The Sun.
London, England, 1870-12-24 00:00:00

BTh.

TILE INSI-I:RECTION IN PARIS.

Commenting on the late insurrection in Paris, the
special,corresl9ndent of the Stftadard, in a letter
,dated
December 19, remarks:—Paris continues to be c din, reso-
lute, and confident. Provisions will hold out for a consi- •
derable time. The army and population are full of
ardour. This is most excellent news, and I hope that
the details will prove that it is true. Some of the •
journals aFfinnie that this is a complete contra:
diction to the reoin-t-, current during the last day
or two of a fresh t•!,, ,L at insurrection. Such is, by
no means, my idea. haste which Government has
made to lay this dispale before the public contrasts very
strongly with their reticence in concealing altogether the
news brought by the last two balloons, and is conclusive,
to my mind, that the rmuour of the insurrection was well
founded, and that the Goveimment were extremely uneasy
and anxious as to the attempts at revolt, I have no doubt
whatever. I am also told, upon what I believe to be autho-
ri the plan of the revolutionists was to wait for the next
great sortie, and then, when time whole of the troops and
Mobiles were fighting, to seize the gates, to man the
walls, to refuse to allow troops to re-enter, and to treat
with the• Germans for -the capitulation of the town. This
last item of news I disbelieve altogether. If the Reds
were thus treacherously to deliver up Paris to the Prus-
. slams, they would excite such a cry of execration•through-
out the country as to render any hope of their party
coming into power for another century altogether im-
possible. But that they intended to seize the gates,
to expel the Government, and appoint one of their own
ealour, I believe. Fortunately, the plot was discovered
in time. The intended sortie was postponed, and the
leader was arrested, not, it is said, without street fighting.
If this is the correct account of the affair, and if, as
Was asserted, Paris was calm and confident upon
the 17th, it is probable .that the Reds are completely
cowed, and that things will now go on calmly again for
another three weeks or a month.

THE RE'T'REAT OF GENERAL CHANZY.
;;.om Bordeaux, iinder date December 10, the special
correspondent of the Standard thus' comments on General
Chanzy's retreat :—We learn today that Chanzy, upon
the day succeeding the battle of the 15th, again fell back
with all his forces towards St. Calais and Le Mans, eva-
cuating Vendome: This, no doubt, will be claimed as a
victory by the Germans, but these victories cost terribly
dear, and the resistance will become more obstinate asChanzy
receives reinforcements, and opproaches nearer to Le
Mans, which is his real base of operation. Every foot
which the enemy advances in this direction carries them
farther away from the army of Bourbaki, and opens more
completely the road for the advance of that general.
Chanzy will, I have no doubt, continue his retreat until
he is in the neighbourhood of Le Mans, and there, joined
by the Bretons from Conlie, he will Make a determined
stand. He gains strength by falling back, while the
Germans lose it in advancing. The obstinate battles
which are fought every day must tell tremendously upon
the strength of their armies ; and, assuming
that they were 150,000 before the commencement of
the fighting in front of Orleans, they cannot have more
than 120,000 now in line of battle, that is to say, unless
they have been reinforced by some• of the newly-arrived
Landwehr. I have no fear for the safety of Chanzy's
army. Its reinforcements are now so close-to it that even
if it experiences a slight disaster, its losses could be
far more than filled up in forty-eight hours.
The same mysterious silence prevails as to Bourbaki
and Gambetta. We have no doubt that they
are busy, and they are certainly not disquieted in
their work of organisation by the enemy. A sharp
controversy is raging between the Opposition and the
Government papers respecting M. Gambetta. The
Gazette de /a France says that it is quite time that the
advocates have given up meddling in matters about
which it is too evident they know nothing, and
that M. Gambetta ought at once to return to
the seat of Government, and allow the generals to
carry out their plans without interference. This
the Gironde considers to be little short of treason ;
and it maintains that the. Gazette in thus attacking the
" commander-in-Chief " of the French armies is doing the
work of the Prussians. All .sensible persons, however,
are of opinion that the Gazette is perfectly right.
M. Gambetta has played the part of commander.'
in-chief too long. His dipositions before the battles
of Orleans were fatally weak; it is evident that he is no
heaven-born soldier, and that, though a third-rate advo-
. cate may make a tolerably good Minister of the In:;erdor,
or even Minister of War, as long as ho attends to his
proper functions, his assumption of the duties and
functions of commander-hi-chief is at once ridiculous and
disastrous.

