The Sun.
London, England, 1854-09-13 00:00:00

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LONDON, WEDNESDAY EVENING, SEPTEMBER, 13, 1854.

THE WAR.

TILE 0110LERA.

ENGLISH TREATMENT OF RUSSIAN

PRISONERS.

NAVAL AND MILITARY INTELLIGENCE.

Sir Benjamin Hall has already done much to
guard against the approach, or to mitigate the
effects, of the cholera, and it is therefore in no cap-
tious spirit that his exertions should be judged.
Although, however, the steps which he has taken
since his accession to office have been characterised
by much wisdom and energy, it is impossible to
conceal from ourselves the fact that they will never
be sufficient to cope permanently with the evils
against which they are directed. Sir Benjamin
has probably exhausted all the powers with which
the law invests him, and employed the only machi-
nery at his disposal. If so, it only remains to him
to mature such further legislative provisions for the
consideration of Parliament in the next session as
shall supply the present defects of the law. That
such defects exist is but too obvious ; and until
they are remedied the cholera will continue ever
and anon to assert its supremacy among us, be-
cause, till then, we shall never succeed in destroy-
ing its strongholds.

PORTSMOUTH, TUESDAY.
Her Majesty's ship Royal William, 120, Captain King-
combo, was towed on Sunday from Plymouth Sound by
the Confiance and Pike steam-vessels into Hamoze, where
she was replaced at her moorings in ordinary.
The Colossus, 81, screw two-decker, Captain Robinson,
has received her crew from the berthing hulk in Portsmouth
harbour, and gees to Spithead, where she will dress ship,
man yards, and salute when the Queen and Court pass
through from Osborne to London en route to Scotland
to-morrow.

The Journal de St. Petersburg of the sth contains
an article imputing the greatest inhumanity and
ingratitude to the English in their treatment of
Russian prisoners. It is singular that to sustain
this charge the Russian court journalist should be
compelled to resort to the testimony of a Greek.
The Journal says :

The acts of brutality which the English had not
blushed to commit during the present war precluded all
misapprehension with respect to the deplorable lot of the
prisoners, who should be so unfortunate as to fall into
their hands. Our painful forebodings on this head have
been but too fully realised in the accounts supplied by
the prisoners recently exchanged at Odessa.
We have now before us the statement of Mr. Nicolas
Lazaro, the. Greek master of a vessel captured on the
2pth of April, by the squadron under Admiral Lyons,
with the crew and a portion of the regiment of Bala-
clava, which was at the time on board. The master's
narrative contains some interesting details concerning
the behaviour Of the English to their prisoners.
The captured vessel has been placed under the com-
mand of an English officer. While preparing to weigh
anchor the captain of the English frigate. Highflyer on
board of which Mr. Lazaro and Major Vassilieff had
been conveyed, summoned the two prisoners, and di-
rected them to go on board their own vessel, and fetch
their property. Mr. Lazaro, on proceeding there found
the cabin strewed with fragments of boxes. His own,
which among other effects, had contained 351. sterling,
and 28 gold five-ruble pieces, had been as unceremoni-
ously treated as the others. The property of Major
Vassilieff had also disappeared. Among the remains
of broken trunks lay images also broken and stripped of
their silver mounting. On returning to the English ship,
the senior officer inquired if they had secured their
property, to which they replied that they had not
found anything but broken boxes and images de-
spoiled of their mounting. This answer seemed vastly
amusing to the English officer, who laughed, and turned
away. _ _

Hornet, 17, screw, Commander Campbell, removed her
powder and shell, and came into harbour this morning.
Her bowsprit will be shortened three feet and defects made

Malacca, 17, screw, Captain Farquhar. The defect has
not yet bean ascertained ; the evil is, no doubt, at the end
of the propelling shaft, and it is possible something in the
shape of a nail has got inside and made a fix of it. Part of
the shaft will, in all probability, have to be removed.
Sphinx, 16, paddle, Commander Priest, is refitting in
harbour. •

