The Sun.
London, England, 1853-10-12 00:00:00

any mood of exultation, that we direct attention to
the now clearly-demonstrated accuracy of our
reiterated declarations.

Occurrences, we say, have already revealed
their accuracy. Is it not so ? The Vienna Note
has failed. The Conference is admitted by its '
apologists to have blundered. The modifications
required by the Divan are recognised as most
reasonable. The obduracy of the CZAR in re-
jecting those modifications is acknowledged to be
worthy of severe reprehension. MoldoMallaehia
are still occupied by the Russian troops—the
AUTOCRAT evincing no disposition to order them
•ito evacuate those invaded principalities. Nego-
tiations of all kinds have failed to bring about the
promised pacification. War is imminent. And
all this is admitted even by the organs of the
ABERDEEN Government. Affairs in reality have
arrived at that position—that the National
Council of Turkey have advised his Majesty the
SULTAN boldly and at once to declare war against
his cole,s.sal assailant. In consequence of which
troorra are placed in readiness, both in France
r.d England for the contingent advisability
of immediate embarkation. Additional powers
have been accorded by the Cabinets of St.
James's and the Tuileries to their Ambas-
sadors at Constantinople. The combined fleets
have left their anchorage in Besika Bay, and have
proceeded together to their destination beyond
the Dardanelles. Meanwhile the CZAR has
adroitly won over (at least to neutrality) Austria
at Olmiitz and Prussia at Warsaw—the former
-by his courtesies to FRANCIS JOSEPH, the latter
by his friendly bearing towards FREDERICK
WILLIAM. Simultaneously with the knowledge
of all which we learn, from the Voss Gazette of Ber-
lin, that, according to a general belief in that
capital (whither, remember, the CZAR has recently
accompanied the King of PRUSSIA), " Lord WEST-
MORELAND, on his return from Olmiitz, announced
that the Emperor NICHOLAS would make no fur-
ther concessions on the subject of the Turkish
question." Whether that statement be authentic
or purely supposititious, it is indisputable that up to
this juncture the AUTOCRAT of all the RUSSIAS has
evinced by his acts no disposition whatever to
concede or to conciliate. Arrogant, obstinate,
and haughty though the CZAR has been through-
out these occurrences, the SULTAN has been all
the while, though dignified and resolute in the
maintenance of the inalienable rights of his sove-
reignty, calm, patient, and temperate in the manner
of their vindication. His patience, however, has
at length been exhausted. He has consented, it
is true, to tarry yet another brief interval before
letting slip the dogs of war—in compliance with
the earnest solicitations of the French and Eng-
lish Ambassadors at Constantinople during
which interval, of course, the infatuated Aber-
deenites are still maundering about the failure
of the Vienna Conference, are still haggling
about the possibility of inducing Russia
to diminish her demands on Turkey by a
tremulous renewal of our absolutely pitiable en-
deavours at negotiation.
It is precisely thus that matters are situated at
Vienna, at Berlin, at Paris, at London, at St.
Petersburg, at Constantinople. Meantime, along
the northern and southern banks of the Danube
the belligerent forces are grimly confronting each
other. The Turkish army burning for the struggle !
OMER PACHA, their Commander-in-Chief, implor-
ing his Imperial master the SULTAN to give the
long-delayed signal for the encounter ! The Rus-
sian soldiers weakened by a scarcity of provisions,
decimated by cholera, and broken down in energy
by the progress of insubordination ! Imperial
France mustering her troops for the chance of their
required embarkation. England preparing for any
emergency. The combined fleets approaching the
Bosphorus. The CZAR hastening back from Berlin
to his own dominions. Austria and Prussia en-
trapped by his wily intrigues into the promise of
neutrality. The Vienna Note torn up and thrown
aside as waste paper. The members of the Con-
ference disgraced by their notorious blunderings
as diplomatists. Every one listening anxiously
for " news of battle" from Constantinople. Such
is the situation. A situation for which we are
indebted to the timidity, the incapacity, the imbeci-
lity of the "dear and excellent" statesman unhappily
installed, at this crisis, in the responsible office of
First Lord of the Treasury. A situation, neverthe,
less, from which advantage may be derived at onoe
by a display of energy on the part of England: but
that energy, we believe, in our heart and in
our conscience to be incapable of infusion into the
Cabinet until the Earl of ABERDEEN has been
induced to tender his resignation as Leader of
her Britannic MAJESTY'S Government.

It is only by keeping public attention con-
stantly directed towards the habitual brutality
exercised by a set of cowardly miscreants towards
helpless and inoffensive women who may have the
misfortune to be brought in contact with them,
that we can hope to abate the monster nuisance,
and to show that the Recorder of the City of
London, and all the officers of his Court, have
arrived at an erroneous conclusion, in thinking
that it would not be necessary or wise to call
upon the Legislature to magnify the punishment
which attached to these cases. We should
not thus dwell upon the opinion so de-
liberately and advisedly put forward by the
Right Honourable and Learned Gentleman (for
whom personally, as we have already stated, we
entertain a high feeling of respect), but for the
weight that must necessarily be attached to any
views emanating from so high an authority, and
which have been sanctioned and confirmed by
many of the civic authorities in their judgments.
Under such circumstances, then, and feeling the
magnitude of the evil, we deem it an imperative,
as it is a painful, duty to prove, from the examples
of every-day life, that the existing law is practi-
cally inoperative, and that some more efficient
remedy must be provided if we desire to get rid
of the great social grievance of the nineteenth
century, and to avert the disgust that must be
excited in every well-regulated mind, by perusing
the heart-rending details of unmanly violence, and
unprovoked brutality.
It may be that the tendency to the crime is so
deeply rooted in some debased natures, that no
punishment whatever would prevent, or even ma-
terially diminish, the number or the atrocity of
the offences—that it is only by the careful edu-
cation of the masses, by instilling into the juve-
nile mind, while it is yet young and ductile, and
easily directed, an intense horror of such cowardly
outrages. There is some truth in these assertions; we
can easily conceive the amount of ill temper with
which a half-druken ruffian who had come to what
in the statistics of inebriety is termed " the cross
drop," would return to his miserable and squalid
home and behold the wretchedness of his partner
and slave, and of their unhappy offspring. We
can picture to ourselves that ill-temper, aggravated
partly by the reproaches of conscience, and partly
by fury, at being compelled to abandon his half-
concluded carouse at the moment when his scoun-
drel companions were most eloquent against the
" meanness" and " want of spirit" of the man who
would be " tied to hiswife's apron-strings," or apply
his earnings in procuring domestic comfort in place
of squandering them in low debauchery and vul-
gar profligacy. " The still small voice" on the
one side, whispering that he was responsible for
all the suffering that he witnessed, and the fear
of ridicule on the other, rendering him reckless
until all future consequences are totally forgotten,
and the victim once more experiences the fearful
ill-usage to which she has been but too well accus-
tomed ; but which is, perhaps, carried to such a