The Sun.
London, England, 1862-03-21 00:00:00

PROCLAMAION OF THE KING OF

PRUSo'LI.

BERLIN, MARCH 20 (EVENING,)

The official Staatsanzeiger of to-day publishes
the following decree addressed by the King to the

Ministry :

" I request the Ministry of State to immediately
take the necessary steps for carrying out the elec-
tions. It is the mission of my public authorities
not only to secure the conscientious fulfilment of
the prescriptions of the law, but also to afford to the
electors explanations which leave no doubt as to
the principles of my Government, and to oppose the
influence of hostile parties who endeavour to un-
settle the natural tendencies of the public mind,
as was manifest on the occasion of the last elec-
tions. I firmly adhere to the principles which I
stated in November, 1858, to the Ministry of State.
These principles rightly interpreted still remain to
direct the policy of my Government; but the inter-
pretations which have been erroneously attached to
these principles have produced complications, the
happy solution of which is the next task of the
present Government. In order to bring about the
further development of the present Constitution, the
legislation and administration are to start from
liberal principles ; but we can only hope to obtain
the blessing of progress if, after ripe and quiet
examination of the present state of things, we know
how to satisfy real wants, and to render available
those elements of existing institutions which possess
vitality. Then only will the reform of the laws bear
a real Conservative character, while haste and too
great rapidity only have a destructive effect. It is
my duty and my earnest wish to insure the complete
effectiveness of the Constitution to which I have
taken an oath, and of the representative rights
of the country, but also in the same measure to
maintain the rights of the Crown, and to maintain
them in that undiminished strength which is neces-
sary to Prussia for the execution of her mission.
The weakening of the Crown would be greatly in-
jurious to the Fatherland. This conviction also
lives in the hearts of my subjects. It is only ne-
cessary for me to explain clearly and openly to them
my real thoughts for their welfare. As regards my
foreign policy, especially towards Germany, I main-
tain without any change the policy which I have
followed up to the present time. The Ministry of
State will take care that the principles which I have
stated are duly carried out during the approaching
elections. Then I can expect with confidence that
all electors who are faithful to me and my house
will support my Government with united strength.
I enjoin my Ministry of State to give instructions
to the authorities according to these views, and to
recall to all my functionaries their special duties.
" WILHELM."

Countersigned by all the Ministers.
The Stern Zeitung of today contains a compre-
hensive leader upon the political situation. It
says :
"The change in the Ministry and the dissolu-
tion of the Chamber were acts of the extretnest
necessity. The Chamber was destined from the
commencement to come into collision with the
Government. The incidents which occurred at
the elections plainly demonstrated this. Symptoms
of dangerous illusion, of passionate desire for
praeticAlly unattainable ideals, were manifest at
that period in many of the constituencies. They
displayed their preference for those men whose poli-
tical programme, setting aside all the monarchical
traditions of Prussia, consisted in endeavouring to
connect the country with the movements of
1848 and 1849. They favoured those who further
agreed in organising an opposition to the measures
for army reform already initiated, and which had
been recognised by the wisdom of the Sovereign,
indis-
in conjunction with all his Councillors, as an
Under
pensahle condition for the power of Prussia.
I these auspices the Chamber of Deputies came into

•
being, and necessarily succumbed to the curse of
its birth. If a favourable result, securing the in-
terests alike of the Crown and the country, is to be
obtained from the approaching elections, a stop
I must be put to the agitation for progress devoid of
plan which governed those which recently took
place. Every doubt respecting the actual inten-
iti9n of the Government must be removed, and the
directed
itnoswillatltis9inn finds support in the ad-
' -rice of the Crown itself, must to steadfastly- op-
gitcha:iintihseterogp, position, only
posed. The task of the present Cabinet will be id
enlighten public feeling fully upon all those points.
The Cabinet will be compelled to declare that the
decision to be come to is highly important. The
question is whether the power of government is to
remain with the King, or to vested in the Chamber
of Deputies. The programme of the newly consti-
tuted Ministry will be no other than that laid down
in the speech of his Majesty on the Bth of Novem-
ber, 1858, and it will henceforth smooth the way
for every healthy development and every reason-
able and lasting reform."
The article concludes in these words :
" The Prussian people will remember at the fit-
ting hour that the banner of progress has hitherto
been borne in she van by its noble minded King,
and will refuse
to follow any other flag bearing a
similar inscription."

THE APPEARANCE AND EX7EN7 OF

A COAL MINE.

