The Sun.
London, England, 1870-11-29 00:00:00

OUR COTE

THE FOOD PROSPECTS OF PARIS.
The Temps of the 24th, which has succeeded in making
its way out of Paris, contains a remarkable article on the
state of the besieged capital. When the Government
began to prepare earnestly for a siege it was calculated
that 200 grammes of meat would be required for 2,000,000
inhabitants. It was, therefore, ordered that 300,000 oxen,
225,000 sheep, 30,000 cows, and 110,000 pigs should be pro-
vided for the city. In reality, however, on the 12th of Sep-
tember, when the siege really began, there were wanting
of the number required 6,000 oxen, 75,000 sheep,
more than half the cows, and almost all the pigs. Flour
and corn were, however, in abundance. The Temps had
said that towards the 20th or 22nd of this month no more
beef or mutton could be distributed. There will still be
some to be had for a few days, because a portion of the
consumers have decided on eating only horseflesh, and
because the beasts which have been reserved to be last
slaughtered, being the best in health, will furnish more
flesh. " But," says the Temps, "on some days we will
have only horseflesh, and it is quite useless to make
people believe that which really does not exist." " The
assertion is also wrong," adds the Paris journal, " which
is continually repeated, that we have salt meat for
several weeks ; what we have will be exhausted in loss
time. Less meat has been salted than might have
been wished, and it has been necessary to reserve all that
has been prepared for the support of the troops on duty.
This necessity is the cause of the so rapid disappearance
of pigs." The Temps seems to doubt the assertion
of a contemporary that there is cod and other pre-
served fish for ten or twelve days ; it says also that it
is an exaggeration to say that there is chocolate,
rice, and oil for five months. The chocolate, according to
the Commision of Subsistence, would, if divided, give
each citizen 750 grammes ; there is much rice still, but
not enough for five months ; oil begins to be scarce.
Sugar and coffee will not be wanting, nor wine, which,
however, will not last for a year, as some affirm. Bread
will certainly last at least far into January; rice, sugar,
coffee, wine, and bread will permit the citizens to proloni
the siege, if necessary, with health and strength.
As to horseflesh, at the lowest account, without
disorganising the important military services, Paris can
supply itself with this article of food almost as long as
with bread. "So that," says the article, summing
up, "for a month from this our diet will not assume any
over-great modifications, and for two months we are
sure of being all conveniently supplied." The
writer in the Temps asserts positively the correct-
ness of his figures, which he has got as member
of the Society of Political Economy from M.
Andre Cohert, a member of the Central Commission
of Subsistence, instituted in connection with the
Government, and, as a member of the Consultative Com-
mission for the Establishment of Municipal Provisioning,
instituted near the Hotel de Ville, from M. Clamergan,
its President, also a member of the Commission of Sub-
sistence. The association over which M. Clamergan pre-
sides has, the Temps explains, for its object to organise the
supply of food, for the most part gratuitously, to the
500,000 or 600,000 persons who will, should the siege last,
be left without means.
who

CABINET COUNCIL.—A Cabinet Council was held
yesterday at Downing-street. The Ministers present were
the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, the Lord Chancellor,
Earl de Grey and Ripon, Viscount Halifax, the Right
Hon. H. A. Bruce, Earl Glanville, the Earl of Kim-
berley, the Right Hon. E. Cardwell, the Duke of Argyll,
the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Right
Hon. Hugh Childers, the Right Hon. G. J.
Goschen, the Marquis of Hartington, and the
the Right Hon. W. E. Forster. Earl Granville, after the
Council, left town to visit her Majesty at Windsor.
Yesterday summonses were issued for another meeting
of the Cabinet Ministers to-morrow (Wednesday) after-
noon, at the First Lord of the Treasury's official residence
in Downing-street.

