The Sun.
London, England, 1853-11-18 00:00:00

LONDON, FRIDAY, NOVM,IBER 18, 1853.

Yesterday we observed that it was most ad-
visable to regard with suspicion the different ac-
counts received from the Seat of War—aware, of
course, that the best would be xnade of it by each
of the opposing Commanders. To-day has brought
our advice the fullest justification. According to
the Russians, the Turks have been by them to-
tally defeated. According to the Turks, they
themselves have, on the contrary, been victo-
rious. Intelligence so bluntly contradictory at
once provokes, by necessity, the closest examina-
tion. Guided only by a comparison of these two
conflicting statements, let us, with the map before
us, take the matter into our impartial consideration.
Now, how stand matters ? We will take the locali-
ties and dates precisely as they are set forth in
the despatches received from Bucharest and from
Constantinople. We will disregard, as compara-
tively unimportant under the circumstances, the
advices reached us from Batoum, on the one hand,
and from Vi enna on the other—the latter to the effect
that 50,000 Russian troops, under General OSTEN-
SACKEN, had been sent) by way of reinforcement,
to the main army under Prince GORTZCHAKOFF—
the for mer to the effect that a Turkish corps had
taken, by assault (with a loss to their Muscovite
013Pecnents of 1,000 killed, and of 80 prisoners,
including a general officer), the important fortress,
'variously called Chekvetil and Krapousgw ! And
we will restrict our allusions to the more startling
announcement, said to have recently transpired
on the banks of the Danube, in the neighbourhood
of Oltenitza.

Let us scrutinise, for a moment, the accounts
relating to those events, given to us by the
Turkish, and afterwards by the Russian, authori-
ties--accounts at total variance with each other.
We all remember the drift of the Turkish infor-
toaltion. It was detailed in our columns only as
reoently as yesterday. It described the first suc-
cess of the SULTAN'S troops at Oltenitza (that of
the 4th inst.) as having been followed up by a
yet more triumphal engagement. It intimated
that the victorious Osmanlis had already pursued
their enemies beyond Bucharest, and depicted
the :main body of the Russians as in full
retreat upon Cronstadt. In addition to this,
it will be recollected, that we were informed
of 115,000 Turkish soldiers having been despatched.
by ',ray of Servia with a view to intercept the
dispiEriteci Muscovites in that direction. Well,
to-d ay how very opposite are the accounts received
in this country fromthinosfewhodichthNavterseobrseecqeiuveendt
yesi;erday ! We are now informed
to th e affair of the 11th, Prince GORTZCIIA.ROFF,
with. 40,000 men, attacked the Turks and de..
them afterwards to retreat
feat ed them, allowing
acre ass the Danube without molestation. Startled
by this amazingly unexpected intelligence, lo say
tuys
ask seriously and dispassionately if this, to
the least of it, is probable ? Is it ? We think
not. And our reasons for so thinking may be
givolu briefly enough and succinctly. We think
the account, therefore, improbable, firstly,
than
bane-
cause it is positively known that not more
24,.000 Russian soldiers were at the command of
GORTZCHAKOFF, and that, consequently, the num-
-1 ber above mentioned, viz. 40,000, is actually, as
the French Consul at Bucharest (our informant)
smanises, a gross exaggeration. What confirms
us in the belief that the number is an exaggera-
tion, that, in fact, the whole account is deserving
of our utmost incredulity, is the rather suspicious
eirctunsta,nce that the whole of this amazing in-
telligence was furnished to the French Consul at
Bucharest—by whom ? Why, by the Russian
authorities ! And is not that coincidence pro-
voca.tive of suspicion ? If it be questioned for
a moment, we would here simply refer the
publdc to the close of the French Consul's telegra-
graphic despatch to his Government. He says—
and liet these words be especialhy remarked—that
"as Me despatch left Bucharest, a continuous can-
non( Ide was heard from the direct ion of the Danube.''
Cou-ple that fact with the p receding statement
(the statement made by the It assian authorities),

and see if you do not recognise in the latter an
exceeding improbability. If the Turkish army,
after being defeated by 40,000 Russians under
GORTZCHAKOFF, had retreated across the Danube,
how possibly can we account for this continuous
cannonading (in the direction of Oltenitza) audible
to the French Consul at Bucharest ? The whole
account furnished by the Russian authorities is
more than suspicious—we have in this closing
sentence of the telegraphic despatch its formal
contradiction.

It is only the more desirable, however, by reason
of these contradictory statements from the seat of
war, that fuller and more reliable intelligence
should be awaited with all possible eagerness. All
that can be done until then is to exercise our
patience, and to await the arrival of additional
news, with a reasonable solicitude, of course, but
without trepidation. Meanwhile, what will be the
course pursued simultaneously by the French and
British Governments? If our answer be looked for,
we suppose it must be in the columns of the
Moniteur—not from the lips of any member of
our mysterious and inscrutable Coalition.

