The Sun.
London, England, 1841-01-22 00:00:00

sion of the city, and the very soil on which it stands.
All other preparations for war are reserved till the
time of need comes ; ships are laid up in ordinary, regi-
ments are reduced to depots, stores are husbanded in
arsenals, but fortifications are always to be kept in re-
pair, always to be watched and guarded, always ob-
truding a portcullis and a ditch, a battery or a maga-
zine, into all the occupations and pleasures of life. A
city is no longer built for peace, but for war ; every-
thing reminds the inhabitants of capture and siege.
Men might as well walk about armed to the teeth, as
pass their lives in a fever of preparation to resist a
storming party or defend a breach. In a rude state of
society security for the parson and the dwelling is the
primary want of mankind ; and, accordingly, war was
every man's business ; every house was a fortalice,
and defence the first of necessities. But, if civiliza-
tion has done anything to improve the world, it is
by removing, as far as possible, from man's
thoughts the cares of physical defence. Those ho-
nourable duties are much better performed by z.
class of men trained and set apart for that service ;
and the rest of the community cheerfully supports the
charge by which it is exempted from a far heavier bur-
den. Nobody doubts that the port of London is to be
protected, not by batteries in the Isle of Dogs, or a
permanent militia on the coast of Kent ; but by a stout
fleet in the Channel. To fortify a capital like Paris is,
on the contrary, to bring home to every man, in some
direct form or other, the apprehension of attack, the
care of defence, the burden of military service, and
the vexatious necessities of military discipline. M.
Thiers rests the whole expediency of the mea-
sure on the authority of Vauban and Napoleon. On
a military matter lie could not find a better, nor one
more questionable in a matter which threatens to
sacrifice the pacific internal prosperity of a country
to its warlike propensities. But even if Vauban did
propose to Louis XIV. to fortify his capital, then about
one-fourth of its present size, and exposed to the
chances of the wars of the 17th century, does that
prove that Vauban would recommend Louis Philippe
to circumvallate a city grown to a fourfold bulk, in an
age when the arts both of peace and war have under-
gone the most complete alteration ? The circumstances
of the case are so entirely changed, both as regards the
city and the enemy, that Vauban's opinion cannot fairly
be applied to the modern case. Napoleon bad thought
of fortifying Paris in 1806 ; he was not in the habit of
postponing projects which he judged to be of import-
ance to the greatness and security of France, yet this
scheme was thrown aside ; and when he recurred to it
in his memoirs, he did so under the direct impression of
those extraordinary events which had attended his own ,I
fall. Would the fortifications of Paris have saved Na-
poleon
in 1814 ? They might have enabled him to
prolong the campaign, which was devastating France ;
but a capital like Paris is always too formidable
to be attacked until the whole force of the em-
pire is irretrievably broken. The case of 1792,
which is put by M. Thiers himself, is conclu-
sive on the subject. Dumouriez's army, on the
northern frontier, was turned by the Prussians.
Dumouriez knew that the Prussians would not
dare to march upon Paris until they had beaten
him. Paris took the alarm, and orders were sent to
Dumouriez to quit his position, for the purpose of cover-
ing the capital. He disobeyed the order, which would
have compromised his army, from a conviction that
Paris had nothing to fear, as the sequel proved. To
make Paris the citadel of France, is to make it the
point to which all the military operations of her own
armies would converge, and all those of her enemies be
directed : and the population of the metropolis would
be continually agitated by all the chances of the cam-
paign, aimed directly at their own homes and hearths.
The duties of a garrison, requiring a force of
70,000 men. are, we are told, to be performed by the
National Guard ; but will the National Guard suf-
fice to defend the whole line of forts, extending over
twenty leagues of the adjacent country ? Those out-
works, and the extensive zone they would include,
must require a vast army to keep up the communica-
tions between them, to protect the supplies and the
fugitives collected there, and to resist a combined at-
tack on opposite points of this enormous circle. On
the suggestion that these outworks may eventually prove
destructive not only to Paris, but to the liberties of
France, M. Thiers declares that no Government would
venture to contend for power over the nation by bom-
barding the capital. Possibly not ; but the uses of
strong walls and towers are not confined to bom-
bardment. They may command the supplies of the
city ; they may shelter the forces repulsed by the
populace ; and, as M. Thiers himself set the
example of declaring the capititl en dal de siege,
another Minister may have the means of giving
its full literal signification to that expression. These
projects are indeed too wild to be made the subject of
argument amongst ourselves, and, as it would appear,
too peremptorily adopted by the French people to be
made the subject of remonstrance amongst them. As
in the case of the French occupation of Africa, it is la-
mentable to see how few of the best statesmen of
France have moral power or courage enough to abjure
and confute the visionary and pernicious projects which
they reprobate in their hearts. It seems to be admitted
by each succeeding Government, that the people must
have its plaything and its prey. African campaigns
and Parisian bastions are tolerated, not for themselves,
but because they stand in lieu of something worse ; and
the world is worried, that Paris may be entertained.
