The Sun.
London, England, 1871-02-20 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, MONDA/,„ FEBRUARY 20,. 1871.

and the headquarters of the First Brigade are at
Bourg, with General Cansio.

THE KING OF BAVARIA AND THE
COUNTESS BERNSTORFF.

MuNum, February 18.
The King of Bavaria has addressed the following
letter to the Countess Bernstorff, the wife of the
North German Ambassador in London. The letter
is dated February 7 :
" Madame the Countess von Bernstorff,—From
several quarters I have received accounts of the highly
effiaccious activity which you have displayed for the
benefit of the Bavarian soldiers who have been taken
prisoners. This noble sympathy with the lot of those
unfortunate men has moved me deeply, and it gives
me the greatest pleasure to thank you for myself and
for the country for the active expressions of your
sympathy. Future ages will look back with wonder
upon not only the heroic bravery of the German
armies, but also upon the high-minded devotion of
the German women—l remain, with the assurance of
my especial esteem, yours very truly,

" LUDWIG."

ATTEMPTED ASSASSINATION IN MADRID
MADRID, February 19.

President Zorilla and a friend named Hernandez,
when returning home this morning, were fired at by
two assassins. The balls missed and entered a wall.
The assassins escaped, leaving a blunderbuss
behind.—. Daily News Telegram.

CANADA AND THE
FISHERIES.

Several journals of New York assert that a pro-
posal has been made for the purchase by the United
States of all the British North American colonies,
which will constitute the prominent feature of the
deliberations of the high joint Commission.
A telegram from Ottawa says that the Canadian
Parliament will discuss the fishery question before
the departure of the Prime Minister for -Washington.
A strong feeling was expressed in the debates on the
Address against making any concession of interna-
tional rights.

THE CONFERENCE.

BERLIN, February 18.

The Powers of the Conference have agreed to open
the Black Sea to foreign men-of-war, and also to
authorise the Porte to admit into the Dardanelles the
armed vessels of all States, Russia and Roumania
alone excepted.
Russia does not object to this, but Turkey hesi-
tates to sanction an arrangement restricting her
sovereignty.—Times Telegram.

(CENTRAL PRESS TELEGRAMS.)
THE FUNERAL OF MR. JAMES
SIDEBOTTOM, M.P.

The funeral of the late Mr. 3ames Sidebottom, M.P.
for Staleybridge, took place in that town on Saturday
afternoon. The remains were followed by members of
the Town Council, and a large concourse of private
friends. The streets were lined with the inhabitants
and persons who had come in from the surrounding
districts, to the number of many thousands.

DR. GOSS AND THE OCCUPATION OF ROME.

Dr. Goss, the Roman Catholic Bishop of Liverpool,
delivered a pastoral to the clergy of his diocese on
Sunday. He condemned in sweeping terms the conduct
of Victor Emmanuel to the Pope. Ho eulogised Mr.
Gladstone, and contended that as the freedom of the
Pope involved the freedom of religion to Catholics, they
had a right to expect England to respect the Treaty of
Vienna. Dr. Goss vindicated the loyalty of English
Catholics to the Queen, and asserted that their allegiance
to the Pope could co-exist with such loyalty, the one being
a temporal, and the other a spiritual obligation.

