The Sun.
London, England, 1854-12-28 00:00:00

1/~~~~

FROM A MARINE.

" Heights of Balaklava, Nov. 24.

MURDER IN PARIS.

oev seven, which is indeed hard, but it cannot
be helped, for you know the duty must be done.
I have been in three engagements since I last wrote
to you. The first and second I shall pass over, as
we did but little in them ; but the third, on Sun-
day, the sth inst., was somewhat ditierent. The
enemy commenced the attack at daylight in rea-
earnest, but they were all drunk, or very nearly
so, and they fought like 'good uns.' We took the
right, and the second division took the left, when
we found that the Russians were about 50,000
strong, and us poor fellows had to keep them back
for a long seven hours without the least support
Oh l shame,, shame _on a. person whom I dare not
name. For six hours did our men keep looking
behind for support after being at it so long, but
there was none for the Guards, and we had nearly
lost all our men, having only forty left with the
colours, and the enemy all round us, when we
charged and broke through them, for we had shot
away all our ammunition, when a French regiment
luckily came down to support us, and very quickly
sent Mr. Rush to the right about, and indeed right
into Sebastopol, when our poor fatigued men got
into a redoubt of ours for a rest, which was out of
reach of the enemy's shot. Our most noble and
brave duke rode up to us, with the tears running
down his cheeks, and took hold of the colours, and
said, "My brave Guards, I never expected to
have seen you again, or your colours, for I made
sure that you were all lost." Well, two divisions
stood on our left, and never fired a shot, whilst
the Guards had to battle the watch for seven hours
upon an empty belly. But thanks be to God, we
again took them in, and the battle ended about
t four o'clock. lam sorry to say that we have lost
almost all our men. Some companies have lost
from forty to fifty. My own company have lost
thirty-eight killed and wounded, and out of the
three regiments of Guards we cannot muster 1,000
men altogether ; so you may guess the horrid
slaughter which was made amongst us. At one
time each of these regiments was 1,100 strong, and
now the three cannot muster 1,0001 I have:to.
thank the Almighty for allowing me to escape up-
, hurt, for we had five full sergeants killed, and
almost all the others either killed or wounded, and
I was left by myself with the company, and God
only knows how I escaped, for the shot and shell
flew about like showers of rain. lam sorry to
say that we also lost three of our generals killed and
four wounded ; in short, all our best officers
we have lost, but the papers will give you better
information of these facts than I can procure, being
too much employed at this time to take note of
such things. A violent storm on the 16th blew
every tent in camp down, and I bad just finished
a long letter to you when the wind took it and all
my stamps away, and quickly followed it all our
fur caps, camp kettles, mess kettles, and kits, and
you would have laughed to have seen it, but I
couldn't, for I got everything wet through, and
I had to lay in it all the night. About 4 o'clock
the wind dropped, when we put up our tents again,
and they gave us plenty of rum, to keep the cold
out. We have now been throwing shot and shell
into Sebastopol for five weeks, and we may do so
for twelve months longer, and then not take it, for
England and France have been regularly taken in.
We, however, expect 30,000 French troops every
day, and as soon as they arrive we shall storm,
and, I hope, take the place, but as yet we have not
troops enough, for it would take 100,000 to do it
properly, but it must be taken before we quit it,
or never ; and you well know that the allied army
will lose every man before they quit the ground.
It is expected that when it is taken, what there is
left of the Guards will come home to England,
and I don't care how soon that may be. The wea-

tiler i now very fine, and not so :Very cold, but I
am told that it soon will be. I am made a full
sergeant, and am just going on guard, on which' I
hope ti►e Almighty will still spare me to have the

&Leasure of seeing you all again, but if I should be
I shall die in a noble cause—fighting for my
Queen and country."

