The Sun.
London, England, 1854-12-29 00:00:00

CLASSES 2.

4; Oriel, 3 ; Christ Church, 2 ; St. John's,
2 ; St. Alban Hal!, 1 ; Merton, 1 ; Magdalen College,
4 ; Lincoln, 1; New College, 1.
CLASSES 3.

Wadham, 2 ; Trinity, 1 ; Pembroke, 1; Emilio!, 1 ;
Brasenose, 1 ; Worcester, 1 ; Christ Church, 2.
CLASSES 4.

Christ Church, 3 ; Jesus, 2 ; University, 1 ; 13rase-
nose 3 ; Oriel, 2 ; Queen, 2 ; Magdalen Hall, 1 ; Puna-
broke, 1; Lincon, 2 ; Balliol, 1 ; St. John's, 1 ;
Magdalen College, 2 ; Corpus Christi, 1 ; Wadham, 1 ;
St. Edmund Hall, 1.
In the school of natural science and jurisprudence no
class was awarded. The number of passmen was two
only.

RAILWAY COMMUNICATION WITH THE WEST OF IRE.
LAND.—The railway public and shareholders of. the
Dundalk and Enniskillen, Drogheda, Belfast Junction,
and Ulster Companies will learn with satisfaction that
the Parliamentary warfare of last session between these
companies will not be revived. The lines then pro-
moted for connecting the groat northern and western
districts by the Belfast and West of Ireland Company
and the Dundalk and Enniskillen Company are now to
be carried out by the Ulster and Dundalk Companies,
assisted by the Drogheda aml Belfast Junction Compa-
nies, the route being from Armagh to Cavan, via Mona-
ghan, Cootehill, and Rockcorry. We understand that
arrangements are concluded for the removal of the seat
of management from Dundalk- to Dublin, to be under
`.the joint control of the subscribing. companies.

No doubt the slow progress of our arms in the Crimea
will force on the people some troriblesorne reflections.
The turn of those reflections is- indicated by the eager
glance of expectation cast at that reinforcement sf
" navvies" now on its way. It is the bit of novelty, the
little leaven 'of the nineteenth century in an otherwise
old-fashioned legacy of the times gone by. One of
Seott's characters says that he never despairs. of a sky,
however murky and thick, if he can see a bit of blue
enough to mend a pair of breeches. These " navvies".
are the bit of blue sky, and all we have to hope is that
they may not be sacrificed on the instant of their arrival
to the stupidity or insolence ©f some officer of Engineers,
who may think it quite a feather in his cap 00 send the
whole lotto perdition. What is more likely ? The thing
can be done, not only with much plau,ibility, but with
actual grace. Let the " navvies" be landed, and their
material let go to the bottom, like the cargo of the ill-
fated, or rather, not to throw the blame on Fortune,
much-injured Prince. Or let the " navvies" be pot into
a barrack at Balaklava, surrounded by pestilence, filth,
and rum—the only article which appears never to have
run short yet in the Crimea. Let them be de.tired to
wait till Sir J. Burgoyne has selected some one to make
a report on the proper line for the railway, or the practi-
cability and use of a railway at all, and till -that rep art
is made, and the line marked out by the military autho-
rities. ,These successive operations, taken with military
composure, may easily be spread over a month, and
the first of them need not be commenced till a
week after the arrival of the " navvies." When
everything at last is ready for the "navvies,"
perharis a third of them will be dead, a third in
the hospital,- the remainder so attenuated that
their friends would not know • then, earl- their
material, plant, and tools may be, as we suggested, at
the bottom of the sea. In that case there could either
be another report on the then state of- affairs, or, what
.would answer the purpose quite as well, the above at-
tenuated remainder of the "navvies" might be set to
work in the mud, put on half-rations of biscuit and meat,
double rations of rum, and be speedily added to the soil
of the Crimea. Seriously, we wonder whether the lino
of the proposed
_railway has been roar-ked out, or will be
marked out by the arrival of the " navvies" and their
material ; or whether it will then be marked out within
a fortnight, or ever at all. There wee no such thing as
a railway in the Peninsular war. There was not even a
macadmized road. 14-l Adam and Stephenson have both
come up since .1815. That is what w- e mean when we
say that this war will force on the people some trouble•
some reflections. The first of them is, that this war is
managed, and this nation to some extent governed, by
men whose experience is not that of the present age,
but that of the pest.
_ _