THE EASTERN QUESTION.
The Times says : The telegraphic despatch from our
special correspondent at Versailles which appeared in
our later issue of yesterday gives us some assurance of
a peaceful solution of the Russian difficulty, but we are
glad to know that the reply proposed by the Cabinet
to Prince Gortschakoff's second note is as firm
and decided as if the promise of peace had not
been vouchsafed us. It will not be supposed that there is
any desire for war on the part of our Ministry. The cha-
racter of Mr. Gladstone and his colleagues is the best
guarntee that war will not be invoked unless it is plainly
inevitable. They are one and all emphatic men of
peace, and the Emperor and his advisors may
perhaps have thought that they were ready to sacrifice
everything for peace. If this was the opinion held at St.
Petersburg, it must by this time be dispelled. Even now,
when the disposition of Prussia has been made plain,
and her friendly offices are energetically employed in
bringing about a Conference with a view to the settle-
ment of the question at issue, our Ministers have declined
to be diverted from the path before them by hopes that
may prove fallacious. Their plain duty on the receipt
of Prince Gortschakoff's second despatch adhering to
the claim of his first, was to re-affirm in more decided
language the protest, that England could lend no
countenance to such an assumption. This, we believe,
has been done. Lord Granville's reply will, we under-
stand, be found so plain and direct, that its meaning can-
not be misunderstood, and it is very clearly intimated to
Russia that, though verbal claims may be met by verbal
protests, acts done in pursuance of such claims, acts violat-
ing the stipulations of the Treaty of 1856, must be met
by acts of repression. The attitude of Great Britain in
defence of the settlement of 1856 being thus sharply defined
we can afford to entertain, and even welcome, the sugges
tion of a Gonference. Our object is peace. The intense
indignation that has been provoked by the Russian
Note is due to the feeling that it is in itself a deadly
blow to the spirit of peace, inasmuch as it strikes
at the root of international confidence. Europe
was described some four years ago by Mr. Disraeli as an
armed camp, so great was the multitude of troops which
the jealousy of the Continental Powers had marshalled
one against the other ; but, if actual engagements are
worth nothing, every nation must be armed to the
teeth, and the ships of war of naval Powers multiplied
till they sweep all the seas. We shall do our best, in the
interests of peace, to support the pacific action of Count
Bismarck, while we cannot withdraw one hair's-breadth
from the position we have taken in repudiation of the
principles of Prince Gortschakoff's circular.
The Daily News observes that neither Prince Gorts-
chakoff's second circular, nor Earl G ranville's reply to it,
is before the public as yet. The Foreign Secretary went
to Windsor last night with his answer in his hand,
and it will probably be by this time on its way to
St. Petersburg. Earl Granville, of course, in
no way lowers the tone of England's determi-
nation, nor relaxes in any sense our stern un-
bending faithfulness to onerous obligations. It is evident
that it is this tone which has taken Russia by surprise.
That England will never fight is the fatal delusion
of foreigners. They come to us, and see a
civil life in which the military element hardly
seems to enter. They see us busy and pros-
perous in all the arts and all the conquests of peace.
They hear among us on all sides a hearty horror of
war, and a fervent wish for universal peace, and they
take all these things for signs that the old warlike
energy has died out of the nation. They go home andk
say England will never fight, and repeat the de-
lusion till they believe that they have it on the
actual authority of Englishmen. When Prince Gortscha-
kofrs note was read in the Emperor's Council,
it needs no great stretch of imagination to be-
lieve that when it was asked how England would take
it, the confident answer was that England would not care.
It has gone like a revelation to St. Petersburg that Eng-
land does care ; and it will go back again now that
England cares still, and will care to the end. What Eng-
land cares for, however, is not the Black Sea, and
not even the Bosphorus ; it is her own
plighted honour and the faith of a nation's
word. Austria and Turkey have a right to
reckon on us in forcing Russia to keep the bargain she
made with them and us, and Austria and Turkey will
find that we are faithful to our obligation, and that
they will not count on us in vain. If Russia means to
fight, she may, and we shall fight her ; if, on the contrary,
and as we hope, she has no such intention, she will
find in us a most hearty, ready, gratified response
to her peaceful wishes. The matter rests with Russia.
Lord Granville can only in this despatch throw back the
responsibility on her. We must pick up the gage of battle:l,,
if she throws it down ; but we earnestly hope she
will not throw it. Already she falters in her pur-
pose ; already, therefore, war's rumours begin to die
away.
The Telegraph says : Our predictions of a Conference
is in a fair way of being fulfilled. Prussia has, we believe,
succeeded in convincing our Government that she does
not in any degree share the responsibility of Prince
Gortchakoff's Circular, and has no desire to
identify herself with the policy which it pro-
pounds. But, on the other hand, it must be
remembered that Prussia is not bound, as France,
Great Britain, and Austria are bound, to reeent
the threat of Russia to violate the neutralisation of the .
Black Sea. A fortnight after the Treaty proper was
signed, England, Austria, and France entered into a
separate engagement to guarantee the integrity and inde-
pendence of the Turkish Empire, and those Powers under-
took to resist by force of arms any violation of the Treaty
of Paris. The consequence of this separate engagement
is, that the three signataries to it stand bound to each
other to make any formal and deliberate violation of the
neutrality of the Black Sea a carts belli against the
Powers which so offends. Prussia and Italy stand in a
different position. They are bound generally, in common
with the other signataries, to respect the territorial in-
tegrity of Turkey ; but they are not pledged to punish
the aggressor. This difference of obligations entitles
Prussia and Italy to take a view of their duty different
from that held by Austria and England on the present
occasion. The Governments of the two latter countries
are under a compact to treat the entrance of a Russian
navy into the Black Sea as a cases belli against the
Russian Government. They have no option in the
matter. Whenever the Sultan calls upon them to redeem
their pledge, they are bound to expel the intruder.
They have no more right to shirk their engagement than
Russia has to violate hers. It is, therefore all the more
honourable to Italy and Prussia, which are not bound as
we are, that they have separated themselves from the
policy of St. Petersburg. Italy has refused her sanction
to the claim so arrogantly made by Prince Gortscha-
koff, and Prussia suggests a Conference, probably to .
meet in London, for the setliement of the question. To.
the principle of such a refegnce, however, our Govern.
ment can have no manner of objection. We believe, and
have taken some pains to she w, that Count Bismarck, of
all men, has no interest in furthering the designs of Rus-
sia on the Bosphorus, and we may be sure that, with
every disposition to do her a good turn, he will
take very good care to keep her as far as possible from the
mouths of the Danube, and therefore from Constantinople.
On the other hand, if Russia agrees to submit her cause to
the consideration of a Conference, she thereby withdraws
the claim asserted iu Prince Gortchakoff's circular,. and
restores herself to the comity of nations.

