The Sun.
London, England, 1854-11-27 00:00:00

PRINCE WO_RONZOFF.

An incident has occurred in Russian history of
the latest date which ought not to be passed over
without notice in the records of the time. Prince

Woronzoff has resigned his offices as Viceroy of the
Caucasian provinces of Russia, Commander-in-
Chief of the forces there, and Governor-General
of New Russia and Bessarabia : the Czar has ac-
cepted his resignation ; and thus it seems that the
last conspicuous link between Russia and Great
Britain is now severed. The Prince retains his
dignities of member of the Council of State and
Imperial Aide-de-Camp ; but it is not to be sup-
posed that, under the circumstances of the time,
these offices will be filled otherwise than nominally
only. And thus is broken down the only visible
bridge over the chasm which separates the mind
and feelings of England and Russia. While there
was a man whom all Englishmen respected and
admired, and whom many Englishmen had the ho-
nour of calling their friend, who was high in the
trust and active in the service of the Czar, there
seemed to be a remnant of hope that some un-
derstanding might yet be come to. But that is
over now, and the severance is complete.
Prince Worouzoff is not only warranted by his
years (he is about seventy) to retire from such ser-
vice as that of Russian Governors and Commanders
at this day, but it is difficult to see how he could
remain in it, if he were 20 years younger. Of all
the wear and tear in the world there is nothing
that tells more on the human frame than the cares
of a Russian command—civil or military ; and
Prince Woronzoff's health seems really to have failed
at last, too seriously to enable him to continue his
services. When the war began, he went to the
German baths, under leave of absence from his
Governments. Twenty years ago his sallow com-
plexion and grey hair told their tale of care and
anxiety ; and the work he has had to do since in
the Caucasus and in Georgia was enough to break
down the spirit and health of the strongest man
who had, like him, honour and conscience. Almost
the only faithful servant among a host of flatter-
ers—the only loyal one among a crew of self-
seekers—all his best feelings have been liable
to wound or jar at every step of his official
career. At Odessa, more than half inha-
bited by foreigners, and in the Crimea,
where his wealth could, and did, create
kis own world for him (for he set the example of
residence there), all might go well and easily
enough ; but when he looked eastwards he found
nothing but perplexity and annoyance. The Rus-
sians in Circassia and Georgia plagued him more
than the Circa,ssians and Georgians. When he
visited the forts down the coast he found the
soldiers half-starved, and the places almost defence-
less, through the peculations of all-officials of every
class ; and there was nothing in the five-and-twenty
years of resnitless warfare against Schamyl to raise
the spirits of the Russian Commander-in-Chief.
He must now be well aware that the trans-Cau-
casian peoples, whom he has toiled to govern well,
hare been nevertheless dreadfully oppressed, and
that their severance from Russia is, if all the de-
crees of fate, the most clearly written. One of the
first consequences of these facts is that the pro-
vinces which Prince Woronzoff has been ruling in
defiance of the great shadow of Schamyl will soon
be no more a part of Russia than they were when
his father was ambassador at our court, aid within
his own memory.
In the other field of his labours he had more suc-
cess, and might feel somewhat more complacency.
The prosperity of Sertch (whose harbour received
a thousand ships in a year some time since) is
largely owing to Prince Woronzoff, who built the
quarantine establishment there, and improved the
town, without being answerable for the removal
of trade from the harbour of Theodosia to that of
liertch—a mistake made before his time. It was
he who gave the wine manufacture to the Crimea,
and built the pretty little town of Yalta, where the
Allied commanders went lately, taking the oppor-
tunity to visit the Prince's castle at Alupta. A
thoughtful traveller reads a curious lesson on the
times he lives in when he visits in succession the
residences of Prince Woronzoff. The palace at
Tiflis stands surrounded by a strange scene of
Asiatic life—long streets where trades go on in
the open shops, caravanserais, and bazaars.
This is antique life. At Alupta all is feudal
(except indeed that the Prince has built a
mosque for the villagers). The middle-age
baron would have coveted such a residence, un-
less he had been alarmed at its being built of
green porphyry. Its massive square tower and
belfry,-its great-court yard, its banquetting-hall—
spacious enough to seat a whole noblesse at its
board ; its position, as if standing at bay under a
precipice of 4,000 feet high, and overloking a wide
tossing sea, while the cottages of a dependent popu-
lation are nestling round it ; these are features
which would indicate that the Prince is a feudal
chief, wielding powers in his own right. In fact,
however, there is the same discrepancy, as to that,
that there is in the buildius, which is surmounted,
after all, with domes and pinnacles, telling that
it is not Gothic, but only Russ, It was in this
Russo-Gothic castle that the Czar Alexander was
waked up for the last time in the way in which
Autocrats only are wakened. In this castle, the
mere plans for which cost 10,0001., which itself
cost many hundreds of thousands, and which had
been profusely embellished for the Czar's reception,
Alexander was asleep, when, in the middle of the
night, a courier arrived, and insisted on deli-
vering his tidings instantly. This was on the
Bth of November, 1825 ; and the tidings
were that the conspiracy against his throne
and his life, which had haunted him for nine years,
was now near its outbreak, but yet so obscure, from
-the fidelity of the conspirators, that it could not be
dealt with. The Czar, in this semi-feudal castle,
might then have been glad to have hadfeudal nobles
to deal with. But nobility in Russia has not
reached even that stage in the progress of society.
Two days after he was seized with fever, and, in
three weeks more, was • dead. At the next of
Prince Woronzoff's palaces, at Odessa, we find the
characteristics of yet another social state. As far
as can be made out, that palace was not destroyed
in the bombardment of Odessa ; and we hope it
was not. With its porticoes and clustered marble
columns without, its Italian paintings within,
and its vast vineyards around, it is an abode of
modern luxury. No less remarkable is the union
and diversity of qualities in the man. He is almost
an Englishman, having been educated here, and his
sister educated and married in England. His father
spent the latter part of his life in England after
he ceased to be ambassador. Honest as an Eng-
lishman, the present Prince Woronzoff has yet been
considered a pillar of the autocracy of Russia ; and
for wealth and official dignity he is the foremost
Man of the empire. But now he is old and grey :
Schamyl and his bands impend over Tiflis ; the
Allied Generals have been looking up at his towers,
and riding in his park at Alupta ; and the cannon
of British ships are pointed at his marble porticoes
at Odessa. English relatives of his are serving, in
the office and in the field, against his Emperor ;
and the strife is fearful between the two countries
to whom he almost equally belongs. It is time,
plainly, for the old man to crave exemption from
service in such a conflict; and no one will wish
to hold him back from an avoidance of all con-
flict whatever—so much faithful service as lies be-
hind, and so near as the grave lies before him.
The
Czar writes to him accordingly, "Once more do
I return you my sincere thanks for the services
of fifty years rendered by you to the throne and to
our country. Unchangeably I remain well affected
towards you."
The grief in this singular case is that such a
man should not have found better work to do, and
a better scope for his purposes and his powers.
Russia is no field for a wise and a good man—as
our Mackintosh happily remembered in time, when
urged by Woronzoff's master; Alexander, to make
laws for his people. - The Wroronzoffs yield their
place to the Gortchakoffs and the Menschikoffs in
times of crisis, and the best thing that the wise
and the upright can ask of the Autocrat, in criti-
cal moments, is leave to retire and die. That
leave Prince Woronzoff has obtained ; and sure we
are that good men of every nation will honour his
grey hairs, and respect his repose.—Daily News.

