The Sun.
London, England, 1863-03-23 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

SATURDAY REVIEW.—It was one of the fanciful
caprices of the tryanny of the Emperor Nicht las to
order thous ands of persons on the borders of Poland
end Russia Proper to join the Greek Church, and to
compel a powerful sect, that had long hovered be-
tween the claims of the Churches of Rome and
Bys antium, to renounce all communion and inter-
course with the Pope. This mantle of compulsory
Greek orthodoxy has long been worn with silent
discontent, and now the time has come when its
wearers are beginning to dare to throw it off. They
become at once Catholics and insurgents, and fight
fora cause which has even a stronger hold over a
semi-barbarous population than the ties of nation-
ality. Mr. Kinglake, in his history, warns
his readers that they must not judge of
the enthusiasm and power which religion
imparts to warriors by the languid indifference
of the West. Catholicism is to a Pole what
the Orthodox Church and the blessing of St. Ser.
gius are to the Russian, or the prospect of houris
and a cool green Paradise were to the followers of
the Maliotnetan Caliphs. It is the embodiment of
all those aspirations and hopes which make him feel
better and higher than the beasts of the forest
among which he lies down. It is the link by which
he is bound to his forefathers—the title by which he
expects one day to rejoin the dear ones from whom
death or exile, inflicted by the oppressor, has sepa-
rated him. The half-savage Pole who joins Gene-
ral Langiewicz literally thinks he is making the
best of both worlds, and this combination of induce-
meets is the most powerful spring of human action.
The voice of public opinion in behalf of
Poland has again been loudiy raised during
the past week in France and England.
Prince Napoleon has played his accustomed part,
and has given voice to the generous imprudence of
which the Emperor likes to have the credit, and
which there is every reason to believe have a real
abiding place in some corner of his mind. As usual
the Government orator has been ordered to make
things safe, to unsay all that the Prince has said,
and to leave the general impression that very likely
the Prince is right after all. The French Senate
is a body composed of men as lithe desirous of war
in the abstract as any in Europe. But the French
Senate feels too sensibly the pressure of the enthu-
siasm of France to be wholly dumb and purely
submissive when the fate of Poland is the topic of
discussion. The meeting at the Guildhall appears to
have been as successful as such a meeting could be.
It was attended by politicians and men of influence
and station, and soared tar above the kind of
gatherings for which Mr. Seward is grateful, and
at which all England is discovered to be enamoured
of the Federal cause. It also expressed strongly
what the English nation feels strongly, and its
leaders had perfectly good grounds for asserting
their expectation of its leading to a practical issue.
It is quite untrue that we can do nothing unless we
are prepared to go to war. If Russia could easily
put down the insurrection, and if Russia were of
one mind, sending diplomatic remonstrances against
tyranny would be like whistling against the wind.
But if the Poles make anything like a success-
ful stand, it will be a great support to them,
and a great discouragement to the Russians,
that England and France pronounce the cause of
Poland good, and the cause of Russia execrably
bad. In Russia itself, too, there is apparently a
diversity of opinion. It seems that the officers cannot
rely on their troops, and the troops cannot rely on
their officers The strength of Russia no longer
moves, as under the Emperor Nicholas, like a vast
machine, impelled hither and thither at the will of
a single man. Western thought has penetrated
Russia, and Western thought teaches the Russians
whom it influences to quail before the moral rebuke
of England and France.
LONDON REVIEW.—That the volunteers require
further aid may be taken as admitted. The cap-
tain of a corps in the rich suburban district about
Harrow, and one commander of a country corps in
Sussex, whose affairs seem to have been managed
with unusual judgment and economy, told the Corn-
mission that they could do without it. But these
are exceptional cases ; and if such corps as these
will not be the better for the aid proposed, they
will scarcely be the worse for it. On the other
hand, the evidence was overwhelming to show
that, without aid, especially in clothing, very great
efforts would be necessary everywhere to keep the
force at all on its present footing, and that many of
its most valuable portions, as for instance the arti-
san corps of Glasgow and other places, must infal-
libly fall to pieces. The country has scarcely a
right to call on volunteer officers for such efforts as
in some places they are making, for what is, after
all, a national purpose, even were it likely that
such efforts could continue. In one great English
town, it is said, the method of obtaining new uni-
forms is as follows. The volunteer, when he finds
his uniform getting shabby, absents himself from
drill. 0-i remonstrance from his captain, he in-
forms him that he regrets his inability to attend,
but that his uniform is not fit to appear in; upon
which the captain writes back to say that if the
volunteer will call at a certain tailor's, he will
be measured and supplied with a new uniform, of
course at the captain's expense. This state of things
is scarcely desirable, and must soon end. On the
other hand, the proposed extra vote of £200,000 for
volunteers, a mere drop in the ocean of the army
estimates, will relieve many zealous supporters of
the movement, and will be felt as a burden by no-
body. The volunteers of the war against Napoleon
were regularly paid as soldiers are, whenever they
assembled for drill and training. Moreover, the
existing act gave exemption from the hair-powder
tax, then a real exemption from a tax of over
a year certainly to many, and probably to al
volunteers; and exemption from the Militia bal

