The Sun.
London, England, 1870-07-28 00:00:00

TEIE 61IN, LONDON, THITIISDAY JULY 28, 1870.

military authorities of Cherbourg being invited. At
eight o'clock the Empress took the special train
in. the port itself, so as to regain the Paris
line without crossing the town. She was accom-
panied by 'General Mollard, the two daughters
of the Duchess of Alba, and several attendants. Accord-
ing to the orders received, the Empress was not saluted by
the artillery, and the only decorations assumed by the
ironclads were their flags flying at the mast heads.
Troops continue to arrive but slowly, though no efforts
are spared to get the transports ready. Prince Napoleon
has surrendered his yacht the Prince Jerome to the public
service. She has put into this port for the purpose of
being disarmed and transformed. into a war ship. It is
likely that from her speed she will be one of the spies of
the fleet.

WRECKS ON THE YORKSHIRE COAST.

The schooner Mary Jane, of Sunderland, struck on
Whitby Rock during a dense fog, on Tuesday night. The
lifeboat Lucy, belonging to the National Lifeboat In-
stitution and stationed at this place, was, however, the
means of bringing the vessel and her crew of four men
safely into harbour. The brig Counder, of Scarborough,
an the schooner True Blue have become wrecks, but
fortunately their crews have been saved by fishing
coblera.

THE DREADFUL COLLIERY EXPLOSION
IN GLAMORGANSHIRE.

Th© latest report from the Charles Pit, Llansamlet,
where the dreadful explosion occurred, the particulars
of which appeared in our columns of Tuesday, throws
but little additional light upon the cause of the
catastrophe. The colliery has always been worked
by naked and it was considered one of
tue safest pits in the district for working. The
general opinion is that gas must have accumulated in the
old goafs or workings, and that a sudden escape of gas
came in contact with the naked lights, and hence the ter•
rible explosion. Tie seam of coal that was worked is not
considered by any means fiery ore, which supports the
view that the gas must have escaped from the old workings.
Mr. Wales, the government inspector of mines for the
district, has made a careful inspection of the colliery, and
the result of his observations will be made known at the
Inquest No additional deaths have occurred., but there
are several serioasly injuredd,. The inquest has been for-
mally opened and %Mourned.

TEE TROUBLES OF SPECIAL CORRE-
SPONDENTS.

The Pima's correspondent, writing from Metz, gives up
all hope :—I am now reluctantly compelled to abandon
my last hope of any chance of describing either battles or
even the preparations for war. In answer to my final
appeal for a sauf conduit, I yesterday received from
Marshal Bazaine a polite letter informing me that it was
out of his power to comply with my request after the
" formal orders issued by the Emperor," that no journalist
whatever, French or foreign, was to be permitted to
accompany the army. It is a question how long we shall
be permitted to remain anywhere near it. If any of the
stray scraps of intelligence about the movements, or
guesses more or less ingenious about the plan of the cam-
paign, which find their way into the newspapers are con-
sidered by the French Government as likely to he
of value to the enemy, all journalists will pro-
bably at once be ordered either to cease writing about
the army or to retire from the frontier. The publica-
tion by a French newspaper of any such information is,
as you doubtless know already, treated as a special offence,
rendering the culprit liable to imprisonment and a heavy
fine. The French press is naturally very angry at this
severe treatment, and contrasts M. 011ivier's arbitrary
conduct, as they consider it, with that of the Prussian
Minister, who respectfully requests" all journalists to
observe the utmost possible caution in discussing the
movements of their army. As a question of politeness,
the Prussians may have the best of it, but, as regards
the substance of the order, their journalists are, perhaps,
in even a worse position than the French since they
are requested, whether "respectfully " or otherwise does
not, after all, materially matter, to publish no news
whatever about the movements of the force, however
harmless and insignificant it may appear to them. This
is, I believe, the first campaign since the "War
Correspondent " can be, considered to have come into
existence in which it has been attempted so strictly to
muzzle the Press. In the Crimean, the Franco-
Austrian, the Dano-German, the Prusso-Austrian
campaigns, correspondents, if not always ex-
actly allowed facilities, were at least tole-
rated, and hence they have been very hard of
belief that the Emperor will really enforce on
this occasion the severe restrictions against the represen-
tatives of the Press. There are journalists here in Metz
who still cling to the hope that at the last moment they
will not be prevented from following the army. I can
only wish their expectations may be realized, but, owing
to information I have received almost direct from the
highest source, I have myself renounced all hope. The
Emperor feels that the encounter with Prussia will be a
" lutte serie-use,"and that he cannot afford to give the enemy
even the slightest and apparently most superficial ad-
vantage, while he believes that the assistance furnished
to the opposite side by a band of correspondents in the
French camp, eagerly reporting whatever news they can
pick up, would be by no means slight. In the war with
Austria, I have his statement on the best authority, he
himself more than once obtained valuable intelligence as
to the enemy's movements from the German papers.
If on these grounds, therefore, the French Go-
vernment persist in their refusal to recognise War
Correspondents, it is not easy to see how one can
fairly censure them, and yet the refusal places correspon-
dents near the seat of war in a most embarrassing and
unpleasant position. One must either abstain from giv-
ing the sort of information which the public at home
naturally desire—all local military information about
the movements of troops and the progress of
the preparations of war—or one must consent
to play a 1.41 e which bears a disagreeable re-
semblance to that of the spy. I have, after due
reflection, and with considerable reluctance, resolved to
adopt the former course, and henceforth your readers
must kindly consider me as in no sense a War Correspon-
dent—uless, of courser the Emperor does at the last
moment recognise the Press—but as simply a tourist who
happens to be travelling near the seat of war, and who
takes advantage of the interest which the war lends to
incidents, otherwise, perhaps, commonplace enough, to
write occasionally a descriptive letter about them.