It is said thst, it must go ill with a generation that
allows itsel to be ruled 'entirely by the past. Heaven
certainly intended every • generation' to govern itself,
making it responsible for its own actions,. and giving it
a sufficiency of all things requisite for goodness and
happiness. Let us use the. past as we think proper,
but not he tyrannized over by it. The country has loeg
since acknowledged this maxim in its extreme-jealousy
of institutions modelled and.hequeathed by the past. If it
accepts them, as it must do, it treats them as an evil or
suspected inheritance, and qualifies them accordingly. It
would be a still greater misfortune, were it possible, if
the men of the past—the old men of the past—the
old men whe never were young—could rise from their
graves and undertake to manage for us the new resources
of our own age. Dr. Samuel Johnson, for example,
was a very wise man in his day ; but, unless we wished
to go down by the head altogether, we should never
think of resigning into his hands a single affair of church
or of state. Now, here are the men of the past, whose
boast is that they got all their ideas in the Peninsular
war, in command of an expedition as different as possible
from the operations of that war, and different in no cir-
cumstance so much as in this, that the Peninsular war
was over in 1814, and the *expedition to the Crimea is
begun in 1854. There is not a single work of peace that
would not now be done in half the time, at luef the cost,
and awice as well, as in 1814. In fact, all the instru-
ments and materials at the disposal of these men are in-
finitely more efficient than anything which existed at the
former date: But every workman will tell you that a
good tool requires a good man, and that, unless a man
either understands a tool, or takes kindly to it,,he had
better not be permitted to touch it. All the vast facili-
ties afforded to us by oar command of the sea, the use
of steain, and such a fleet as the world never saw, are
lost on men who imagine themselves waging war in the
interior of Spain, and have settled in their minds that
dysentery, half-rations, incessant exposure, nakedness,
abandonment
absence
of o
roads,
f baggage,an dg fri
ghtful itiortali ty h
disorganisation
, t
are
eutter
iiormal conditions of war, and need excite no concern
at head-quarters. Great Generals have ever been
men in advance of their times. Alexander was not a
mere ingredient of the Macedonian phalanx ; he was
ens_ of the_ _first gentlarnea_of his +42,y, litesaryrand
;e. t, .Ci V" '3l
accomplished,
a n l
aa
lr: surrounded
Sru enad
ly.
d versatility to b y p
r oafintd bgephilosophersntlteiti yr saaunrged-
annodtormioauds;
aCiepsoairntwaofs
aalrwriavyinsgineaarldievrantcheaonf hevisenfohesis,
friends expected. With twenty days' notice he made
an earthwork as many miles long, which answered its
purpose, and survives to this day. Ho was always look-
ing to ds commissariat in time, detecting conspiracies
long' before they ripened. He was the best engineer of
his time, no one knowing better the construction of such
engines of war as were used in those days. He con-
quered a-nation of pirates on their own element, and,
when they thought to steal a march on him by cutting
the tackle of his ships, he disconcerted them by the use
of chains, instead of ropes. Had he waged war only as
Scipio Africanus, or Mariuseand Sylla, or even Pompey
had done, be would soon have succumbed to a world of
foes and rivals. But he beet the age by being always
in advance of it. That is still the-only way.
How is that, with the most practical science and the
best men in the World, we turn neither to, account ? A t
the battle or Inkerman we made the bodies of our
Guards do the duty of earthworke, and all this time our
men are rotting by hundreds for want of a few ship-
loads of proper food, clothing, and housing. Nay, the
shiploads are there, or only a few days' sail off, but
there is not the head to get them up in proper place and
time. The British Tantalus in the Crimea. has all the
necessaries Baal comforts of life within sight and reach,
but is never permitted to grasp and enjoy them. The
Russians—serfs, brutes, savages as we are accustomed
to think them, and borrowers, as they netoriously are,
in all arts. and sciences —beat us at every turn.
They hare
overreached us i earth werks. Tl;ey move armies in
dominated us with their artillery, and
carts for lack of railways, and, according to the testi-
mony of all the prisoners, have actually male better use
of their steam transports than we have. Whatever may
be pretended at hone, it is certain that whole regiments
arrive in the Crimea withent a single Miui6 musket,
and other regimeets with only a small proportion so
armed. We are trusting, not to science, but to men.
There is this difference, however, between mechanism
and men,—that the former is of iron, tough wood,
earth, or stone,—the latter of flesh and blood. Ac-
cordingly, the latter wears away much faster than the
former ; and all that can be said of the men is that they
have been excellent, but no longer exist. The Guards
certainly were magnificent soldiers. Had they been
earth, they could have been repaired in a night ; but,
bweaisngaimwaeyn:
etqhmeyplacionuilndgonly be buried, or sent to time
hospital. All this, doubtless, is according to rule. It
was so in the Peninsular war. The Duke of Wellington
in
the evils he complains of
arehiinsevleittatehrles, to and therefore
and utterly incurable. Had it been so,. the Duke would not
all war,
have complained. Nobody knew the difference so well
between war Carried into the interior of a country and
war upon seas or rivers within the reach of our navy.
Therefore he left in office a memoraadum for the guid-
ance of our Indian authorities, warning them never to
send an army far from the sea or a navigable stream.
We have now the position ho so much desired, and
make no use of it, any more than we do of the resources
of the nineteenth century. What does this show-but
that we want, not the wealth, the arts, the steamers,
the, weapons of the nineteenth century, but the men
also of the century ? Thus far we have given the Czar
the advantage of the century ; and, with his own ad-
vantage in respect of numbers, this new difference in
his favour makes him too much for us. We can only
match him by making the century our ally.