The Sun.
London, England, 1870-12-13 00:00:00

frisll_; SUN, I,ON DON, TUESDAY, DECEMBER 13, 1g70._

handily instead of the shake of at pouncet,hox—a
characteristic romiyk, that, having been dropped
within heating of young BONAPAILT E, led, oventwdly. ,
to JrNOT'S advancement to the- • Dtikedoro .
A twante, and, for a while, even to the Viceroyalt:,
4-4 Portugal. Similar shifts and Bituilar coolues!-
have been of not unfrequent occurrence during the
last few months at the seat of war among those
who arc there, simply as civilian on-lookers, in
the midst of the extraordinary and destructive battles
fought out, principally by cannon, as 7.7e1l ashy smaller
arms of precision and of enormous range—sometimes
without the crossing of the swords and bayonets
of the belligerents, in the winning and losing of a
great historical battlefield. Anyone obtaining per-
mission to *accompany one or other of the
armies for the purpose of witisessing the pro-
gress of the campaign would obviously—and
by necessity did—run repeatedly imminent danger
of coming to grief while Death was reaping his
harvest right and left of them, sweepingly,
pitilessly, and undiscriminatingly. Professional en-
gagements have already carried, still to this present
moment are carrying, these same resolute, and en-
terprising newspaper correspondents, throng* the
manifest perils by which they are, in the sitnpie
exercise of Their jourrotlistic duties, confronted. Be-
sides the newspaper correspondents, -how-
ever, them are others, wholly private, indi-
viduals, who have run, who are still running, pre-
cisely the mime hazard for the purpose of adven-
turously beholding with Their own eyes the
fluctuations of the great war of 1870, here and there,
in various parts of France. Fortunately among
these there has been numbered a keen-eyed young
civilian as observant as the Hon. C. ALLANSON

Wart, who has dared more than the ordinary run
of the war correspondents of the newspapers, perhaps
by reason of the very fact that all the while he has
been hampered or restrained by no sense of respon-
sibility. Free to follow his own impulses, and
careless consequently of keeping within the reach of

the readiest channels of communication, Mr.
ALJ.ANSON WINN has been enabled, before the war
chews any sign of slackening its fury, to recount,
in the form of a goodly volume of 360 pages, what
he saw of it himself at the battles of
Speichern, Gorze, and Gravelotte, his narra-,
tive being a record * of two months' cam-
paigning with, the Prussian army of the Moselle.
Repeatedly during the course of this narrative tile
descriptions were so vivid in their colouring that the
pen in the hand of the enterprising young author
seems almost to have given place to a luminous and
and clnomatie pencil. The reader turning the
leaves, is there with him orr the foughten fields, now
of Speichern, now of Gravelotte. The hecatomb of
victims is there all but -visibly before him,
piled up in appalling mounds by the
'growling roar (as of wild beasts ravening for their
prey) poured out by the Gatling-gun .and the

Afiirailleuse. Chaotic though the whole war seems
to have been from first to last, bewildering in the
confusion of its incidents, astounding almost beyond
the, powers of accurate calculation through its de-
structiveness, it yet would appear already that the
future historian .of the great campaign of 1870 will
love a far more reliable and. a far more abundant
supply of facts, of details, of statistics, and of
authentic. anecdotes than has ever Web, furnished le
regard to a gin le orunpeiga for thfe advantage of any

previous annalist. Whoever the future historian of
the Franco-German war may lx), ho will certainly
be under, immense obligations to men► like the

ALLANSON WINN and the run of the news-
paper, principally, oE course, the English newspaper,
war correspondents.

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

, .
thvy toek, the Ft,eoch fought ;with great valonc.
Their courage c 1414. ,not seem to have dosertqd thorn
titter those se m defeats.
0

• YREN-qil QA PTIVE OFFICERS

1;. ,-ac days.rtst the'lltilepentlance .14elljo has beeii
protests'ifgains. t intrigues. by Imperialist
agents in view of an ultimate restoration. These
protests are from French -officers, prisoners of the
war, and are very numerous, some being 'signed
singly, others collectively. The last. one published
la signed by three generals and upwards 0t.130 other
officers, principally captains and lieutenants. It

iactory. Some of them have
„;reallfdiatiliguishel
,themselves in cases of enivvency: In ono:case a
C:iichester boy served temporarily its mate on the
death of the captain at se A:; in an6thot a! boy was
eLtrusted with the
.belm ale, when the ship
was despaired . of. The extra learning Of the insti-
tution serves them in good stead in these sulden
emergencies, and some of them earn double wages
by acting as ship's carpenters. In the five kindred
institutions of the Refuge between 500 and GOO
destitute boys and girls are educated, fed, clothed,
and trained to earn their own living. •