MELANCHOLY SUICIDE OF A YOUNCt
LADY.

A distressing ease of suicide was inquired into by Mr.
Richards, the deputy coroner, at the " Bell and Hare "
Tavern, Tottenham. It appeared that the deceased
was a young lady named Miss Alice Agnes Crook,
aged 19 years, daughter of Mr- George Crook, 7,
Lavinia-grove, Islington, a parchment manufacturer.
On Friday last she left her home to go to a draper's
shop to purchase a dress for her mother. She ap-
peared to be in good spirits, but was not seen alive after
by her parents and family. The father and sister of the
deceased deposed that they were not aware that deceased
had formed any attachment. When she was leaving the
house on Friday she said, "I shall not be gone long." Her
body was discovered in the New River at Wood Green.
Her dress pocket was filled with granite stones. One of
the witnesses saw deceased at two o'clock on Saturday,
walking along the bank of the New River, crying bitterly
and looking very excited. The medical evidence showed
that the actual cause of death was di-owning, but that de-
ceased had been recently violated. Verdicb, " Suicide
while in a state of temporary insanity."

CONCENTRATION OF THE FRENCH--The special
correspondent of the Daily News, writing from 11Ietz,
expresses a high opinion of the forwardness of French
preparations :—I have read of a certain number of bat-
talions being sent forward, and of others remaining behind,
but as far as I can judge the French are evacuating every
garrison en masse. I put 400,000 down as the lowest
number the Emperor means to have under his hand, and
in complete communication, at the entrance of the cam-
paign,-and I believe the concentration to be now within
forty-eight hours of completion. The number of guns
will be large, but they will not be adequately
horsed; the cavalry, also, will not bear a high
proportion—probably under one-tenth of the infantry.
The whole of these troops are in a magnificent state of
discipline, and the officers are much more numerous than
those of the Prussians. The French artillery was superior
to the Austrian at Solferino, the Austrian to the Prussian
at Konigratz ; there is no doubt of the Chassepot being a
better weapon than the Prussian arm. I can hardly be-
lieve in the Prussians having yet been able to effect
such a concentration of strength as the French have cer-
tainly done, and believe that on the opening of the cam-
paign, either with or without a battle, the Prussians must
retire behind the Rhine.
RAILWAY MANAGEMENT IN FRANCE.-1 he rail-
way system of moving troops is excellent as far as it goes,
and the manner in which the troops enter and leave the
carriages is quiet and satisfactory indeed; when I asked
leave of a French officer to view some troops embarking,
in politely declining, tried to lessen my disappointment
by saying that there was nothing to see—that the troops
just sat down in the carriages. Of course, what
I had desired to observe was, how this very
absence of friction had been effected. At the
larger stations, where there are several side lines,
I have since seen that they load the trains often on
a side track, and then shunt it on to the main line.
This is especially the case with artillery trains, and all
those containing horses. Although the military arrange-
ments—that is, the entering of the trains and the packing
of the trucks—are superbly managed, I am by no means
certain that the maximum amount of trains which an
English first-class manager would get out of the lines in a
spurt is even nearly approached. It cannot be a want of
rolling stock that causes this, for I have passed huge
quantities of it at dozen of stations. I believe it to be
that they have not at the head of the railway manage-
ment men accustomed to squeeze the amount of traffic
into a few hours, whom race meetings, Easter Mon-
days and volunteer fights educate with us. Indeed, had
we to effect a similar concentration by rail—while we
would do well to study carefully the system of -loading
adopted by our neighbours—l think our railway colonels
would not be contented with themselves if they could not
increase the small speed at which the trains run here—as
the civilian trains in which I have voyaged always lost
about 15 per cent. on ordinary French time, and yet
caught up at the stations many of the military trains ;
nor would the directors of our traffic feel satisfied if they
could not much increase their number.—Daily News
Correspondent.