THE IRISH PRESS ON THE TEN lAN
AMNESTY.
(CENTRAL PRESS TELEGRAM.)
The Iriskman says -It is ;the substitution of one form
of punishment for another, scarcely less severe, It is im-
possible for any English Minister to abandon the tradi-
tional English policy towards Ireland. " Liberal " Minis-
ter Gladstone is as complete a sham to its prompting as
the bitterest Tory of them all. Gladstone himself
makes out a perfectly unanswerable case for
their unconditional release, so that the Government
might set them•free, and the people of England could not
be very much frightened. But he only banishes them,
and it is therefore plain that "Ireland is not prosperous,"
and that the powers of " disaffection and revolution" aro
anything but weakened. The honour of the English
Prime Minister is not merely, unfulfilled, it is de-
liberately broken. The voice of the Irish nation
is not only disregarded, it is insulted, and
repudiated. The faithlessness of the English Minister
will be the only monument in the memory of the people
to warn them from putting their trust in the politicians
of England. The go forth from their prisoi,s mission-
aries of other countries' cause, tend Ireland will pray for
the day when her. confessors may return.
The Nation hails the announcement of the release of the
political prisoners as good news, but complains that the
stipulation as to banishment spoils the effect of the act,
which it refuses to call an "amnesty," but rather charac-
terises it as " a haltiLg, half-hearted act." The Nation
continues : We quite fail to see any approach to wisdom
in the limitations with which Mr. Gladstone has encum-
bered his order of release. Had the men been left free to
reside in their native land they certainly would not show
themselves insensible to the fact that their libera-
tion is complete, and that • Government which
had acted generously by them was willing to rely
on their sense of gratitude as a sufficient guarantee for
their future peaceable behaviour; but the steps on whiCh
the Government have resolved place no such obligation on
the minds of the released men. When we take into con-
sideration the fact that in America, the• country to which
most of the released prisoners will probably take their
way, there exists a powerful organisation of armed Irish-
men pledged to the work of overthrowing British rule in
Ireland, we cannot help thinking the more kindly and
trustful course would have been the wiser one.

The Weekly News takes a similar view. The uncondi-
tional pardon of the prisoners would have been a graceful
and also a safe act. The limited concession granted will
not be as potent as a more generous measure in weakening,
to use Mr. Gladstone's own phrase, " the power of disaf-
fection and revolution."
The Flag of Ireland says : An amnesty was promised,
but banishment is given. This is unjust and unfair. The
released prisoners will go forth from their native land,
but they shall return again. They go forth like Kossuth
and the Hungarian exiles, but, like them, they shall come

back once more to be welcomed by the land that gave
them birth. They shall be welcomed back triumphant to
the council halls d their country, where they shall sit,

the representatives of a nation the equal of England, and
the peer of any country under heaven.

THE WEATHER.

The frost continues severe, and all the sheets of water
in the parks are now covered with ice, which will be
strong enough to bear by Christmas-day if a change in
the weather does not in the meantime set in. The

arrangements of the Royal Humane Society for the rescue
of persons falling into the water have been completed
under the direction of Mr. Lambton Young and Mr.
Williams, and the icemen have taken up their posts in the
parks, with their tents and life-saving apparatus: On
Thursday night the mercury fell as low as 18 deg.
During the greater part of yesterday it remainsd at 22 deg.
and it fell 2 deg. lower last night. The lakes in Batter-
sea Park, which are sheltered by banks, are now covered
witli ice nearly an inch and a half thick, and, as the
depth in no part exceeds 2 feet or 3 feet, skating can now
be enjoyed on them with little, danger. The Skating
Blub are about to erect their tent there.

•
CRYSTAL PALACE. One Shilling Day, Fri-
day, December 23rd, 1810.—Admissions by season ticicts
2,154 ; ditto on payment, 1,391; total visitors, 3,545.
The Independance Beige publishes a letter from a French
Staff Colonel made prisoner at Metz. He is a nobleman,
and formerly occupied a high position at the Tuileries.
He condemns Bazaine in the strongest terms, and his
description of the Marshal's treachery goes far beyond
Gambetta's:

OUR CO :-.TAYIPORARIES---This Taming

CHRISTMAS 1870.