(From the Globe.) ,
A little while ago we offered some remarks in expla-
nation of the cause of the Post-office Revenue not cor-
responding in amount with the increase of letters, which
is to be attributed to the fact that the letters charged
double for non-payment in advance have been reduced
from 20 to 5 per cent. ; and to the fact that the railway
conveyance of the mails, which had been resorted to
before the penny postage came into operation, had occa-
sioned a great increase of expenditure, having no relation
to that excellent measure. During the same period,othcr
changes of great public utility have been adopted in our
Post-office arrangements, which, so far as they occasion
an increase of expense, diminish the net produce of the
revenue derivable from this source. There are two
which we are desirous to record, as well to show that
the energy which has been of late years directed to the
administration of Post-office matters is still in action, as
to account for these seeming causes of backwardness
in the Post-office revenue, which it pleases sundry
carpets at the penny postage measure to refer to
it. The two to which we allude arc the " Money
orders," and the " Registration of letters." The
former have not long been in operation, but they
have increased to an extent of which few people are
aware. In shcrt the Post-office promises to be a great
banking establishment ; to be the medium of communi-
cation for small payments from end to end of the king-
dom. 'I he necessity of growing up to the demand for
this accommodation prevented the arrangements from
being too suddenly extended. Of late, however, the
places where the money orders may be obtained and paid
nave been inereased in number ; and they are at all
times paid through bankers. This part of the Post-
office arrangements is far from being in a state of
completeness ; but it is to be remembered, that in so
busy an establishment, with daily demands on its exer-
tions fully equal to its force, and admitting of no de-
lay, the greatest caution must be observed, to prevent
the slightest irregularity and disorder. Hence improve-
ments can rarely be introduced on a sudden, and in all
their completion, and the effect of one must be ascer-
tained before another is attempted. The " Registra-
tion of letters" is the other important improvement.
The rate, one shilling, is high ; but we believe it is at-
tributable to the fear of embarking too hastily in a
new branch of service, and that a reduction may be ex-
pected when the success of the experiment shall be fully
tried. In saying that the rate is high, we by no
means would be supposed to advocate the allowance
of the accommodation but upon terms that should in-
demnify the public against the charge thereby incurred.
It has been too much the fashion in modern times to
abolish fees, where they are fairly exigible for peculiar
1 and much valued service. In consequence, the charge
in such cases has been thrown on the general revenue,
which, from being exposed to burdens of this kind, as
well as those which properly belong to it, have rendered
it necessary to reject undertakings of admitted public
utility. We believe that it will be found, should the
matter be referred to in Parliament, that the progress
of the Post-office measure is fully equal to fair expecta-
tions ; and that there is the best reason to believe that
it will eventually, and that at no extreme period, realise
the anticipations of its projectors.
(From the Standard.)

We have in England a sedition somewhat analogous
to the Repeal sedition, though contemplating objects
far less dangerous to the community than those of the
Repealers, and actuating men, how much socver now
mistaken, much more mild and rational than the mass
of the Romanist Irish. Let us, then, for a moment,
suppose Chartism in England occupying the same po-
sition occupied by repeal in Ireland. Let us imagine
Chartism so generally adopted by the mass of the po-
pulation, that no meeting not strictly Conservative, for
whatever purpose called, should be held together an hour
without declaring itself a Chartist meeting. Let us figure
to ourselves the Chartists already numbering a sixth of
the representatives of Great Britain, or about 9 Mem-
bers, some Peers, and a great m;:jority of the clergy,
Established and lllssenting, as belonging to their
body, with a great many persvns in all other
ranks ; finally, let us picture this body as organised
having wardens and collectors in every parish in the
island, bolding a parliament with weekly sittings, levying
a considerable tax, and commanding all the non-Conser-
vative Press. There is something which we cannot so
easily suppose, even for illustration ; but it must be
added to complete the analogy. Let the whole Chartist
machinery be conceived to be moved by the worst
man living, the bitterest enemy of the British Crown
and empire—he, acting by command of a foreign con-
spiracy, at war with civil and religious liberty in every
part of the world. would Chartism in such a posi•
tion be " powerless and hurtless ?" Let Englishmen
judge from what they know of Chartism even in its
actual puny condition. But what we have represented
Chartism in our hypothetical sketch, is the severe truth
of repeal. It is already strong enough to endanger the