The Sun.
London, England, 1853-08-24 00:00:00

THE RUSSIAN NAVY.

( From the Allgemeine Zeitung.)

Very little is known of the Russian navy in all other
countries of Europe, and, whatever notions may exist
on the subject, they are vague and all but delusive. We
are, however, enabled, from our personal observation,
to state a few facts with respect to the naval force of
Russia.
If a war fleet is to be good for anything besides firing
salutes and rotting in harbours, the first thing requite
is the possession of a line of coast on the open sea with
convenient ports. Next in importance come good
ships, able crews, and efficient officers. Russia has
three inland seas. The one open sea she has—the Polar
Sea—is blocked up with ice. The Sound and the Bos-
phorus are the outlets to the more important of her in-
land seas. Either opening is exposed to a blockade.
The Russian ports, excepting always those of Cronstadt
and Sebastopol, are not fit for the harbouring of war fleets.
Helsingfors, the best of the Finnish Ports, is small. The
port of I;,otshenealm at the mouth of the Kymmene in the
Bay of Finland, is indeed fortified, and it is, moreover, the
station of the so-called "Scheerean fleet." Revel, in the
Bay of Finland, is a commercial port ; there were fortifi-
cations, but they are almost dismantled. Baltish-
port, in Estlionia, at the mouth of the Paddis, is large,
but altogether devoid of fortifications. Riga and Libau,
in Courland, are commercial ports. Archanr2;el has docks
and a fortified port, but it is lost in the far north, and
devoid of importance in the case of a war. It is the
same with the ports in the Caspian, the port of Astrcakan
is being ruined by accumulations of sand. Azof and
Taganrog want depth, and the same may be said of all
the posts in the Sea of Azof, of Feodosia, and Chersof.
Between Cronstadt and St. Petersburg the water is so
low that vessels of more than seven feet draught cannot
reach the capital. The vessels from the Petersburgh
Docks must be taken to Cronstadt by land, and at one
time they were dragged by camels. Odessa is a mere
commercial port, and Sebastopol is the only serviceable
war port in the Black Sea, whose fleet is stationed there.
The port of Odessa is large, of great depth, strongly for-
tified, and it has the advantage of regular tides and
winds. The ports of Bessarabia are altogether unim-
portant:

As to the police, of the ports, the maintenance of
light-houses, buoys, &c., it must be confessed that
all these matters are in excellent condition at no small
expense to Russian Exchequer. But a strategical sys-
tem of ports, such as England and France can boast of
is altogether out of the question. The fleets of France
and England may, in their own seas, venture on the
boldest and most hazardous manoeuvres—in case of need
they have always a place of refuge under the guns of
their war ports ; but the Russian fleet, with nothing
but Cronstadt and Sebastopol to back it, is in continual
danger of being cut off, and cannot, therefore, ever be ex-
pected to advance to the attack. Its services are purely
defensive. This being the case, what can be more na-
tural than that Russia should desire to possess herself
of better harbours and a more serviceable range of sea-
board ?

Let us now talk of the ships. For shipbuilding
Russia has the best materials that can be found. Her
forests supply her with oaks which are equal to the
oaks of Canada of which the British ships are built ;
but of late years so great has been the waste that the
forests of Central Russia are unequal to the demand
of the navy, and the Russians have been com-
pelled to take their wood from the forests of the
North. This wood is naturally wet, and they never
give it time for proper seasoning. Consequently, it is
soon worm-eaten and rotten. It is generally said that
a Russian vessel lasts but two-thirds of the time which
an English ship is expected to last. In part, this may
also be owing (at least in the Baltic) to the short,
irregular waves, and the ice. The sails and ropes in
the Russian navy are excellent. The Russian sail-
makers were famous, even in the days of Peter the Great,
and to this day Russian canvas is preferred to Scotch
canvas. Russian hemp is quite as famous as Russian
tar and Russian leather. The guns are all that can be
desired. The vessels are very orderly and clean ; they
show to this day that Peter took his first lessons in Hol-
land. The fitting of the cabins are splendid in the ex-
treme, according to the manners and customs of the
Russian aristrocracy. The Russian captains and admi-
rals are not by any means bluff, bearish old tars of the
Drake, Tromp, or Ruyter stamp. Slippered they are
and wrapped up in morning gowns, and got up in the
most splendid style of ease ; they 101 l on soft sofas of
purple velvet, reading French novels, or they sit at the
piano by the hour, playing Etudes par Chapin. The
fact is, the Russian naval officers care very little for the
profession ; not that they are ignorant--the nautical
academies at Oranienbaum, Petersburg, Cronstadt,
Odessa, and Nicolajen provide all sorts of theoretical
knowledge—but for all that, it's not in the grain ; and
in case of a war it will be shown that the Russian ves-
sels are badly officered. Very much the same may be
said of the crews. The Russians are not fond of salt
water. The majority of the sailors come from the inte-
rior ; they are inveterate land rats, and never saw the
sea until they were enlisted in the navy. They have
not, as the sailors of England and France, breathed the
sea breeze in their cradle. The English are of Norman
blood—of the blood of the oldest sea kings of the world.
The Russians come from the waterless Steppes of Mon-
golia. The vessels of England and France sail about in
all waters, but it happens very rarely that a Russian ship
of war ventures into the open sea. This is an important
point —the Russian sailors are not accustomed to the
sea ; they are not " weather-fast." The Russian fleets
have scarcely everbeen in a serious engagement, for of
i course Navarino must not be mentioned.