lot, then an important privilege, now a dead let-
ter. The only public privilege the modern volun
teer enjoys is that of passing a toll-gate when
in uniform for nothing. Besides these exemptions,
and their pay when called out, it appears from a
War Office return appended to the Blue-book, that
the old volunteers received a free outfit, a clothing
allowance of £1 per man every three years, and
Os. Bd. per head per annum for repair of arms; and
that their average coat per man per annum was 14,
exclusive of arms and ammunition. In view of
these advantages enjoyed by the old volunteers,
some of the witnesses before the commission sug-
gested that some really valuable exemptions should
he extended to the volunteers of the present day ;
that the horse-tax or the dog-tax should be remitted
to an effective volunteer, and that they should be
exempted from serving on juries. But ate the volun-
teers worth all this expenditure ? Adam Smith
somewhere says That ior a people to be untrained tc
arms is as disgraceful as for a man to be effeminate
or emasculate. And surely in modern, as in ancient
times, it may well be thought the duty of the State
to promote the physical as well as the moral train-
ing of its inhabitants. It is no small thing to have,

in-case of invasion, 160,000 men well-armed, tole-
rably trained, subject to martial law, and organised
in companies and battalions. But whatever would
be the worth of the volunteers if called on to face
an enemy, at least they have given confidence, pre-
vented panic, taken away our reproach as a shop-
keeping nation, utilised in some degree for war-
like purposes those sturdy and laborious classes
whom, otherwise, nothing but the conscription or
the Militia ballot could ever have touched. Rifle

shooting steadily extends and improves. We have,
and as long as volunteering continues we are sure

to have, the best rifle instructors and shots in the

world; and our schools of musketry have been raised
from mere army into national institutions. We
have lately seen what the volunteers are as part of
a great national pageant or festivity. Again, the
effect of volunteering upon the habits of all classes
has been excellent : a sergeant in the London
Scottish, himself a jobbing workman, actually
declared, in his evidence hefore the Commission,

he considers "that a man who is a volunteer is

worth, in money value, 3s. a week more to a jobbing
master than a man who is not." The proportion of
town to country population every day grows larger;
And if the volunteer movement can be consolidated

by Government help, the townycorps, admitted to be
the most valuable, should year by year steadily in-
crease. Every great centre of po, ulationt where
wealth most tempts invasion, would have its own
citizen army, which, it invasion threatens-d, could
meet and train in brigades and divisions without
deserting their usual occupations. Bristol, Liver-
pool, Brighton, London, can concentrate with ease
their 5,000, 10,000, 15,000, or 20,000 men ; and
what is done now for purposes of mere amusement
ttrid holiday making, is but a small measure of what
would surely be accomplished, if patriotism called
for it and the country really needed it.
SPECTATOR.—There is a curious episode in the
early life of the present Emperor of the French,
i
little known n th.s country, which throws a flood
of light upon his character, and srrangely connects
him wi▪ th the history of modern Poland. Having
fought in the revolt of the Carbonari, fled, under
the gui▪ dance of his mother and with the help of an
English passport, through France into Great Britain
and back again to Switzerland, Louis Napoleon
Arrived at Areneoberg at the beginning of August,
1831. He had not been many days at the quiet