If we may take a homely and. • e imate illus-
tration 0f..,a Newcastle coal an et Is: conceive
St. Paul's and the ittlonurnip,Olt to repre-
sent the two shafts, and'onrilel m'es'a the streets'
we traverse the workmen and the interior of the
pit. St. Paul's Churchyard and the Monument-
yard shall be the busy spaces at the bottom of the
shafts; Cheapside shall be the main-way of the pit,
and the numerous streets branching off right and
left from it—as Bread-street, Queen-street, etc.—
may be the side passages. The streets crossing
these again give us an idea of the narrow continu-
ous excavations of the smaller dimensions ; and if
we could make these in both cases regular, we should
in both have a system of panel-work. The blocks
of houses in the city would be as pillars in the pit,
and could we but suddenly let down a thick
covering over the roofs, and exclude light and air,
we should have the counterpart of a northern
coal-pit, even as we have it very nearly upon a
foggy November or December day. More than
twice or thrice recently we have thought our com-
parison not inapt as we tramped along Cheapside
and by St. Paul's : city and coal-pit were equally
dark, equally miry, and equally perilous ; for the
dangers of the road, arising from omnibuses and
careering cabs, are hardly much less in a city mist
than the dangers from falls and fire damp in a coal-
pit.
The distance from St. Paul's to the Monument,
however, conveys no adequate notion of the extent
of a large coal mine. We ourselves have paced
along some four miles underground in direct lines,
and some five miles in winding and intersecting
passages. Yet, as we have been informed, we had
but entered into the far interior, had but trod the
suburbs of the vast howling wilderness of pit-
waste, had but passed through the peat main pas-
sages, and a few side passages, leaving miles upon
miles of close and damp darkness untrodden.
Tracing our progress afterwards upon a colliery
map, we have come to understand how little we
had explored ; and there is one old pit, not many
miles from Newcastle, in which, if all the
passages
had to be passed through by a human being, he
would be required to travel more than 50 miles.
There is, indeed, a saying current in the North,
that the pits at Killingworth have more than a
I
hundred miles of excavation; this, however, we
doubt, not from actual knowledge, but from the
very magnitude of the space. Remembering how
difficult it is to cut through even one mile of solid
and dense coal strata, we cm hardly credit that
any one mine has more than one hundred miles of
gallery excavation ! In the process of working out
the strata for 50 or 60 years, of ;course vast hollows
would be made, and a mile a year would certainly
not be an excessive estimate for a very busy mine.
It must be remembered that the whole of these
excavations have been, and are being made by
human hands. No coal-cutting machinery has yet
been brought into operation below the surface, at
least to any extent; and we might well be asto-
nished if we could reckon the entire aggregate of
coal-mining excavation in the north of England.
That it exceeds;by much one thousand miles we have
no doubt. Twenty or thirty of the older and larger
rotbhaeblTyybne quite safe in assuming
Tyne, the Wear, and the
collieries could make up this amount of mileage,
and if we should add together all the excavations
seinoiutlyd of
subterraneanp streets and ways as extending. in
fifteen hundred miles; that is, by piecing
,
tTiatnohlelgeeteoslithee wer vicinity
i hevery hollow way from first to last, and
from Tyne to Tees. Think, then, of these fifteen
hundred miles as the handiwork of thousands of
human beings who have wrought in darkness,
simply because there alone, far from sunbeam and
flowers and glittering streams, could they earn
their honest wages, and hardly win the bread that
should support home and family.—Good Words for
March. •
•

DEATH AND FUNERAL OF A GIPSY
GIRL.

About six weeks since a party of gipsies, bearing
with them a very beautiful girl, named Lepronia
Lee, evidently in the last stage of consumption,
encamped on the grounds adjacent to the Grey-
hound public-house, at Kirton, about eight miles
from Ipswich. No sooner had they taken up their
quarters than the intelligence of the illness of one
who appeared to be a great favourite with the tribe
was sent to all parts, and in a few days Kirton was
the centre of an encampment, numbering some 50
or 60 men, women, and children, some arriving
from Norwich and other distant places. Medical
aid was immediately called in, and Mr. Taylor,
surgeon, of Bucklesham, was daily in attendance
upon the poor girl. Dr. Bartlett was also consulted,t
but from the first all hope was gone. Thrdgovhere
illness of the girl at Kirton, which
extended
Rev.
Mr. weeks, she was frequently visited
M. r.. Bartlett,.tha nheisig/habdyou,
rahnood
ds7wehraolspoetnhterys ladies
me.
hours r e :
siding in .
with her daily, reading portions of the Scripture.
Indeed, so great was her desire for the consolations
of religion and her affection for those of her sex
who so kindly visited her, that she never appeared
satisfied but when they were present. On Sunday
afternoon, the 2d inst., the poor girl breathed her
last, having retained her consciousness until the last
moment, and with her last breath expressed her
hope in a gloriousimmortality. The greater portion
of the tribe were at Kirton Church at the time her
death took place, and when it became known
the moaning and lamentations of her people
are described as dreadful in the extreme. The
deceased was interred in Kirton churchyard on
Friday, the 7th inst., the procession being headed
by a hearse, after which followed the two sisters
and cousins of the deceased, dressed in white muslin
corded with white silk, their heads covered with
white veils reaching almost to the ground. The
men were dressed with black silk hat-bands tied
with white ribbon, and also wore white gloves and
neck-ties. The women of the tribe were in deep
mourning. Many hundred persons came from all
parts of the district to witness the procession. 'Lill,
greatest decorum was preserved throughout, a
shortly after their return from Kesgra.ve the mein-
bers of the tribe started for their various
tdceisrtciunma--
tions. The tribe appeared to be is aat
stances, and consisted of the fainil s
I Youngs, Smiths, and Silcocks.—Bury ao u o
Post.
l e
nt t
7e
pith
Lees,

- -
A Woull ABOUT ()UR WRE.Ch.s.—Fishing-boats
and merchant ships, with their crews, are the antecedents
of men-of-war and naval armaments, and aro the nursery
of those elements of our maritime defence. While we are
fortifying our arsenals, and strengthening, our dockyards
anew in their structure and resources—while no Qx.
pense is spared in the strategic system which converts
our Southern seaboard into a line of military posts—and
while every precaution is taken against the possibility ofan
enemy landing upon our shores—a duty as sole ..,
ing, and patriotic is neglected in a time of
perfect peace,, Pres'''.
n
that of affording. shelter and protection to
our fishermen
and merchant seamen on the line of
is allf one of the greatest
highways of our commerce, Impregnability
but an impossibility; every
fficient), front of approach or
assault cannot be e
our vessels of war if menaced° which
is alike impolitic and inhuman to resist the
Y guarded ; but it
expenditure entreaties of the very class t
hyiachn
enemy;
shouldmy ; anlook
whileto mwa no
nottatho ouru
degxep re upon building batteries, we ought
what is necessary in order to preserve our
coasts from those risks at sea which make the yearly wreck-
chart a national reproach.--Once a Week,