The Sun.
London, England, 1870-12-08 00:00:00

SHREWSBURY ELECTION PETITION.

Mr. John Hawley Edwards, magistrates' clerk for the
borough of Shrewsbury, was the first witness examined
before Mr. Baron Channell at Shrewsbury yesterday.
Ho said that Mr. Thomas Groves, a magistrate, had asked
his advice as to a memorial for the remis-
sion of sentence upon William Cooper. The
witness refused, however, to say precisely
what Groves asked, and the judge ruled that he need not
do so.—Price Edwards said Groves promised to employ him
if he voted for Mr. Straight.—Charles Heath said he saw
Groves give a man what he believed to be half-a-crown,
and the man went immediately to the polling booth. John
Edwards said he remembered Mr. Groves soliciting his
father's vote. Mr. Groves said if it were a matter of a
day's work he would put it right.—William Davies, a
carriage examiner at the railway station, was at the house
of a Mr. Swallow, who had promised to vote for Cotes; when
Mr. Groves came in he took Swallow into another room,
and closed the door. His persuasion was of such a kind
that, notwithstanding Swallow's promise, he voted for
Mr. Straight. Townsend (another witness said), shewed
a purse a dozen times, saying it would win the election for
Mr. Straight. The same Mr. Townsend gave a plain
supper, for which no payment was made. The night
before the election voters only were present; and the
election formed the staple of conversation. —The Rev.
Mr. Gwyn also gave a supper to some of his tenants. The
health of Mr. Straight was drunk, and Mr. Townsend
addressed the gathering, hoping they would all vote for
the Conservative. Some further evidence was given about
the suppar at Mr. Gwyn's, but the witness did not re-
member Mr. Straight's health being drunk. A militia-
man deposed to having received a florin to vote for the
Tory, and another received three shillings. The inquiry
was adjourned.

MR. PETER RYLANDS AND HIS CON-
STITUENTS.

Mr. Peter Rylands, M.P., addressed his constituents
last night in the public hall, Warrington. He denounced
the anomaly of the bishops sitting in the House of Lords ;
and in speaking of the Army and Navy he argued that
tin former ought to be administered on the same prin.

ciple as the latter, namely, by promotion instead of pur-
chase. He vindicated his action on the commission in
reference to the diplomatic service by showing that vast
sums of money were uselessly expended, especially in
superannuation pensions, and in being given to men who
were 'in many cases not only useless, but prejudiced
to England. He was opposed to such payments
as marriage- dowries, but he certainly preferred Royal
Princesses marrying British subjects to marrying German
Princes. He denounced the attempt to embroil England
in Continental affairs, especially as regarded Belgium, and
said that the sending of 30,000 men there was moonshine.
As constituted, the English Army was, as in the days of
the Crimea, an army of lions led by asses. He denounced
the excessive expenditure of the departments, and argued
that the working•classes had to pay the most towards it.
Referring to the Continental war, he said he hoped for
peace, as peace was for the interest of the industrial
classes of the country.

THE GERMAN ADVANCE ON ORLEANS
AND AMIENS.

