The Sun.
London, England, 1863-12-28 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON', MONDAY EVENING, DECEMBER 28, 1863.

is evident that if a man or woman, hue workhouse
door, and weary, begs a night's lodging at the
w
oi istnp
arh. Every absoluteie
ought
h t
tolookinghave
n
fora
their
asylum, either attached to the house itself or situated
somewhere else in the parish which should contain
accommodation for the full number of casual poor
which experience has shown to be likely to apply,
and to those evidently destitute immediate relief
should be given, without waiting for tedious cere-
monials or fixed hours. Mr. VILLIERS, anxious,
perhaps, to clear his Board of blame in reference to
the late tragedies, impresses strongly upon the
masters and porters of workhouses the fact that
such is their duty, and that they are bound to pro-
vide the destitute with necessaries, " without refe-
rence to the time of application or to the place
where the pauper last slept." it is to be hoped
that such may be the motto in our unions until the
spring dawns on us once again, but to carry it out
fully and effectually it will be necessary, in many
instances, to provide accommodation elsewhere.
The building of the asylums spoken of
would of course be a long and elaborate
task; but the guardians of parishes where
such provision is deficient should either hire
some building with sufficient accommodation, or
erect temporary structures, such as sheds or out-
houses, which would at least serve to contain beds
of elean straw and shelter from the bitter winds.
Some change is urgently needed, since charitable
refuges in every part of London open their doors to
those whom the parishes are really bound to care
for, and the melancholy spectacles recently seen at
oar workhouse doors of numbers waiting vainly for
admission to the casual ward, ought not, according
to the provisions of the law, to be possible. Mr.
VILLIERS'S minute does not come before it is needed,
and it is to be hoped that it will stimulate the
proper authorities to take steps in the right direc-
tion before the winter weather comes more sharply
upon us, and we have again to record the verdict of
coroner's juries as "Died from exposure and want
of the necessaries of life."

Matters are certainly coming to a crisis in regard
to our foreign diplomacy. It is time for England
to waken up when foreign journals criticise the way
in which our Foreign Secretary deals with the
rights of neutrals. The Memorial Diplomatique
of December 20th, in an article signed by HENRI
VIGNAITD, boldly declares that Eng:and has failed
in the mission which she has heretofore arrogated
to herself—namely, that of maintaining in-
violate the rights of neutres, and that it behoves
France to look to her rights, and not to trust to
the influence of a power which is either unable or
afraid to exert her prerogative, which has been at
least by courtesy vouchsafed to her by the maritime
States of Europe. These are not the precise words
of the article in the Memorial Diplomatique, but
they express its feelings. It is neither more nor
less than a slap in the face to our Secretary for
Foreign Affairs for his truculent and cringing con-
duct towards the Federal Government at Wash-
ington. There was a day when the well-known
lines—

" There's a flag that waves o'er every sea,
No matter when or where ;
And to treat that flag as ought but the free
Is more than the strongest dare,"