THE ARMISTICE AND PEACE PROSPECTS•
The Daily News special correspondent at the Crown
Prince of Prussia's headquarters thas writes from Ver-
sailles, February 18 :—The prolongation of the armistice
gives colour to the belief, which gains ground among the
Germans day by day, that peace is certain. It is supposed
that Count Bismarck will ask a little less than the world
has been led to expect, that the French will brace
themselves up to make a great sacrifice, and that some
compromise will be arrived at. The garrison of Belfort
marches out with the honours of war. This, too, looks
like treating one's enemies as though they were
presently to become one's friends. Friends the French
and Germans cannot be, but every symptom of sparing the
beaten side humiliation is favourable to peace. The
rumours as to what will next happen are many. We may
choose among them almost all the possible solutions of the
problem, from guerre ct outrance at the end of a week, to a
) treaty of peace, signed and sealed, the day after to-
morrow. What seems most probable is that this pro-
longation of the armistice will allow the French
Assembly to accept the principle of Bismarck's
terms—to agree to yield some land, and to pay soma
money, and to do some part of whatever else he may
desire to have done—and that then further time
may be granted by the victor in which to settle the
exact price that France will have to pay. It is
beyond a doubt that the retirement of Gambetta and
Garibaldi, the position of M. Thiers in the Assembly,
and the acknowledged majority of the non-Repub-
can members at Bordeaux, have disposed Count Bis-
marck to give the new French Government every chance.
There is nothing positively announced in regard to an
entry into Paris. The German aimy still believes in it
firmly, and expects at least to march through the city.
But I hold to my first idea, that the entry is kept
as a piece to play with in the negotiations.
If the French. will come to terms they may be
spared the terrible risk of the street fighting, of which a
single madman might make their capital the scene.
There has been no idleness in the forts round
Paris. The new possessors have bestirred themselves
to get everything into order from their own point of view,
and have swarmed like bees upon the bastions, digging
and shovelling energetically. If these Prussians and
Bavarians should go home without an entry into Earls,
they will have a good notion what the place is
like in outward appearance, nevertheless. As they
work on the outlying forts, and sing and shout in
the gladness of their hearts, they have Verb be-
fore them like a map. I found that the brass
guns, most of them rifled, were to be taken to
Germany, but that the smooth-bore iron ships' guns had
been already burst as mere lumber, and were to be sold as
old iron. The battered fort--Montrouge—had a dismal
aspect, despite-the sunny weather. How it was battered
to be sure ! Yet it remained quite tenable, with the
ruined barracks in the middle, and the snug casements
under the rampart. The Prussians and Bavarians, Prus-
sian artillery and Bavarian infantry, in garrison have
taken pains to secure their quarters by many piles of
sandbags against a possible attack from the city.

THE EX-EMPEROR S PRORLAMATION.
Writing from Paris February 18, the Daily News corre-
spondent thus remarks on the ex-Emperor's proclama-
tion :—The proclamation of the ex-Emperor has excited
no feeling but one of disdain. Its presumptuous
effrontery is beyond criticisin ; its mendacity cal-
culated only to sink its author lower in the
estimation of the nation he has ruined that he
has hitherto fallen. This was already low enough.
The contempt he inspired has found "in lowest
depths a deeper still." It is felt that Louis Napoleon's
only becoming course was to observe silence. His mani-
festo has been passed over by the press, almost in silence ;
but it would not be surprising if those journals which
benefited by this bounty act the part of the ass towards
the sick lion. It is so easy to be ungrateful. In ac.
cusing the Government for the National Defence of having
brought about the ruin of France, he constitutes
himself the echo of Felix Pyat and crew. On reading
such a phrase as this : "It is time to demand at
the hands of those who have usnrped power an account of
the blood shed without necessity, of the ruins heaped up
without cause, of the resources of the country dissipated
without control ;" one is tempted seriously to call his
sanity in question. He did more than usurp power.
Like a burglar, he broke into France in the dead of
the night, when she was asleep, peacefully, full of
confidence in him into whose hands she had entrusted
the keys of her house. 111, indeed, does it become