After the experience of the last two or three
and twenty years, it cannot be doubted that
this epidemic is either the direct produce of filth,
or finds in filth one of the invariable conditions of
its existence. Just as the sweating sickness,
which used to carry off its thousands and tens of
thousands in the fifteenth century, was the terrible
punishment with which nature visited personal
uncleanliness, so the cholera has sprung up in the
nineteenth century to teach us the necessity of
maintainincrour towns and habitations free from pol-
lution. We may be slow in learning the lesson,
but, sooner or later, we must learn it. If
we are wise, 'then, we shall betake ourselves to the
task at once, for the school of experience is an ex-
pensive one, and will make us pay in life and trea-
sure for our obstinacy or stupidity. The moral which
the cholera teaches is simply, "Remove your nuis-
ances ;" and to the enforcement of this duty all
the efforts of sanitary legislation tend. The most
important of all instruments for effecting this is
unquestionably an efficient sewerage, and yet we
know how little, or how unskilfully, it has been
used in our towns. In London we long prided
ourselves on those granite-paved subterranean
drains which were pronounced as wonderful as
anything above ground in the metropolis ; but
this satisfaction was unfortunately never marred
by the reflection that their foul contents were dis-
charged into a tidal river, and were thus kept in
the very heart of the town. The discovery of this
oversight is recent, and although we are now on
the eve of commencing colossal works which will
effectually carry off all the refuse of our dwellings,
many years must elapse before they are completed,
unless much larger sums are devoted to them than
are now at the disposal of the Sewers Commis-
sioners.

The steam-vessel Rhadamanthus, which left Plymouth
on Sunday with stores for the Black Sea fleet, for convey-
ance to Deptford, took with her from the Impregnable,
for conveyance to Sheerness, the captain and crew of the
Russian barque Carle, captured in the channel by the
steam-vessel Avon.

Vivid, Master Commander Allen, went over to Osborne
this day at noon with the Spanish ambassador, on a visit
to her Majesty at Osborne Palace.
Fanny, tender, has received her new mast to-day.

The Vifredo, iron screw, Captain Costello, hauled into
dock to-day for examination. She presents a most powerful
bottom for stowage. The water had not sufficiently left
the dock to discover the mischief caused by her getting
ashore at the Owers.

The prisoners, who had at first been distributed
among the various vessels of the fleet, were afterwards
transferred to the English steam-ship Sidon, and
despatched to Constantinople. Mr. Lazaro then
learned from the accounts of his fellow-captives, that
those among them who had enjoyed the good fortune
to find themselves on board French ships were loud
in their commendations respecting their trektment. The
Russian officers had been admitted to the table of the
Fi•ench officers, the soldiers had been well fed, and even
treated with wine and rum. Seeing the prisoners for
the most part without shoes, and completely ragged, the
French manifested their astonishment, and when they
heard that they had been entirely plundered by the Eng-
lish, they expressed themselves concerning their allies in
very uncomplimentary terms, saying that the latter had
behaved on the occasion in a !shameful and insufferable
manner.

On the other hand, the prisoners on board the English
ships complained that they had been treated with harsh-
ness, and very inadequately fed. At first they had only
received a pound of bread, and a small portion of salt
meat, scarcely eatable, and even this scanty ration was
afterwards reduced one-half! As for Mr. Lataro, he
declined to receive his share, contenting himself with
some biscuits which some of his sailors had managed
to secure.