With the soldier, present courage is partly derived
from the reminiscences of a glorious past. The Russian
marines • and sailors have no past to think of. They
stand in their high boots and stiff coats in the exact po-
sition prescribed by the rules and regulations of the ser-
vice, so that their feet form an angle of 45 degrees, and
this position it is their pride and their glory to preserve
on the spars, at the pumps, and at the guns. The rules
and regulations of the service alone determine the move-
ments of the Russian sailor ; he will, in the very teeth
of danger, go on winding up his anchor, while an Eng-
lishman would have cut his cable, turned the ship, and
put on every rag of canvass, to the bending of the masts.
The guns alone are quickly seized and cleverly handled,
but the manceuvring generally is by far slower than the
manoeuvres of the British ships. The shortness of the
ships snakes it difficult to turn them, and the signalling
is far from being perfect. The ships are clumsy ; the
planks are thick, and remind one of the wooden walls of
the Armada.

The various manceuvres in the Russian fleet are exe-
cuted with great precision ; but it appears that every
fitce for
makes only
him
smeatnolfiaisnahnisippuelcautliioanrsp. osot,fancdoutrhsa he p
realest'
perfect ; but the question is how the same manceuvres
are to be performed in battle when many of the crew are
killed or disabled ? The Duke of York insisted on the
same men being marines, gunners, and sailors ; and
surely his principle was the better one.
The stiffest mechanism prevails in the Russian naval
service. The Russian sailor works his hours off, and
having worked them off he goes to sleep. He takes no
interest in the service, and the receiving his rations is,
in his opinion, the important business of his life. He is
not wedded to his ship as the British sailor ; he is not a
child of the ocean. When he sees a stray rope he does
not coil it and putlit aside, he reports the matter to his
lieutenant, and the lieutenant refers to the journal for
the name of the man who has neglected his duty, and,
having found the culprit, he takes hold of his ears and
pulls him up to the neglected rope. Such is Russian
order and discipline.
With all this order, however, there is no penal law
for the navy. Each captain has his own set of rules and
punishments.
The administration of naval affairs in Russia is in ex-
cellent order, according to the books and records of the
Admiralty. As to the real state of things, Ido not hazard
an opinion But, since the Government bestow much
care and money on the navy, it is just possible that their
Swedes.
I
stores are well supplied. But for all that, Russia is not
fit to engage in a naval war, for she has no mercantile
hands
n the a
° of the
eao,df allgUi
ner Germans,
English,
areenest
navalmEnagril marine.
: ph.; w Greeks,ileres the w
rtrade is
in
aanr fleetdBwe sprang from a trading
The Russian fleet is not a natural offspring of the na-
tional inclination ; it is a thing of order and command,
and, as I said before, though
possibly useful as a means
of defencs, it can never become an instrument of aggres-
sion.

stationed
nonflet consistseedinthe of
tie
The
ealtreu fiavnedd itvwi sei o
in
, the oof which
three Black
Sea. In the last war with Turkey Russia had 32
vessels
of the line, 25 frigates, 20 corvettes and brigs, 7 brigan-
tines, 6 cutters, 84 schooners, 20 galleys, 25 floating
batteries, 121 gunboats, making a total of 464 sail, and
carrying 6,000 guns. Since that time a great activity
has prevailed in the Russian docks, and the result is that
at the present day the Russian fleet consists of 60 vessels
of the line of from 70 to 120 guns, 37 frigates of from
40 to 60 guns, 70 corvettes, brigs, and brigantines, 40
steamers, 200 gunboats and galleys, the whole manned
by 42,000 sailors and 20,000 marines, with 9,000 guns.
These remarks show that in a contest with any of the
great naval Powers Russia has not a chance of succest
The various Czars have, indeed, strained every nerve o
create an efficient fleet, but all their endeavours_ are
fruitless unless Russia succeeds in conquenrip Sweden 1)-
propriating the coasts of Turkey, Greece, d
a
the open sea, harbours, and a marine population.

COMPULSORY VACCINATION. Yesterday the new act
-
futher to extend and make compulsory the practice of
vaccination was published. By this new law, parishes
or unions, if need be, are, within six wee.ks. of the pass-
perfo.rmance of the same, and
t
for the purpose of vaccination,
ing of the act on the 20thnt, o dis-
trictsbeandaivivellldeeisntaoretoob object being, as described, to
nboetiaceppiosintotebde
afford increased facilities for the the vaccination of the
fgoirventh,ethe
poor. The parents and guardians of children born after
the Ist of August, 1853, are to have such children vac-
cinated within three or four months after the birth, and
the children are to be taken for the inspection of the
medical officer on the eighth day after the operation, to
ascertain the result of the same. A certificate is to be
given of successful vaccination. In case a child should
not be in a fit state for vaccination, the *medical officer
is to deliver a certificate to that effect to be in force two
months. The compulsory part of the new law is con-
tained in the ninth section, which enacts that the regis-
trar of births and deaths in every sub-district shall, on
or within seven days after the registration of the birth
of any child not already vaccinated, give a notice in
writing in,the form prescribed, to the father or mother,
or person having the care of it, shall not attend to have
it performed, or shall not, on the eighth day after the
vaccination, take the child for inspection, such father or
mother, or person, shall forfeit a sum not exceeding 20s.
The penalties imposed by the act are to be recovered ilk
1 a summitry manner.