NATHANIEL MOBBS has been left for execution,
the several applications for a commutation of the
extreme penalty have been rejected, and unless
the Home Secretary should see cause to change
his present determination, the wretched criminal
will, on Monday next, the 21st inst., be publicly
strangled in the presence of many thousands of
persons of both sexes, assembled to witness the
mostattractive, of what our popular contemporary,
Household Words, has termed " Open Air Enter-
tainments" in England. None can deny the jui-
tice of the sentence. None can assert that the
miserable convict has not fully merited the awful
fate that awaits him. He cruelly sacrificed the
life of the woman he had vowed to love and che-
rish. He was the murderer of one who was en-
titled to look to him for protection and comfort,
and it was no* solitary instance of ill treatment.
It was not the first time he had been guilty of
acts of cruelty against his unfortunate partner,
until, as the eminent Judge who tried the
case declared, in pronouncing the expiation he
would have to undergo, " his brutal violence pro-
bably excited him to the commission of the fatal
act which terminated her career, and his own."
We have alluded to those aggravating features
in the case, not for the purpose of exciting or
enhancing the indignation that must be enter-
tained against the atrocious crime of which lie
has been guilty—not to smother any sensation of
pity that may arise towards the culprit, but
simply to show that we have not omitted taking
into consideration the worst features of the case
before expressing the deliberate opinion, that the
extension of mercy to the ill-fated man would not
be attended with evil consequences to society, and
that it is a case where the Royal prerogative
might be judiciously exercised in his favour, with-
out in any degree increasing the probability of
similar atrocities. If the execution of NATHANIEL
MOBBS could afford the slightest particle of additional
security to helpless females, if it would deter a single
ruffian from recklessly ill-using his wife, we should
say let the law be carried into full operation, so
that the salutary example may strike terror into
the cowardly hearts of all persons disposed to
similar outrages. But believing that in this in-
stance the capital punishment would be worse
than useless—that it would act as a provocative
and incentive rather than as a preventive of
the crime--we would add our entreaties to those
of our esteemed and respected contemporary, the
Morning Advertiser, that the metropolis may be
spared from the revolting exhibition. And we
do so on different grounds from those so ably and
consistently advocated by that journal.
It is almost unnecessary to say that we have
never advocated the total abolition of capital pun-
ishments. We have always held that the wilful
and deliberate murderer who coolly and deliber-
ately plans the violent death of a fellow-crea-
ture, and carries his deliberately premeditated
intention into effect, is worthy of death in the
most disgraceful form ; and we believe
that the infliction of the extreme punish-
ment is calculated to deter others from
similar acts. But this only applies to premedi-
tated murders, where the offender had, in cold
blood, made up his mind to commit the outrage,
and where he would have time to reflect on and
consider the consequences of his guilt. Such a
person would be terrified at the gibbet, and of the
gaping and heartless crowd—gathered together to
make sport of his agony, to criticise his dying
struggles, and applaud the dexterity, or censure the
awkwardness, of the executioner. But these things
will have no influence on the man whose passions
are inflamed to the verge of insanity, if not be-
yond it, who at the moment is utterly reckless of
himself, prepared to relinquish even life itself
for what he believes to be but the accomplish-
ment of an act of righteous vengeance. Such a
person would rather glory in the knowledge of
the price at which he was to purchase his revenge,
that he had vindicated his wrongs even at the cost
of his own life. He would during the perpetra-
tion of the crime glory at the proof that he was
about to give of the sincerity of his determination.
Such a person would rather be urged onward than
controlled by the knowledge of the ultimate ex-
hibition in the Old Bailey. If prepared to lay
violent hands on his own life at the moment, he
would not be frightened at the gallows in perspec-
tive, when the final expiation would be postponed
for several months. Sir BOYLE ROCHE was
laughed at for his practical bull in proposing that
suicide should be made a capital crime, punish-
able with death. " Alderman CUTE" was ridi-
culed for his inflexible resolution to " PUT SUICIDE
DOWN ;" but surely the law, which hangs a man
who decidedly and unequivocally attempted to
destroy himself, is guilty of as gross and pal-
pable an absurdity, and may as thoroughly be
"laughed to scorn." The law, too, makes allow-
ance for the weakness of humanity, and reduces
the punishment of an act committed iu the heat
of passion. As, for instance, "if a man pull
another's nose, or offer him any other great per-
sonal indignity, and the other thereupon imme-
diately kill him, it is manslaughter only ;" or "if
a man take another in adultery with his wife
and kill him directly on the spot, it is manslaugh-
ter only" (see 1 Hale 486 ; R. v. Manning T.
Raym. 212). Now, although we do not for a
moment pretend that in MOBBS'S case the Jury
could have properly returned a verdict of man-
slaughter, or that there was any foundation for
the jealousy by which he was inflamed, he yet
believed that his wife had been unfaithful, and
that she had spent the night preceding her death
in acts of impropriety, in place of in a room of a
female neighbour, and it was in that persuasion
(of which he gave such fearful evidence, by the
determined attack on his own life, from which he
tthen,
, thath have
was with difficulty recovered for a public execu-
tion)e hiheceommitted the crime. We would,
life saved, and the punishment
his modifiede execution
e eu
tt
ioe
u woperpetualutde banishment,
useless,
or worse
less, as an example ; and that, therefore, as the
law does not act from motives of revenge only,
he should be reprieved, and also because the
crime was not deliberately planned' but committed
in the heat of passion, and under the supposition
(enormous we confess, but not the less decided)
that he had been wronged in the tenderest point
by his unfortunate wife ; and that by his deter-
mined effort to commit suicide, he bad given the
most unequivocal evidence of his sincerity. We
also believe him to be partly the victim of the
law itself, for had he been flagellated, or other-
wise severely punished in the first instance, and
his habitual ill-usage checked, he never would
have been stimulated to the crime for which he
has forfeited his life to the offended laws of his
country.

The unfortunate dupes of the mischievous agi-
tators who go about engendering strife and aggra-
vating the differences between masters and work-
men are beginning to have their eyes gradually
but certainly opened to the absurdity of their con-
duct, They perceive the reckless folly of which