The Maitair Wochenblatt gives the following summary
of the German advance on Orleans and Amiens :
" Immediately after the capitulation of Metz the army
corps of the investing army which thereby became
available were directed to march, in order, by
the defeat of the French armies meanwhile col-
lected and formed to the north and south of Paris, to
frustrate any attempt to leave that city. General Man-
teuffel's division (the 4th and Bth Army Corps and the
Ist and 3rd Cavalry divisions) was directed north
against the Northern Army formed at Amiens and
Lille, while Field Marshal Prince Frederick Charles,
with the 3rd, 9th, and 10th Army Corps, took a south-
westerly direction against the Army of the Loire. By
forced marches, favoured however by the weather, both
army columns, towards the end of November, approached
tneir destinations. The Northern Army diviSion encoun-
tered the French Northern Army, on the 27th, before
Amiens, completely routed it, and, on the following days,
drove it further back in a northerly direction towards
Arras, so that, from this side, the army investing
Paris has nothing more to fear. Of Prince
Frederick Charles's 3rd Army Corps, the right wing
column (9th Army Corps) and the centre (3rd) reachedthe
Seine on the 14th of November, at Fontainebleau and
Moret, so that on the following days they were in
readiness to take up the positions on the Paris and
Orleans road of the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg's division
(Ist Bavarian Corps, 17th and 22nd Infantry, and 4th
Cavalry Division), which was moving off towards the
north-west. The left wing column (10th Army Corps),
which had had to describe the greatest curve,
and had frequently been obstructed in its march,
only reached the Loing at Montargis on the
21st. After a day's rest, the further advance 'of
the 10th Army Corps was resumed in the direction of
Pithviers, iu order to put itself into immediate
communication with the other corps of the 2nd Army.
On the 23rd Wedell's 38th Brigade, with six squadrons of
the Hessian cavalry brigade, had taken up a position at
Beaune. On the 24th Lehmann's and Valentini's 37th
and 39th Brigades followed from Montargis by two roads
through Laden and Corbeilles, likewise destined for
Beaune, where the corps was to unite. The enemy
advanced from the woods east of Orleans in three strong
columns against the left wing of this difficult
flank march, collectively of the strength of about
31,000 men, while our troops available for
the encounter were only 10,000 or 12,000 men
strong. He had, already strongly occupied Mdzieres and
Ladon on the southern road, and pushed forward by
Boiscommun and La Loupe towards Beaune. While the
artillery corps was sent forward to Beaune, Valentini's
brigade went through Juraville by the south road, in
order to support Lehmann's brigade, which, in a hot
encounter, conquered Lahon ; it took Mdzieres, and
united with Lehmann's brigade. The fighting became still
more warm at the crossing of the Bellegarde, Aury, and
Beaune-Ladon roads, but the enemy was repulsed here also
in the direction of Bellegarde, and in the evening both
brigades reached Beaune. The 10th Corps was thus
collected there, and had formed a connection with the
3rd Corps. On the 28th there was a fresh attack on the
10th Corps on the part of the Army of the Loire, to which
also the Army of the East, formerly under General Cam-
briels, now under General Michel, has been united. This
led to a fight at Beaune, in which several hostile corps of
the right wing suffered a sensible defeat. While in this
manner the Army of the Loire of the right wing began as
early on the 25th, in frequent offensive attacks, the
struggle before Orleans, their left wing meanwhile also
came into action. The Grand Duke of Mecklenburg's
division, which was approaching Prince Frederick
Charles's army in order to concentrate both armies before
Orleans, encountered French corps of the Army of the
LOire on the 15th and 16th, which resulted in the repulse
of the enemy at all points. Here, too, the
enemy made a violent attack. On the right wing,
the 17th division, the Ist Bavarian Corps, and the
4th Cavalry Division fought against the 16th French
Corps, and on the left wing at Artenay the 17th Division
encountered the 15th French Corps. We thus find the
right wing of the Loire Army defeated on the 28th in the
fight at Beaune, and the left wing decidedly repulsed on
the 2nd of December at Bazoches-les-tlautes, so that the
greatest part of the French Army of the Loire has been
already occupied in unsuccessful engagements."

H.E SUN, I,OONDON, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 8, 187.

THE END OF THE SORTIE.

