
champion in Lord Longford, who claims for him a
general sympathy he will certainly not obtain.
Lord Longford complains of the pension granted to
the family of Sergeant-Major Lilley, thinking it a
wrong to Colonel Crawley. And he truly observes
that the public naturally put their own construc-
tion on the restoration of Captain Smales. Lord
Longford would have had Lilley'a family left to
beggary, and Mr. Smales denied the reparation to
which be was entitled ; for it seems that justice to
anybody was fedmehow or other prejudicial to the
peculiar case of Colonel Crawley. It was not
enough that a good soldier's death was, at least,
hastened by an illegal punishment, his family
should have been left to want, and Captain Smales
shouid have been ruined by an unjust sentence, all
to serve Colonel Crawley. The ruin of six or seven
persons of different ranks, which has actually been
worked, is not enough to satisfy this man's champion.
These and other similar extravagances of Lord
Longford did not surprise us, bearing in mind the
old maxim similis simax gouda, but we confess that
we read with amazement the last words of Lord
Shaftesbury in answer to a reproach levelled at
him for his most praiseworthy part in bringing
about the court-martial :
"Every private soldier has now seen that no injustice
can be done even to the rank and file of the army without
moving both Houses of Parliament, and putting into opera.
tion all the powers of the State, to inquire into the wrong,
and, if it be proved, to redress it."
Why, this is precisely what has not been seen. It
has been seen that a soldier could be illegally kept
in confinement where confinement is punishment
injurious to health, and that this wrong, compassed
conjointly by his Colonel and two General Officers,
has been suffered to pass wholly unpunished.
" What safety is there for me ? " asks a noble Gene-
ral in the House of Lords; but " What safety is
there for me ? " is the more real question of every
soldier and non-commissioned officer in the service.
The articles of war which rule the soldier are also
designed for his protection, but of what force in
Lilley's case was that most important article which
stands in the army in lieu of the security of the
habeas corpus. The unfortunate Lilley has passed
beyond reach of redress, but the pernicious example
remains of a deliberate infraction of the articles of
war, and what was done by the two Generals and
Colonel Crawley in India may be repeated elsewhere
with the same cruel consequences and impunity.
The evil precedent is established, and the soldier
feels that the articles of war so rigorously binding
upon him are of no force to restrain the unjust will
of his superiors. The inquiry into the treatment of
Lilley without cognizance of the main point, the
illegal imprisonment, was nothing better than a
juggle. What would be thought of separating the
fact of a false imprisonment from the circumstances
of the treatment of the injured party, and resting
the issue on the question whether or not there
was unnecessary severity ? none whatever, no
detention of any sort, being justifiable.
Would it be any answer to a charge of false impri-
sonment that the aggrieved was kept in actual
luxury ? Could an acquittal be claimed on the ground
that he was not subjected to torture ? 111-treatment
would be an aggravation of the offence, but the
contrary would be no defence. The taking away of
liberty is the substantial wrong, and comparatively
immaterial are the circumstances, the sort of poison
and duress. The question, indeed, of necessary or
unnecessary severity was stark nonsense with refe-
rence to an illegal imprisonment. In fact that ques-
tion implied that the confinement was legal, which
it notoriously and confessedly was not beyond the
eighth day. The issue of which Col. Crawley has had
the benefit was a false issue, and hence the greatest
scandal to military justice of our time or perhaps
any other. When the Mutiny Act is before the House
of Commons we trust that the article violated in
Lilley's case will be the subject of special considera-
tion with a view to giving it more stringency, if
more it wants, or if not, of raising the question why
its infraction was suffered to pass unpunished in the
lamentable instance at MbOw. It is not, perhaps,
generally known that the writ of habeas corpus does
not run in the military services, and that the security
for liberty in lieu of it is the important article which
was overruled by the sic vole, sic jubeo of military
tyranny in Lilley'a sad case. We rest our trust in
the House of Commons, because it is too clear that
in the House of Lords there is not the spirit or the
disposition to cope with the bluster and swagger of
Mites Gloriosus. In the Commons there are true
soldiers who need not, like Lord Longford,proclaim
themselves soldiers, because their gallant services
have sufficiently done that for them ; and the sym-