The Tiiries;i an ai tide on the itsTieg—Of -affair's at home
and abroad, 'says : The sort of Christ Mas oar unfortunate
neighbours, the French, are.havines in their devoted city
we have to imagine. Their streets and shops are dark
from twilight to twilight, more than half the twenty-four
hours. Festivity, amusement, and that sociality • which
peculiar production and very pride of France,
h• .11 given given place to the stern business of self-
preservation, the first and rudest. law of nature. Hasd-
ship and self-denial need the relief of hope and the initi7 •
gation of transient success. The entire heart of France
is wasted, pillaged, blackened with fire, sodden' with
slaughter, and hideo is with sad or evil memories. All
this, and the immense mass of domestic miseries which
can never be told, we may imagine in some rough outside
fashion. Let us strain our imaginations a little more; and
suppose our own country in the hands of such a • foe, so
strong, so multitudinous, so able, SO trained to the business
of war, so resolved to be content with no less than its
dues by the laws of war, on its own appreciation. What
•if this Christmas had brought before us the certainty of
such a • disaster ? The customary congratulations of the
season would have been a mockery and an insult with so
dire a reality in prospect. Who can be merry, or even
cheerful, on the eve of massacre, bombardment, conflagra-
tion, ruin, disgrace, or famine, and the pests that go with
famine ? It is doubtful whether France will emerge
from her flood of misery the France she was before ; and
it is not less doubtful whether England would
emerge from a similar trial the England of • history,
of present attainment, and just aspirations. We,
too, have home divisions ; we have an Empire
held together by the • magic •of a name, with no
very material bond ; we have a social development
now in active progress, leading to results we know not of,
but easily thwarted or warped to results we should little
desire. Every institutien in this country is on its trial,
and trials are as often decided by rude necessity or blind
chance as by wisdom or• justice. A prolonged military
occupation, even if it fell far short of a conquest, would
precipitate, if not quite foreclose, some of our social
controversies. But, putting the future, far or near, out
of account,we ask again, how should we meet this Christ-
mas with the horrid certainty of an enemy at our gates this
next year,an enemy who had got over the great difficulty—
broken our outer line of waves, rocks, and shoals, and
established himself on our hitherto inviolable soil? All
the soldiers we have under arms in these isles would not
be sufficient to arrest one of. the armies we now see in'
the field for more than a day or two, and might only
maiph to repeat the tragedy of Sedan.
Never, says the Standard, in our Christian annals has the
anniversary of peace and goodwill become so great and
scandalous a mockery. All that should accompany the
time is wanting. Every festive rite is a sarcasm—every
joyous invocation an irony. The compliments of the
season are fire, slaughter, and famine. The lord of
the feast is Death, and over all the scene is one
great splash of blood. Wt keep our merry Christmas
with half the Continent wrapt in war, and the
other half full of suspicion, jealousy, and fear. Barely
secure in our own island, we cannot listen to the sound of
the cannon from the battle-fields of France without the
gloomiest forebodings. The peace we have we must
know to be dearly purchased and held by the slenderest
of tenures. The goodwill we celebrate we look
for in vain among the nations. Everywhere is
war or preparation for war. The groans of a
hundred thousand wounded and dying men, some lying
stark and cold in the Christmas snow—the roar of
the cannon and the shriek of the mitrailleuse, these are
the chorus whose voices mingle with the " merry, merry
bells of Yule," which make hideous the festive apparatus
and spoil the sentiment of the blessed Christian festival.
It is a season when we may with profit look back upon
the events of the past twelve months, and ask ourselves
what share we have had in the horrid business which
jars with the spirit of the great anniversary. Have
we been blameless in the matter of this quarrel
between France and Germany ? Have we earned the
blessing which is due to the peacemakers? Have we done
our best either to prevent the war, or to stop it when it
had reached its just and rational conclusion? How have
we interpreted tha duty to our neighbour in which a
thousand tongues will be eloquent to-morrow? Was this
the only issue which we might have promoted? Does our
religion begin and end with seeking our own peace?
Having the power, have we used it for the best to ensure
goodwill upon earth ? Are we not responsible for our
brother's blood, even though he would not follow our
counsel, and fell into the danger of his own choice? We
shall find it hard to answer these questions to our entire
satisfaction.