chateau, and was just beginning to settle down to
his military studies, when he way interrupted by the
~,rrivai of two foreign gentlemen, who announced
themselves as deputies of the NJ( tonal Government
of Pola?,d. Their card, bore the names of General
Knaiz,wiez and Count Platen, and they
stated themselves authorised to offer to
Lou's Napoleon the crown of Poland, under condi-
tion that he would join immediately the insurrection-
ary forces, taking the command-in-chief and super-
seding General Skrzynecki. As proof of their man-
date they handed to the Prince a long letter, signed
by the Marshal of the Polish Diet, Count Ladislas
Ostrowski, and several of the leading members, the
concluding paragraph of which was as follows :
" We cannot trust the final direction of our enter-
prise into better hands than those of the nephew of
the greatest captain who ever lived. The mere
appearance on the territory of Poland of "a young
Napoleon Bonaparte, carrying aloft the Imperial
tricolour, would ha sufficient to raise the national
enthusiasm to the highest pitch, and produce a
moral effect the consequence of which would be in-
calculable. Do not hesitate, then, we entreat you,
to follow the call of a whole people ; but come to us
at once, confiding the fortunes of Cm3ar, and, what
is more, the fate of liberty to a gracious Providence.
The love and gratitude of the Polish nation, and
the admiration of the universe, await you, Prince,"
The reading of this manifesto made a profound im-
pression upon Louis Napoleon. With his Italian
dream of glory fresh upon his mind, the prospect of
a crown, of power and fame, wildly excited his
imagination, making him ready to follow on the
instant the messengers from Poland. But his
mother at once checked these exuberant aspirations.
Having but a few months before seen her eldest
son die in the struggle of the Carbonari, ex- Queen
Hortense had lost all faith in revolutions and in-
surrections, and look' d upon the deputies from
Warsaw as birds of ill omen, come to entice her only
remaining child into perdition. She opposed their
errand by all the means in her power, not forgetting
to cast doubt upon their ambassadorial character.
All the arguments brought forward fell dead upon her
ear, and seeing that Count Platen and his colleague
were gaining an im►amense ascendancy over her son,
she at last sternly forbad them further stay within
the chateau. The Polish noblemen thereupon
quitted Arenenberg ; but only to take up their quar-
ters at the neighbouring town of FrauenfeHen, the
capital of the canton of Thurgovia. Here they had
daily interviews with the Prince, which ended in
the latter promising to go to Poland, even without
the consent of his mother. All the necessary pre-
parations were made in the greatest secrecy, and
when the Duchess of St. Leu entered the room of
her son on the morning of Sunday, the 4th of Sep-
tember, she was horror-struck on finding that he
had left her—gone, as expressed in a note, " a la
recherche dune couronne." The chateau of Are-
nenberg at that time counted among its inmates a
very notable personage, an old friend of Hortense
Beauharnais, Dr. Henry Conneau. Oa discovering
the flight of her son on the morning of the 4th of
September, Hortense immediately sought Dr. Con-
Dean, bidding him to follow in the traces of the lost
one. At Augsburg, Dr. Conneau, attracted by the I,
sound of French voices, entered the ancient hostelry
of the " Three Moors." The first person who met
his eyes was Prince Louis Napoleon, sitting at a
table and reading a German newspaper. In large
letters, on the top of the first paragraph, was a
despatch from Poland, announcing " Order reigns
at Warsaw." His Excellency Field-marshal Prince
Paskevitch had forestalled his Imperial Highness
Prince Louis Napoleon. Threw days after Louis
Napoleon was again at Arenenberg, and at the end
of a fortnight entered himself as a student at the
military school of Thun, his mind devoted to artil-
lery—still dreamily engaged " a la recherche d'une
couronne."