There , are, however, many nuisances which
sewers cannot, or are not, allowed to reach, and
these will need not merely the incessant watch-
fulness of our sanitary officers, but more strin-
gent and summary legal powers for their suppres-
sion. Nothing, for instance, can be more discre-
ditable to the law of a civilised nation than the
toleration of unwholesome trades in the midst of a
densely-crowded population. It is true that Par-
liament prohibited, some years ago, the future esta-
blishment of such trades in such places ; but it has
done nothing to prevent the perpetuation of those
previously existing, and which are at present effec-
tually protected by the best of all titles, known to
English courts and Englishmen—long user. These
firmly-rooted nuisances, however, must share the
fate of other sources of injury to human health.
The bone-boiler or knacker may aver that, when
he built his premises, no human habitations were
within the reach of his deadly influence, and that
he is not to blame, and ought not to be damnified,
if others have deliberately taken up their abode at
his gates. This plea, however, cannot avail him
against the paramount principle—salus populi su-
prema lex. If he desires t 9 carry on his business
undisturbed, he must fly to the wilderness and en-
trench himself there in a camp sufficiently spacious
to confine within its limits all the deleterious
effects of the elements which he has let loose. The
owner of one piece of ground has no right, in ab-
stract justice, and- ought to have none in law, to
corrupt the atmosphere which is to be inhaled by
the occupiers of another ; and the prescription
which he would set up in support of such a pre-
tension ought to be fully met by the more sacred
and imprescriptible right of every man to the pure
air of heaven. The evil under consideration is a
very serious one, and urgently demands the im-
mediate attention of the Legislature. If a bail
law has given men a vested right to destroy the
constitutions of their neighbours, that right, we
suppose, must be purchased from them, just as the
right of holding negroes in slavery was purchased
from our planters ; but it cannot be suffered to
continue much longer, for life, after all, is quite as
precious as liberty. If all the tall chimneys which
vomit abominations over the town between West-
minster and Vauxhall bridges have a valid title
to pollute and poison our dwellings, let the Sheriff
of Surrey empanel a jury by all means, and assess
the pecuniary value of the privilege, and let the
amount be paid by the ratepayers who suffer from
it. If the law does not sanction such nuisances,
let them put them down vigorously and summarily
by summons, in forty-eight hours—not by indict-
ment, in six months.

Some days after their arrival at -Constantinople the
prisoners were again transferred to the English screw
steamer Bangor, whose commander gave them a sorry
welcome, and treated them very rigorously. The
Russian officers were not admitted to the English
officers' table. One day some •of the Turks came
to see the prisoners, and a young officer, who in-
troduced himself as the son of Osmar Pacha, an-
nounced that he had orders to prepare for them an old
vessel which happened to be at the Admiralty, and that
if they were placed there he would endeavour to treat
them well, because his father, who was a prisoner in
Russia, had written to him that he had himself experi-
enced the best of treatment.

Thus we see that 'while a Turk cherished the disposi-
tion to discharge a debt of gratitude, the English trample
under foot. the must sacred rights of humanity, and
ignore even the obligations which reciprocity commands.
English prisoners have been treated in Russia in a man-
ner which has left them nothing to desire. Even the
English newspapers, most bitterly hostile to us, have
felt it a duty to admit this. Yet no compunctious voice
has been heard by their companions in arms, convincing
them how scandalous it is to plunder the Russian cap-
tives, to leave them shoeless and in tatters, and even to
deny them sufficient nourishment.

On the 7th of June, the prisoners were placed—not in
the old vessel of which mention was made above—but
in a Turkish barrack situated in the admiralty depart-
ment. Here they remained seventeen days, the provi-
sions supplied by the English being of bad quality.
When the benevolence of the Greek merchants at Con-
stantinople, among whom also were certain Russian sub-
jects, came to their relief, that assistance was harshly
prohibited by the English authorities.

The Turkish admiral, Mustapha Pacha, came one day
to this barrack, in company with an English officer, de-
signated Captain of the Port. The admiral made inquiry
of the prisoners respecting their condition, and they com-
plained to him of their rigorous treatment, and very in-
ferior rations.