Commenting on the return of an " old-fashioned
Christmas," the Daily News says :—There are several rea-
sons why wintry weather is seasonable at Christmas.
An old-fashioned Christmas means something more than
merely a wintry season. Christmas charity is as old
as the Christmas snows, and the two together
make Christmas seasonable. Christmas is the sea-
son of general festivity, when even Dives can
hardly leave Lazarus at his gate, and Old Scrooge
himself has dreams of the blessedness of giving, and
sends Bob Cratchit a Christmas turkey and another
scuttle of coals. It is the great humanising season of the
year, if it has any meaning at all. It is just the time
when we may forget our political economy, our theories of
pauperism, and our speculations on the mischief of indis-
criminate almsgiving, and 'give way t 1 the charitable
impulse. It would be a disgrace to 003: civilisation, a
blot on our religion, if anybody starved in London
in Christmas week. There is not much fear of such
an event, but it must at least be remembered that it is not
the noisy beggars who shout in the streets, or the impor-
tunate poor who come knocking at the doors in all the
semblance of shivering need, who most require our help
or most suffer from the cold. The real suffering
is borne in out-of-the-way corners, where it creeps
from observation to bear its burden alone. The
poor who most need help are those who cannot seek
it ; who are ashamed to beg, and to whom
charity must go with its blessing in its hand. We corn
mend to the public at this season the charities which thus
go to the homes of the poor. Not even at Christmas
would we recommend almsgiving in the streets ; but the
charities which give the poor their Christmas dinners,which
lend blankets and sell clothing at a reduced price, the
charities which are personally administered by self-
denying people, who go among the poor and see them in
their homes, are worthy of all the countenance the public
give them. This is the true form of Christmas charity,
and we hope that this old-fashioned Christmas will see
much of it. The winter weather, which is so glorious to
the, prosperous, is a call to help the poor, to whom it
comes as a perpetual trial. While the winter weather
lasts, the needy poor must be at least warmed and
filled. We may wait till the frost is gone before
we criticise our charitable doings—at this Christmas sea-
son let us only remember that there are those who are in
need, and while, in our warm homes, we are sheltered
from the frost, and can go forth warm and healthful to
enjoy the cold, send something of our superfluous good to
make some suffering neighbours enjoy it too.
How placidly and uneventfully, remarks. the Telegraph,
these twelve months opened ! There was a profound calm
over the western world, with exceptions which were
but like ripples on the sea of history. Which man of
all the tens of thousands slain in battle since
the summer " heard in the wild march morning
the angels call his soul "? Who felt the storm
approaching? The homes of Germany were busy
and quiet ; the homes of France were not darkened
by any shadow of the coming tempest of death and ruin ;
there was, in truth, only last Christmas, a calm that made
Peace bold, a sunshine of " goodwill" between the popu-
lations which flattered the hopes of all good men. It
was with our continent, then, as Milton has written of the
Eve of the Nativity—" No war or battle's sound was
heard the world around. The trumpet spake
not to the armed throng ;" and, in regard even
to the policy of rulers, we could have said
with apparent reason that " Kings sate sill
with awful eye, as if they surely knew their Sovran Lord
was by." All this was, however, but the hush which pre-
cedes the Typhoon, when a silence too deep to be natural
pervades land and sea, as if creation foresaw the coming
fury of the elements, and held its breath in fear. The
direst conflict* which modern times have known
was at that hour really preparing to burst forth,
and to deluge Europe with blood, while we were
lulled in halcyon days, saying smooth things
to each other. Who caused this dreadful war--
upon what head or beads its measureless guilt must rest,
when the final penalty and doom of judgment will des-
cend, and what result may come from the terrible contest
—we do not now examine. The one sad fact that at the
present Christmastide two Christian countries are locked in
a death-grapple, seeking, not "peace," not " goodwill," but
thedeath, the ruin, the utter and final heart-breaking, -.nd
humiliation each f the other—this is the miserable sight
which seems to turn the anthem of the t` multitude of ti he
heavenly host " into discord, and to make the errand of
those celestial envoys "like a tale of little meanilg,
though the words are strong." "Sides," "opinions,"
" partialities," "justifications "—these terms, full of I .ie
wild infection of human. passion, are merged and
lost in the horrible thought that, eighteen hundred and
seventy years after " the glory of the Lord shone round
about," the ghastly roar of cannon and mitrailleuse, the
hideous treble of wounded men screaming and furious
coil batants yelling, should make, with bugle and cla-
rion, and " hoarse, 'dull drum," the Christmas carol of
the world,