SPECTATOR.—It cannot be said that there are
any explicit promises of help to Denmark in the
despatches now presented to Parliament, but there
are many statements which would certainly rouse
a very reasonable hope of help in the mind of the
Daniph Minister. On the 24th November a memo-
randum was read to the Prussian Minister which
used this language, "Should Federal troops enter
Holstein on purely Federal grounds, her Majesty's
Govenment would not interfere, but should it ap-
pear that Federal troops had entered the Duchy on
international grounds, her Majesty's Government
may be obliged to interfere." Schleswig was not
then even threatened, but after such a statement it
was certainly not unreasonable for the Danes to
hope that the invasion of Schleswig on " inter-
national" grounds would be resented by us. Again
in e despatch dated December 10th, Sir A. Paget
" strongly urged" on the Danish Minister to evacu-
ate Holstein without resistance,on the plea that" if
an attack upon Schleswig was made, the other
Powers could then interfere on ground which was
incontestably beyond the limits of the Confedera-
tion,"—and again, " that Denmark would, at all
events have a better chance of securing the assist-
ance of the Powers alluded to by retiring beyond
the limits of the Confederation, than if she pro-
voked a war by resisting what might be considered
the legitimate authority of the Diet on Federal ter-
ritory." There, certainly, the hope of aid was held
out as a motive to retire. Finally, Lord Wode-
house, in urging eagerly on the Danish Minister
the duty of suspending the " common Constitu-
tion between Schleswig and Denmark which
the German Powers choose to make the casus
said, "It was my duty to declare to him that if the
Danish Government rejected my advice, His (Her?)
Majesty's Government must leave Denmark to en-
counter Germany on her own responsibility." Den-
mark very reluctantly yielded to the weight of pres-
sure thus applied; the Ministry was changed ; Den-
mark conceded everything she was asked as to the
new Constitution, on condition of six weeks' delay,
to convoke the Rigsraad, and all to no purpose—Sir
Buchanan reporting, after an interview with M. de A.
Bismark, "that until Germany has actually shown
that she is not afraid to draw her sword in a cause
which she considers to be just, and has forced Den-
mark by arms to remove the grievances complained
of, the King will not concede that enough has been
done for the national honour." And England, mean-
while, who has wrung out these concessions—first
the cancelling of the patent of March last, then the
evacuation of Holstein, then the withdrawal of the
Schleswig Constitution, all with the tone of a pro-
tector who is going to give something in return—
when will England consider that enough has been
done for the national honour ? Apparently when
Lord Palmerston has made a few speeches in " the
Cambyses vein," and the people have spent a few
thousand pounds on salve for Danish wounds and
English consciences. That we have contemplated
much more serious resistance, and been frightened
into neutrality, we believe the despatches wit!. abun-
dantly prove. Lord Napier. in a despatch • 6th
January, says he told Prince Gortschakoff " that an
attack upon Schleswig appeared imminent, and if
that attempt was made, it seemed not improbable
that the Germans might find themselves confronted
by the armed intervention of Great Britain." Bat
a wet blanket seems to have been thrown on these
intentions by the blank refusal of France. Oa the
24th January Lord Russell wrote to Lord Cowley
that her Majesty's Government " seek the
concert and cooperation of France, Russia, and
Sweden, in order to give, if necessary, material
assistance to Denmark in the resistance of dismem-
berment." This despatch was answered on the
28th January, in a visit from the French Ambassa-
dor here to Lord Russell, in which he stated that,
for various reasons—sympathy with nationalities
and offended pride about the Congress are the chief
—" the Government of the Emperor will not take'
at present, any engagement on the subject of Den -
mark." Since then, we imagine, the zeal of her
Majesty's Government has collapsed. The Anglo-
German despatches have been very carefully edited,

pathies and care of these men will descend below
their class, and be the greatest for the humblest and
weakest in the ranks.

Naval and Military Intelligence.

THE NAVY.

The iron frigate Achilles, 6,070 tons, 1,250 horse power
(nominal) having had the whole of her engines and ma-
chinery fitted on board, got up steam for the first time on
Saturday, at her moorings in Chatham harbour. The trial,
which was under the superintendence of the leading mem-
bers of the firm of Messrs. John Penn and Sons, by whom
her engines were manufactured, was in the highest degree
satisfactory. With the screw propeller disconnected the en-
gines averaged 70 to 75 revolutions per minute, the boilers
giving an abundance of steam, and the whole machinery
working with tire greatest smoothness and regularity. The
engines were kept working for some time to enable the
dockyard officials—Capt. Stewart, C. 8., Mr. Baker, chief
engineer, at Chatham-yard, and Mr. Moore, first assistant
master shipwright, to report upon the i-esult of the preli-
minary trial of the machinery. There is still work to be
done in the way of fitting and completing the Aulhillee be-
fore she will be ready for the pendant, and howevei ean-
gii;:ie the Admiralty officials may be, there is little clotblit
that the summer will be far advanced before she will be
ready to take her maiden cruise. The Achilles now waits
instructions from the Admiralty relative to the trial of her
engines at the measured mile, Maplin Sands.
The Ariadne, 26, 3,214 tons, 800 horse power, Capt. E.
W.Vaneittart, is ordered to be paid off in Chatham harbour,
and afterwards placed in the third division of the steam re-
serve at that port.
During the last few days nearly 40 shipwrights, all of
them skilled mechanics, have taken their discharge at Chat-
ham dockyard, the reason assigned being the smallness of
the wages given at her Majesty's dockyards as compared
with the amount which is now to be obtained by first class
mechanics at private shipbuilding establishments. It is
stated that there art; still a number of hands in the dock-
yard who are only waiting th 9 that oppOrtl.lnity to transfer
their services to private yards.