The Sun.
London, England, 1865-08-16 00:00:00

THE CALCUTTA An CHINA MAILS

MALTA, AUG. 15,

The Nyanza, from Southampton on the 4th inst.,
arrived here on the 13th at 5 a.m., and left at 5 p.m.
for Alexandria.

The Pera, from Marseilles on the 12th inst., ar-
rived at 9 p.m. yesterday, and left at 11 a.m. to-day
for Alexandria.

AUSTRIA.

VIENNA, Aug. 12.
The following is the text of the semi-official an-
nouncement (the purport of which was sent by tele-
graph) appearing in the ministerial organ, the
Wiener Abendpost of to-day :
.

"Among the tasks which have fallen to the lot
of the Government, in developing all the resources
of the State, more especially for the elevation and
settlement of the internal prosperity of Austria,
conspicuous importance will be admitted to belong
to establishing permanent order in the revenue of
the State. No explanation is necessary to show
that the definitive settlement of the question, how
the normal requirements are to be harmonised with
the possible revenue without overburdening the tax-
payer, forms one of the momentous objects of State
economy, and may possibly force itself at once upon
the Government as the nearest and most immediate
subject of their care.
"In this sense the Circular of the State Minis-
ter has already dwelt upon the necessity of assist-
ing, by conscientious economy and saving in every
branch of State administration, to level that course
upon which it is requisite to proceed to the ulti-
mate settlement of these matters. That such set-
tlement is the condition of the full living develop-
ment of our State system, and that a large portion
of the reagents slumber therein, from which we
may expect the cure of more than one evil in our
public life, may be characterised as an uncontro-
verted axiom of public opinion, acknowledged to
be correct by the Government.
" The serious and pregnant task thereby imposed
upon the Government requires also earnest and
dutiful, but above all firm and consistent, treatment
of the subject. We understand that a decisive step
has already been taken in this direction. By the
Emperor's order a:special Budget Commission is
about to be formed, to which, in addition to the
State Minister, the Finance Minister, and the Pre-
sident of the Chief Accountant's Office as permanent
members, and besides the heads of all central dis-
tricts and their subordinates, persons may be ap-
pointed, without distinction of their official or non-
official position, whose co-operation in as thorough
and impartial treatment of the subject as possible
may appear desirable.
" The deliberations of the Commission will be
directed towards effecting as extensive savings as
possible in all departments of the public service, and
the Imperial order specially desires that an earnest
endeavour be made to reduce the requirements for
the army to the normal limit of 80 million florins
more particularly by reduction of the expenses of
the department of the Army Administration."

EGYPT.
ALEXANDRIA, Aug. 6.
By order of the Viceroy a sanitary commission,
composed of 10 medical men, will be shortly de-
spatched into the provinces of Upper Egypt, where
the cholera is prevalent.

The prohibition upon the entry of fruits and
vegetables into Alexandria has been removed. They
are, however, still submitted to medical inspection
before being offered for sale, and green or spoiled
fruit or stale vegetables are vigorously condemned.
The cholera has entirely disappeared and the
public health is daily improving.

At Damietta, Rosetta, and the neighbouring
villages, cholera has almost entirely ceased, and the
sanitary condition of the provinces of Behera,
S
ir,Scharkia, and Dachalia generally satis-
factory.

The Viceroy Ismail Pacha arrived at Alexandria
on the 3d inst., and set out for Cairo the same
morning, accompanied by Nubar Pacha.
His Excellency Cherif Pacha has addressed the
following letter to M. Thevenin, Agent and Con-
sular-General of Prussia, at Alexandria :

" Alexandria, July 16.
" Sir,—The terrible epidemic which has afflicted
Alexandria and all Egypt has brought forth all
that devotion and humanity could inspire in the
men who so nobly direct the Prussian hospital.
" I am happy on this occasion to express my
grateful sense of the exertions of the managing
body. I tender my thanks to the members for the
care they have not ceased to bestow upon our sick
throughout the whole duration of the epidemic, and
beg their acceptance, on the part of his highness, of
the sum of 7,500 f., which his generosity offers to
the establishment, that it may continue doing what
it has done so well up to the present.
" M. Jules Pastre is deputed to remit to you the
above-mentioned sum.—Receive, &c.,

" CHERIF PA.CHA."

No case of cholera occurred in Alexandria from
the 2d to the sth inst. inclusive. During the two
days, July 31 and Aug. 1, there were only five
deaths from that cause.

MADAME TUSSAUD'S.—In addition to the effigies,
life-size, in the Chamber of Horrors, of John Wilkes
Booth, the base assassin of the late President Lincoln, and
the poisoner, Doctor E. W. Pritchard, is one of Miss Con-
stance Kent, whose sentence of death has been commuted
to penal servitude for life. The models are considered to
be excellent likenesses of the culprits.
PORTRAITS AND PHOTOGRAPHS. —ln portraits
everything must be real, honest, and natural. The
divine, almost intangible light of expression, hovering over
the face, is seized on by living skill and intellect and im-
prisoned in colours. Tints of fancy, of humour, of firm-
ness, of melancholy and pensiveness, in short, of the
hundred-and-one shades of expression—the presence, in
fact, of life—this is what gives the portrait its special
value. The absence of this is what drives the photographic
portraiture out of the realms of art into the cold enclosure
of mechanism and machinery. This is scarcely understood
even as yet. It is often said that a photograph must be a
perfect likeness, for, according to the common expres-
sion, "it is you." But it is not you. The instrument itself
is incorrect, and exaggerates. It is forgotten that the
true portrait-painter does not take his sitter at ono
special moment, when the eyes aro fixed on him
in a, hard staring gaze, with all the muscles
rigid, and the features in a state of smirking catalepsy. But
he draws, as it were, from memory, from an acquaintance
of so many hours, during which the sitter has been oppo-
site to him, and during which time he has learned by heart
the natural, habitual, and most characteristic expression
For a few moments, by the help of some observation, he
has caught, say, the sly roguish twinkle of humour in his
sitter's eyes, and has secured it for ever. The mere mecha-
nical shape of the features (which the photograph only
gives) he has before him, to be put in at any moment.
Then enter into the composition the skilful touch, the
free naturalterest
bright bits of colour, the transparent delicacy of tone, the
poetry of treatment, which are reflections from the skilful
mind taking the picture. In short, anything that is the
for impression
other eo uolfs t— doctrine
the
ea
sooucltrainnde oofftel
n pifehreaaschatedonbeye
an interest
Mr. Ruskin, who has shown how " " this •
precious on prin-
ciple, ,become the unfettered workman's carving on the
capital of a pillar, as contrasted with merely arbitrary
and conventional design.—Dickene's IL All the Year Round.'