The correspondent of the Telegraph, in his letter dated
Royal Headquarters, Versailles, December 3, says :
Trochu's "great soitie,n, upon which such extravagant
hopes have been based, has come to a disastrous and
tragical end—and with it, I fear, the reputation of that
general for truthfulness and moderation. Anything more
disingenuous and boastful than his proclamation to
the Parisians, which reached us yesterday, cau hardly
be conceived. What is the meaning of a rentree
victorieuse, effected by an army that has sallied
forth from a beleaguered city for the purpose of breaking
through the hostile lines drawn round it, and has been
driven back to the walls with heavy loss in killed,
wounded, and prisoners, not having effected its object? It
is simply a contradiction in terms. What shall be said of
General Ducrot, who formally announced to the inhabi-
tants of the French capital that he would only return
from the expedition victorious or dead ? He is
returned, having borne himself gallantly; but he has
failed to fulfil either of the two self-imposed conditions.
After three days' fighting, for the most part desultory and
abortive, his legions have retired from the hopeless con-
test they.had endeaovured to maintain against troops in
every respect superior—having, through the hesitation or
incapacity of their leaders, thrown away the finest
chance that ever an army had of inflicting a tre-
mendous catastrophe upon its foes. There is no
doubt whatever that, havirg hit upon the very
weakest point of the German rayon, and having, through
a lucky coincidence, found that point even more feebly
guarded than they could have any reason to expect, they
did partially succeed in establishing themselves in
positions which actually belonged to the German lines
of investment. Had they been adequately sup-
ported, and had they, reckless of loss or possible
calamity, pushed their way onwards to the
eastern rear of this army, they might at least have
done, in a few hours, such irreparable damage to its
communications with Germany—its source of supply and
base of operations--that the siege of Paris must have
been raised, and the forces now gathered round it would
have been compelled to break up their positions, and take
to the field in very ticklish circumstances. Had Ducrot,
leaving half his men on the road, and risking the loss or
capture of the remainder within a few days, seized
Lagny, Meaux, and Nanteuil, annihilating all the
new bridges and railway repairs whicn have been
painfully and with unheard of exertion, made by the
Germans within the last two months—and destroying the
enormous stores accumulated for feeding, clothing, and
munitioning this army—he would have saved Paris, and
might have been, at this moment, dead or living, the
greatest man in Europe. What was there to stop him?
When he held Brie-sur-Marne, Villiers, Champigny-sur-
Marne, &c., which stood between him and the
Eastern terminus of the Paris-Strasburg Railway
at Lagny, or the great depot of military stores and
provisions at Nanteuil-sur-Marne? Nothing but a few
scanty reserves, and a thin line of " Etappen," utterly
unequal to the task of staying a victorious force thirty
thousand strong ; and it might have been double that
number, had his supports hurried forward without loss of
time on a forced march of twenty-five or thirty miles..
Captain Spencer Robbins, on his way homewards, was
under heavy fire for some hours on the road between
Versailles and Lagny—a fact that proves incon-
testably the presence of the French in the very heart, if
not in the rear, of our lines. Why did they not push for-
ward at any cost ? Instead of doing so, and possibly
changing the whole fortune of the war, they fell back,
feebly attempted to establish themselves in one or two of
the villages they had wrested from the Wurtembergers,
and eventually retired to their old ground, being
driven from the last place they clung to—Champigny-
sur-Marne—the day before yesterday, by six battalions of
Germaills. With their retreat dies out the last hope of
relief for Paris. They will never be allowed to break
out so far again. Every earth will be stopped, every
issue blocked up by an impenetrable wall of batteries
and needle-guns. They have lost between six and
seven thousand men for nothing—and, what is far
worse, have dealt a death-blow to the -irorale of
their cumbersome garrison. We may now look
for further internal convulsions in Paris. The weather
is frightfully cold—yesterday the thermometer marked
two degrees below zero ; and the scarcity of fuel cannot
fail to become the most insufferable of all the priva-
tions imposed upon two millions of wretched human
beings. We, who enjoy comparative comfort—which,
in its turn, is hardship compared with the condi-
tions of our normal home life—scarcely allow
ourselves to think of the misery now endured by the un-
fortunates pent in behind these huge ramparts. The
Germans themselves are beginning to shudder at the
picture presented to their imaginations, when they canvass
the eventualities of a long-protracted investment, to which,
if I am rightly informed, will be added, within a very
few days, the horrors of a partial bombardment. It
is now under consideration whether some of our siege
guns shall or shall not open on the Bth instant. We
cannot believe that Paris will hold out forty-eight hours
Lifter that fire shall once have been commenced. Mean-
while, to-morrow—perhaps to-day Prince Frederick
Charles will give Aurelles de Paladine battle ; and he has
taken every precaution to insure victory.