" I have not had my clothes off to sleep since I
have been here, and I shan't if we stop for six
months. We sleep with our belts on and sixty
rounds of ammunition, and our muskets loaded by
our side. There are 16 of us crammed in a small tent
that was made to hold 8, and when it rains we may
as well go outside as stop in, for the water cornea
through in larger drops than it would be if there
was no tent at all. They may do very well for
Chobham to please the cockneys, but they don't
please us. I don't think the people in England
know how we are served, but I shan't say any
more about it ; it is no part of a soldier's duty to
,4rumble, and thank God I am able to go through
i 1 even if the hardship were ten times as severe.
We had a dreadful storm the other day ; all our
tents were blown down, there was not one left
standing. Two or three of the Rifle corps were
killed • some of our men were severely bruised,
our colonel got his leg dislocated, and a great
many lost all their eletkes except what they had.
on. I lost nothing. I felt quite at home • I have
seen plenty of storms at sea, and I was glad of the
chance of seeing one in 1•Ind ; but I am sorry to
say there has been very great destruction amongst
the shipping. I have not had a shave these ten
weeks, and I get a wash once in three or four day%
my shirt °nee in fourteen days, but I feel quite
comfortable, and as happy as the day is long. I
get three pints of the best rum in a' week. What
do you think of that ? But still for all that, I
should like a quart or two of the Bath beer ; I
know I could go into it. * * I hear that the
ladies of Bath have kindly sent out some old linen
for the use of the wounded. I can assure you
that simple things are not passed unnoticed
amongst all of us ; and if I should be so lucky as
only to get wounded, I really think I should not
feel any pain, if I were to know that the linen
came from the ladies of Bath. You can tell
Bob I have got a slap-up great coat for him,
that I got one night when I was out on picquet
—the man that had it that night will never want
it again, for he was not able to carry away a
small bit of lead I made him a present of."

The Faubourg Montmartre was on Friday the scene
of /a terrible crime. A young woman, Zelia Roussel,
lived for ten years with a gentleman, but a few months
ago he was obliged to separate from her, owing to a
change in his position. He, however, was aecustomei
to go to her every day to take his meals. She occupied
at No. 21, in the Faubourg, an apartment on the fourth
storey. At about six o'clock on Friday the gentleman
went as usual to dine. lie opened the miter door with
a key he always carried %NM him, but be found the inner
door fastened, and received no answer to his kroel
He went down to the concierge to ask after his mistress,
and aas told she was most likely at home, as half an
hour before she had been seen returning with her pro-
visions for the dinner. On this he went up stairs and
stood on the landing to wait—reading his newspaper hi
the meantime. Atter reading some time, he became
impatient, .and he begged a boy wl o happened to pass
t go for a locksmith, A little later a man came from
the upper storey, and hurried past him in great haste. This
man semed anxious to avoid observation. The gentle-
man called to him when he was on the third stoi ey,with the
intentionms u
ti
th
fbuat tilnieg strang to
er g etrelrlettiner returnedconcierge
ptloys. Atend for
the
raloe
same mom, tit some-sone was beard to say on the fifth stem y,
"It is very strange ! there is blood .!" The gentleman
asked what that meant, and was informed that the an
who had just gone down stairs had entered the stairca. e
by a window, and had left traces of blood on it and on
the wall. The person who saw him added that he had
asked him where be came from, but be had merely re-
plied, " The deuce ! I have hurt my head !" a! d a he
had supposed that he was a workman who had bees sm•
played in some job, he had not stopped km. On this
the gentleman began to fear that a crime had been corn•
initted,, and he l egged the person to accompany him into
the young woman's apartment. The door, which had
been locked, was now open. He and his companion felt
something wet beneath their feet, and having gota
they, to theii horror, found themselves in the midst of.*
pool of blood. In the bedroom all the drawers *era
open, and the linen and other objects which they had
contained were found scattered about the !door. Near
the door was a basket containing the provisions which
Mlle. Zelia had bought for her dinner, and by the side
of it her purse, containing a small sum. In the
withlying her
clothes turned up over her bead. n removing them,
the head was found almost severed from the body. The
cries of the two men caused the neighbours to assemble;
and the commissAry of the police of the district,
M. Lanet, was sent tor. It was ascertained that
several articles of jewellery had been stolen. It
is sup-
posed that the assassin, having ascended the staircase
unseen by the concierge, had entered ,the apartment by
the outer door, left open by the young woman, and had
immediately commenced a search after the valu-
able property be had supposel was to be found
there ; that, she, hearing a noise, had gone to him ;
that he then murdered her, in order to facilitate his
escape, and had dragged the body auto the kitchen.
After perpetrating the crime, he had, it appeared,
gene up to the fifth storey, and pawing through a
window had elimbed on to the roof, in the hope prol
lily of escaping by some other house ; but not being able
to do so had returned through the window and descended
the stairs, as already stated. A razor, stained with
blood, was found on the to f, and a rualber of other
circumstances calculated to lead to the arrest of the
murderer have been brought to light.

PUNISHMENT OF A CAPTAIN OF AN EMIGRANT SHIP
FOR NEGLIGENC.—At the Liverpool Borough Sessions
yesterday, Captain James Tullis Peat, late of the End-
grant ship Golden Era, from Melbourne to Liverpool,
convicted the previous Saturday of drunkenness and
neglect of duty on her last passage home, thereby endan.
Bering the lives of the crew and passengers, was lielk•
tenced to be imprisoned for eight calendar months.

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