were appropriate to our country. That day has'
alas! gone by. American cruisers may with im-
punity overhaul our merchant vessels on the high
seas—aye, and even in British waters—and not-
withstanding that their papers be unquestionable,
they are seized as lawful prizes and sent into an
Americas port, to be adjudicated upon by such men
as Judge BETTS, who, in the face of all evidence'
condemns every vessel brought in upon the evidence
of the captors, notwithstanding that many of them
were bona fide traders between British ports. There
was a time when one-tenth part of the insults
which have been put upon this country would have
been met in an English spirit. In the days
of PITT or Fox it would not have been
necessary to call Parliament together to
inquire whether the rights and honour of the
country
were to be vindicated; an Order in Council
would have despatched a fleet to the mouth of
the Hudson and to Chesapeake Bay, to demand,
and, if necessary, to enforce justice—but nowadays,
temPora mutautur. The noble earl at the head of
Foreign Affairs licks the dust before the Satrap
at Washington, and, to curry favour with a bully
who cajoles, yet despises him, sacrifices the inte-
rests and honour of his country, in the hope of
Preserving a most discreditable peace. Well may
the French press call upon their Government to
vindicate the rights of neutrals, when the former
mistress of the sea strikes her flag at the dicta-
tion of a Transatlantic braggadocio. The American
Government have not been remarkably fortunate
in the selection of its Generals—bad has in most
cases been followed by worse, and defeat number
one has only been rendered more disastrous by
defeat number two. But, at least, we may con-
gratulate them on the appointment of their judges,
and we may pay Judge WELLS the high compli-
ment of assuring him that, whether in Europe or
in America, his fame will stand on a par with
that of our own renowned Judge JEFFRIES, as a
gentleman who can decide to order. Yet, while
an infatuated Foreign Secretary is endeavouring to
smooth down the ruffled feathers of the American
eagle by his polite attention to Mr. ADAMS, and his
unjust persecution of those who attempt to trade
with the Southern States, the American press in
general are in arms against us, because some three
or four Confederate cruisers are destroying their
commerce. Mr. CHARLES G. LORING, in a work
upon the neutral relations of England and the
United States, after declaring that we have in-
fringed every clause in every treaty entered into
by us, coolly requests that the English nation shall
reimburse the American shipowners and merchants
for all loss which they may have sustained from the
Confederate cruisers. We might laugh at such a re-
quest, and consider it but the emulation of a mad-
man, but that we entertain grave doubts whether
Earl RUSSELL may not bring in a bill next session
to that effect, declaring that the blessings of peace
demand any sacrifice. We trust that he may do so ;
the sooner the crash comes the better. Oar Minis•
ters have thrown over the Danish interests to suit
Prussia; England has no voice in Europe except by
the consent of France, and her merchant vessels
cannot find protection even in the waters of her
own colonies. Let war come, and the country be
plunged £100,000,000 more into debt, and America
and Europe combine, yet we will still keep an
island home inviolate, though its ramparts be Eng-
land's dead, and the nation which produced 100,000
Volunteers for an idea will not shrink from the
choice of death or dishonour.

will be
latel Mr. William Makopeace Tbackeray
the 34,%.ted at Kensal-green Cemetery on Wednesday
Tu;',lunaot 12 o'clock.
Peet
SHABESPERE COMMITTEE has
during the
dition to it of the
Provost
new members :—The Right
week been increased by the ad-
Hon. the Lord Pr
urhodnall, the Mayor of Northampton,
lg, the tiayor of xsetnof Edinburgh, the Provost of Stir-
theßdthe Chief Justice of British
Recorder of D
CGruoisabeye.,
ESsirci.,C.
Rowlandj..
Dun_
he Matthew Arnold, Esq., James
P Y, Esq., John Harland, of
Manchester, Esq.
THE CONVICT TOwNLEy we
. are informed
that Sir George Grey has ordered a medical inquiry in the
state of Wade( TenleY, the murderer q MSG Gkoodwin.

LATEST INTELLIGENCE.

INDIA.

LATEST FROM THE NORTHERN FRONTIER.
BOMBAY, DEC. 14.
(By Telegraph from Suez.)

There has been no more fighting on the frontier.
General Chamberlain has resigned the command
to Major• General Garvock on account of the wound
he received in the late encounter with the revolted

tribes.
All is quiet at Peshawnr.
Sir William Denison was installed as Viceroy
on the 2d inst.

to my mind another interesting fact, of which you
cannot be ignorant, Mr. Senator, since it is your
illustrious historian, Da Thou, who relates it. In
this year, 1572, a French prince, who was after•
wards Henry 111., offered himself as a candidate
for election to the throne of Poland.
He was only elected after his envoy, the Bishop
of Montluc, had aolemnly declared that this prince
had nothing to do with St. Bartholomew ; and
when, the year following, a deputation of Catholic
bishops and senators repaired to Paris, it only
saluted Henry of Valois, as King of Poland, after
having received from this prince the oath to main-
tain peace between the Dissidents : Pacem inter dis-
sidentes servabo.