pogo: ha,,:eTilutiacrit Fanza.—The Commissioners of
third part lust
thissued in a small portable shape, the
efares for cabs, with the distances
within a circle of four
miles from Charing-cross accurately
measured by authority
of the Commissioners of Police.
This small handbook
also contains a clear and concise
abstract of the laws relative to the hire of cabs and the
misconduct of drivers.
makinz a The number of fares calculated
is 8,250, thus
total to and from all the places
of not less than IG,Goo
twice tables, the fares to a largeratnumber of other places
by referring to the dis-
pdains have been taken
may be easily ascertained.
to insure accuracy in the tables, a
which had unavoidably crept I„`'‘ many of the errors
the work have been rectified. n the earlier parts of
ROYAL COLLEGE OF SURGEONS.—The f .110 in
tlemen having undergone the necessary' „7-g ,g,on
for the dipl.nna were admitted members , f thrieuncaort.,"
at the meeting of the Court of Examiners on the 24th
met.:—Messrs. Hartwig Lud wick Christopher
Bombay ; John Hall, Sheffield Infirmary ; sauthe'l
Lawton, Sheffield ; Edward Henry Sargint, Australis. ;
Stephen Nesfield, Whitby, Yorkshire ; Cyrus Octavius
Daniell, army ; John Lawrence Growse, Bildiston,
Suffolk ; Edward Beck Hammond, Ipswich ; Francis
Mead Corner, Whitby. Yorkshire ; William Dymock,
Willisborough, Ashford, Kent ; Samuel Dougan Bird,
Birkenhead, Cheshire. At the same meeting of the
court, Mr. Charles Edward Play fair passed his examina-
tion for naval surgeon. This gentleman had previously
been admitted a member of the Royal College of Sur-
geons, his diploma bearing date '?,Bth June; 1850.