The Pacha told them he would cause them to be better
treated, and, turning to the English officer, he said :
" If you wish to maintain these prisoners, maintain them
properly. If not, let me know, and I will maintain them
in such manner as we maintain prisoners of war." Then
pointing out Captain Davydoff, commander of the Rus-
sian transport Aloupka, who had been made prisoner by
the Turks, he asked him if he and his men were ade-
quately provided for. They all replied in the affirmative ;
only M. Davydoff mentioned that he was destitute of
wearing apparel and a bed. The Pacha hereon expressed
his dissatisfaction to the party in charge of the prisoners,
who the next day provided all that was necessary.
This well-merited reproof which the English officer
had the mortification to receive from the Turkish admi-
ral on the subject of the prisoners makes any comment
of our own on the matter superfluous.
It suffices for us to bring to the knowledge of the
people of Europe that the English have carried their
harsh treatment of prisoners even to that degree which
excites the indignation of the Turks. It is time for all
to understand the true practical value of those fine phi-
lanthropic principles of which the English delight to
make so pompous a profession.

But there are many 'nuisances which are by law
easily removable, and which yet, from the means
relied upon for the purpose, are but too often left
unremoved. Take the simplest case of a nuisance
tciloanssse,daeby,,trheenaßovoaabrdleobf eialth, in its recent direc-
tions,
complaint ofl et ch:eedalintsui
nuisance,
, a i
u foulwr
idtiunit -,
to the board of guardia(z)ins,
bin or a manure heap. person who is sensible
of the annoyance is directed
themselves. This course to " address a short
no gentleman who disllls
owner to abate it, or,
mews in the rear of.who are to order the
his neglect, to abate it
hisi Belgravian or Padding-
. extremely simple, and
the effluvia of the
tonian mansion—no attorney
rebels against the
his effice or shop from or tradesman who
the
which creep into
in iuditing his' co
cabbage-
leaves of next-doofsedm_uasnble.
offending locality, and putrescent
in—will have any diffi-
cultyd.mplaint, describing the
the Board which is to remedyiscovering the habitat of
where shall we find, in his grievance. But
an alley full of Irish
labourers, and navvies,
scholar and the lawyer to nalici coal-whippers, the
grumble
such directions ?
The men will growl
and I
i>orourible readily enough
owner against ; theand
dung
their
wives,
i f
spoken bin, and against its
sub-
ject, will overwhelm the interlocutor with the ac-
count of the sufferings which they endure from that
source. But which of them k"v s
anything of the
directions of the Board,which of them will
volunteer to find out the guardians, and
ria
even if it is
known that they are the authoritydlls'
which has juris-
diction in such cases? The public
court may condemn such a proceeding as unneigh-
bourly, or the nuisance may be the property of the
always landlord, whom it is not wise to These
and similar motives are in incessant operation,offelici*
most
poor. This
in the midst.of disease, and they
owfany even
pre-
vent the thorough abatement
if it were
bea made to an
whicmhe
pre-
cisely in those quarters where they are
s familiar to
rife—
namely, among the habitations ofm tohs
difficulty might easily be obviated,
cesspools,
tnraristocratic
esspools dirtyida,reas cor-
rupting ordered that the complaint shoualnddi
authority always at our doors
stqhnearheusm..bLleestt
tlahneespoaliseetmoantliebe
,
pig-styes,walks his baenadt ,
pouf
ttrlii
de overchargedsubsta noes,
the atmosphere in this or that
him have power to verify the statemenVoene—tihee
mayepidenlie
spot—and let him report every such complaint to
the proper authority.
But suppose the complaint is duly made, it then
becomes the duty of the guardians to attend to it.
andeetheefyan
Will they always discharge this duty ?
trusted me-
tropolis
daunrdi
nperhaps be
while public opinion keeps a steady watch
during n
thelarge pr e townsvalen
on
movements. But when was a large and h their
hetero-
geneous body, such as a board of guardians, ever
found to act with the same vigour and honesty as a
'single
officer, well paid for his services, and bear-
ing the whole responsibility of his acts ? In agri-
cultural districts such heavy bodies move especi-
ally slowly, for the individual members are. but
too prone to act on the maxim that what is the
business of all is the business of none. We have
already learned from the example of our new mi-
nister of Health the advantage of poss •
times of emergency, a sanitary dictatore;ssingd' in
cannot help thinking that, if every district inan ."Eng-
land elected art edile, and armed him with suffi-
cient authority to abate nuisances, and to enforceall regulations necessary for the prevention 0
miti-
gation of infectious or epidemic disorders,r lIIOre
would be done for the health of the count ry than
ever will be effected by unwieldy boards of guar-
dians, municipal corporations, and
local boards of
health. Morning Chronicle.