THE TICHBORNE BARONETCY CASE.

This cause cilibre came before Mr. Baron Martin and a
special jury, in the Court of Exchequer, in connection
with an action brought by Messrs. Sedgfield, a firm A
Melbourne solicitors, against Mr. Moogen, a gentleman
of the same profession in Lincoln's-inn-fields. Mr. Joseph
Browne, Q.C. in stating the case, said that his clients
were employed' by the defendant, who acted as the legal
adviser of the gentleman known as Sir Roger Tichborne
(who laid claim to the extensive property in Hamphahire
owned by the Tichborne family, and the ancient baronial
title of that house), to execute a commission in collecting
evidence and facts in Australia to establish Sir Roger's
claim, and for this purpose It was necessary to
travel thousands of miles, visit wild and remote
parts of the colony of Victoria, and incur
risks and adventures that the learned counsel
said would form the groundwork of a not uninteresting
romance. Their personal disbusements alone were £2,200,
calculated at ten guineas a day, and this sum, with £l,lOO
claimed as remuneration and other money expended in
procuring copies of documents, made the total amount
claimed in the present action £,3,500.—Mr. Joyce, for tho
defendant, did not deny the question of retainer, but con.
tended that the amount charged was excessive, and the
matter should be referred to one of the masters of the
court.—The jury, under the direction of the learned
judge, found a verdict for the plaintiffs for the full amount
claimed.

-----
GEORGE F. TRAIN ONCE MORE IN PRISON.—Mr
George Bennis " private secretary" to George Francis
Train writes to say that his chief has been secretly incar-
cerated in Lyons bastille, without accusation or explana-
tion. "No communication with the outer world."
A number of gentlemen, interested in British
South Africa, assembled at the Royal Colonial Institute.
Suffolk-street, London, on Wednesday last, to present a
congratulatory memorial to Sir Henry Barkly upon his
appointment as Governor of the Cape of Good Hope.
Amongst those who attended on the occasion were
Lord Bury, Sir John Swinburne, and Sir Henry Denni-
son.