EXAMINER,—Of all the commodities consumed
by man, air and water excepted, tobacco stands
foremost, a position it owes to its narcotic quality,
and to the facility with which it is produced over
a geographical surface embracing fitty degrees on
each side of the equator. We ourselves consume of
it yearly—and we are very far from being the
greatest consumers—about 16,000 tons, and if the
rest of the world does but as much, the consumption
of mankind will amount to from six to seven mil-
lions of tons, which is more than the entire mer-
cantile navy of the United Kingdom and its colonies
would carry. Ail this is the creation of about two
centuries and a half, and has c'.)me by imitation from
the savages of America, in whose country alone the
plant was a native. It was all in vain that our
Scottish James blew his counter-blast, and his
equally foolish contemporaries, the Great Mogul
and the Emperor of Japan, issued their decrees
against it. The fascination of the weed has over-
come all opposition. The Mahomedans, who at
first strained against coffee, lest it might by possi-
bility contain alcohol, embraced the tobacco-pipe
without a scruple. The Hindus have done the
same, and the Chinese and Japanese, who had no
scruples to overcome, have become, perhaps of all
people, the most general consumers of tobacc
Savages take to the weed very kindly, and the
Maories of New Zealand end naked blacks of Aus-
tralia smoke as industriously as the dandies of Lon-
don and Paris. On Thursday the Chancellor of the
Exchequer's new Tobacco Duties Bill passed through
committee. The existing rates of duty are excessive,
and hence tobacco, an article that bears rough
handling without detriment, is the main subject of
the smuggling trade, the onerous duty being, of
course,a perpetual temptation to defraud the State and
the fair trader. Mr. Gladstone'a measure is not com-
prehensive, and indeed, considering the vast sum he
must risk, we do not see bow it could well be so. As
far as it goes, however, it is judicious, and founded on
principle. As our readers know, our financiers—
and they are right—consider tobacco as a mere in
strument of taxation. With this view, the culture
of the plant at home is interdicted, a matter of no
hardship, since in our climate we cannot produce it
either cheap or good. Hence the whole revenue
derived from it is collected by the levy of a custom
duty on the foreign article. On leaf or unmanu-
factured tobacco the present rate of duty is nearly
3s. 2d a pound, which at the valuation of 10d. a
pound—that of the tables of the Board of Trade—
will give a tax on the value of 380 per cent. On
the manufactured article, in the shape of snuff; the
duty is 6s. 3d., and at ls. a pound, the price of the
Board of Trade, the tax is here an ad valorem one
of 415 per cent. The duty on cigars is 9s. 6d.
nearly, and on the Board of Trade price of Is. a
pound, the tax conies here to one on the value of
950 per cent. All these duties are so excessive as
to make tobacco the main object of smuggling, and
this more especially on the manufactured article.
Mr. Gladstone, leaving the duty on the unmanufac-
tured article as it stands, or simply taking off the
odd 2i, a pound, reduces the duty on foreign high-
dried snuff to 4s. 6d., and on cigars to 58. a pound.
The home manufacturer had a protecting duty of
3s. ld. on every pound of snuff, and of no less than
6s. 4d. on every pound of cigars, and has still one
on snuff of 3.. 3d. and on cigars of ls. 6d., and vet
he complains, through the throats of Messrs. Roe-
buck and Ayrton, fur monopolists are never to be
satisfied. It is to be hoped that these ameliorations
may produce some increase of revenue and diminu-
tion of smuggling, but we confess that our expecta-
tions are not very sanguine. At present the gross
amount of the tobacco duty, in round numbers
£5,500,000, is respectable, equalling that on tea,
sugar, and malt. Were it'safe to make a large pre-
sent sacrifice of revenue, by a sweeping reduction
of all the duties on the article, we do not doubt but
that the suppression of the contraband trade in it,
and ultimately a large increase of revenue, would be
the result.