him to prate about a waste of the resources of the country
in presence of those terrible witnesses, his war-budgets,
which in twenty years sank £100,000,000 sterling ; paid,
nevertheless, as a sort of premium of insurance against
the risks of war, yet which at the end of that period was
represented by an army of only 250,000 men, not
even well equipped, having scarcely any artillery,
and, above all, being badly p.rovisioned. Yet less
becoming is it in him to speak of blood unneces-
sarily spilt, in the awful presence of the hecatombs
of dead, stark and stiff under the sod at Reischoffen,
Woerth, all over the hillocks and plains and valleys of the
Vosges and the Ardennes, and who will one day rise up in
solemn judgment against him, and cry, "Thou art the
man 1" Did he not feel, know, that with the disap-:
pearance of the smoke from the very first gun
fired at Saarbruck all hope of victory had also
vanished ? Yet after this he continued the war,
He snivels over the " unheard-of reverses of
his
sas
hiwlehoupopnav,e,dthethGe
Government
ymefnort
them. Franc He e, " He it
vomits
which installed itself by surprise at the Hotel de Ville
on the 4th of September." He forgets the burglarious
surprise of the 2nd December. He points to the pltibis-
cites which four times in twenty years confirmed him
in authority. The fasciedes now publishing reveal
the hollowness of those votes ; yet knowing their
real value he appeals to them to sustain his men-
dacious theory that he alone was, and remains,
the sole, true elect of the nation. He " put up prayers
for the success of the national defence, for if the country
was saved, what mattered the dynasty?" His prayers
did not prevent him from plotting with Bazaine for the
surrender of Metz, as a means of gaining grace in
the eyes of ,Prussia in order to bring about the
restoration of "the dynasty." He asserts that the
destinies of France cannot be confided to an un-
authorised Government, which, by disorganizing
the administration, has not left standing one single autho-
rity emanating from universal suffrage. The administra-
tion was found already disorganised, and the Government
for the National Defence is bitterly reproached for not
having made a clean sweep of all the " authorities " be-
longing to it. To wind up—and the suggestion is indeed a
capping of the climax—the ex-Emperor submits that so long
as the nation has not manifested its will, his duty is to
protest against everything done without its direct partici-
pation as illegitimate ; in other words, one rock of safety
alone remains to the nation—himself. So we are to
believe that the individual and the regime which have
brought the nation to the present pass are its sole
elements of reconstruction and future prosperity. The
paradox is a madman's. Fortunately the nation is stil
sane.

The King of Spain was to have left Madrid on Sunday
to join his consort, who is indisposed at Nice.
M. de Rothschild and Mr. Wallace will proceed to Lon-
don, to convey the thanks of the people of Paris to the
City of London.

CRYSTAL PALACR.—TIaIf-a-Crown Day—Satur-
day, February 18th, 1871.—Admission by season tickets,
5,189; ditto on payment, 1,027 ; total visitors, 6,216.

A Cabinet Council was held on Saturday in
Downing-street. The Ministers present were the Right
Hon. W. E. Gladstone, the Lord Chancellor, Viscount
Halifax, the Right Hon. H. A. Bruce, Earl Granville,
the Earl of Kimberley, the Right Hon. E. Cardwell, the
Duke of Argyll, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the
Right Hon. C. Fortescue, the Right Hon. G. J. Goschen,
the Marquis of Hartington, and the Right Hon. W. E.
Forster.

The _Railway News is informed that the steamship
designed by Mr. Bessemer, which will enable passengers
to go to sea without suffering the annoyance of sea sick-
ness, is far advanced towards completion. The hull and
framework are finished, and the trial trip will shortly be
made.

-----
The Morning Post announces the death of Lady
Adelaide de Trafford, wife of Mr. John Randolphus de
Trafford, of Croston Hall, Lancashire, which occurred
on the 15th inst. Her ladyship was the youngest daughter
of General Charles Murray, second Earl of Cathcart, by
his wife Henrietta, daughter of Mr. Thomas Mather.
Her ladyship, who was born in July, 1833, was married
to Mr. de Trafford in July, 1850.

There has been a fall of the barometer on our
northern, coasts, accompanied by a slight rise in thesouth,
where pressure is now high. Temperature has again
risen, except at Oxo, where it has fallen, and is very low.
In our Islands it is uniformly high, and the air is damp.
The wind has veered to the westward at our northern and
eastern stations, and freshened somewhat in Scotland.
On our other coasts it continues south westerly and mode-
rate, but at Oxii it has again shifted to north-east. The
weather in the south is spring like. The sea is moderate
or calm.

OUR COITIVIPORA.RIES—This Morning

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