DESTRUCTION OF THE FO.RTIFICA-

TIONS AT A LAND.

LEDSIIND, Sept. s.—The fortresses that stood upon
the Aland islands are amongst the things that were.
Mines were sprung beneath them on the 30th and 31st
August, and 2d September. The fort of Izee, after it
had fallen into the hands of the French, as I already in-
formed you, was shelled from the Russian millwork. It
took fire, and blew up on the morning of the 15th ult.
Prasto was fired on the 30th ; its destruction was com-
plete. Three explosions took place in quick succession ;
011 the third the entire fort seemed to open out and then
went upwards amidst a thick volume of smoke. All the
hewn granite which formed the outer casing of its walls
slipped over the tongue of land upon which it was built
into the sea, leaving a heap of bricks and rubble on its
site. Nottick was destroyed on the following day. The
first explosion was like a clap of the loudest thunder,
fallovred by four or five successive discharges not unlike
a salute from heavy guns. Its walls visibly started on
the first report, and these shot upwards, enveloped in a
cloud of the heaviest and densest smoke, which floated
heavily away over the ruins of Prasto. Stones and
splinters came down hi a shower upon the surrounding
rocks, and when the curtain of smoke had withdrawn
itself from over the debris, two shaken portions of the
circular tower were still standing, like solitary sentinels,
over the fallen fort, and served only to render the pic-
ture of ruin more striking and impressive. The main
work, or semicircular fort, was destroyed on Saturday
evening. It was riven asunder by several grand explo-
sions. The whole appearance of the place from the ships
now presents a melancholy picture of desolation, and
bas lost all its distinguishing marks. The forts, so lately
models of strength and beauty, are effaced from the
landscape. The village, which formed so conspicuous
n object in my sketch, has disappeared by fire, and the
beautiful trees, so lately umbrageous, but now scorched
and shorn, stand like dismal spectres casting off flashes
of soot from every breeze.
With the view of examining the interior for myself, I
travelled through the island and was kindly received
everywhere with marked respect by the kind and simple
peasantry, whose houses of wood, generally one storey
high, are emblems of purity and cleanliness. The thick
woods afford them lots of timber to supply all their
wants, and every farmer appears to be by nature a car-
penter and cooper. Every farm yard shows its heap of
white chips and carpentry workshop. All their arrange-
ments, though rudely, are ingeniously fashioned, and
wood is made to, serve many of their wants for which
iron would be more suitable. The interstices, between
the solid beams of which their houses are built, are
filled with moss, and the windows are •generally double
(an inside and an outside one) to defend them against
the severity of the winter. Every room has its sepa-
rate stove, and the beds are generally grouped together
in one room, where they are built in tiers, close to the
largo fire-place.' The cultivation of the land is most
creditable to them, and seems to have arrived at great
perfection. Corn, rye, hemp, and potatoes were the
principal crops we passed. Their domestic animals are
of a small breed—the horses are remarkable for their
beauty as well as their speed. The face of the country
is beautifully diversified with wooded and mountain
ridges. The sea, studded with innumerable islands,
exuberantly covered with pines and silver birch, appears
from the main road like a chain of lakes. The fields,
covered with fine pasturage, are enclosed by railed
fences, and quiet little Lutheran churches show their
spires now and then in sylvan scenes. The main road
more resembles a private avenue through park lands
than a common thoroughfare. The villages are merely
a few farm-houses squatted together.
For the last few days steamers have been running
constantly up and down between Lea and Bomar
$ Sounds, towing down flips and getting the

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