You have also, Mr. Seuator, expressed the wish

that Poland should be subjected to a better social
regime, to a better tenure of property. But are you
aware of all the efforts my country has made to
arrive at the end which you point out ? Are you
aware, above all, of the obstacles which foreign
oppression has not ceased to oppose to it in this
course ? Are you ignorant of the sad end of the
Agricultural Society, denounced as revolutionary in
1861, for having adopted as a principle that the
peasant farmers should be placed in a position
to become proprietors. Are you ignorant that
our glorious constitution of the 3d of May
was proclaimed by Catherine 11. to be the work of
Jacobinism, because it admitted all classes gradually
to acquire the title of nobility—that is to say, the
plenitude of civil and, political rights ? We were
denounced as Jacobins at the end of the last cen-
tury, just as now we are stigmatised as anarchists.
A strange accusation, truly, against that nation,
in behalf of which the Holy Father not long ago
ordered solemn prayers, proclaiming it to be the
secular champion of Christianity, and inviting it to
remain ever faithful to its mission ! He even among
the Poles, against whom extreme tendencies are most
charged, he whose nomination is daily pointed by
certain parties as the sign of th.: subversive ideas of
the National Government, General Mieroslawski,
during the three months he was commissioned to
organise abroad the resources of the insurrection,
has not, I am happy to say, committed any act
which justifies, front the political point of view, the
blame of the most Conservative opinion. His
destitution, recently pronounced, has been prompted
by military considerations which rendered his
functions for the moment valueless.
But, above all, I;protest against the idea which is so gra-
tuitously and so universally attributed to us, that we ask of
the Western Powers to undertake a war of liberation in on:
behalf. This demand, Mr. Senator, we have made. What
we claim, and shall not cease to claim, is that Europe do
its duty ; that after having abandoned us to the rule of
the Czar on conditions which he " has trampled under
foot," it should declare him deprived of this sovereignty ;
that, denying the right,which was conferred upon him in
1815, it implicitly recognises that of Poland to
recover her independence. "After eight months," said the
National Government in a recent circular—the Government
which I serve and recognise, and which I do not despair of
seeing one day recognised by yourself,Mr. Senator—" After
eight months we have not obtained from the Governments
which march at the head of the civilised world the sole act
of justice we have asked from them—that of recognising
our right to defend ourselves against oppression. Are we
asking too much of Europe ? We appeal to the conscience
of the peoples and the loyalty of the Governments."
One may not have the will or the power to redress the
attacks made upon justice, but it is not permissible to deny
them when they ate manifest. It is not permissible to seek
to give to crime another name because cha'tisement cannot
reach it ; and in this connection I may be permitted to
remind you that in England, which you judge so severely,
Mr. Senator, and which I have no commission to defend.
not a single respectable and authoritative voice has been
raised to deny the right of Poland and extenuate the
crimes of the Muscovites.

In a recent speech Mr. Layard, the Under Secretary of
Foreign Affairs, repeated, doubtless to satiety, that the
English people would not go to war for Poland, but he has
had the justice and candour to add these words, to which I

venture to call your attention, Mr. Senator :—" History (he
said) does not furnish examples of more deplorable, more
horrible deeds; a policy of extermination is applied to that
unfortunate country and pursued without relaxation, not
only against men young and old, but also against women
and children. One shudders at being made cognisant of
such horrors."

The principle of the solidarity of peoples is novel without
doubt, and is not yet reduced to practice; but the notion
of the just and the unjust, of crime and duty, is of ancient
date, and cannot be caned in question. It is melancholy to
recall it in this century of light and civilisation, it is
melancholy, above all, to plead such a cause before an
eminent jurist, and it is with this sentiment of melancholy
that I have the honour to be, Mr. Senator, your very
humble and obedient servant,
(Signed) CZARTORYSKI.

A letter from Milan says :

In glaring contradiction with the sudden, and earnest as-
surances of peace which proceed from Paris, is the fact that
several French officers are now in Italy for the purpose of
inspecting the active military forces of this country. A
French general is now at Turin, and has every day long
conferences with the Minister of War ; and a colonel
of the general staff, a colonel of Engineers, a lieute-
nant-colonel of artillery, and a major in the line arrived
here yesterday, who are commissioned not merely to visit
all th© military depots. but to study the whole line of the
Po. The military and civil Italian officials have received
orders to facilitate by all means in their power the labours
of these officials. The day after to-morrow the commission
will inspect the line of the Mincio, and the cour-
tesy of the Piedmontese is carried so far that the com-
mander in the second military district, Lieutenant-General
Durando, sends the chief of his staff and his first aide-de-
camp to accompany them. What an inspection of this
sort means, uniess it is for the purpose of seeing whether
the Piedmontese army is ready to take the field, it would be
difficult to say. That the Italian Government considers the
breaking out of war as near at hand is evident from the fact
tnat preparations, which are only made when war is
most imminent, are now being made. Thus in
Lombardy six field hospitals have been established, viz., at
Castiglione della Stiviere, Brescia, Milan, Cremona, Pavia,
and Lodi, and ambulances have been furnished.
The King is expected here about the end of next month,
Great military spectacles will then take place. The King
will also inspect the troops posted on the Po and the
Mincio.