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

E SUN, LOIN DON, MONDAN, DECEMBER 12, 1870

itself, there has been no reliable standpoint
anywhere in France. One after another, the prin-
cipal cities have been taken, and entered, and
occupied. Orleans, Rouen, Amiens, and Abbeville
have severally passed into the hands of the German
invader, just as Rheims, and Metz, and Strasbourg,
awl Versailles had previously. slipped into their pos-
session. Tours, SJ many months the provincial seat
of the Government, has been abandoned in
despair by M. CREMIEUX and his energetic
coadjutor. It and Havre are the places now more
immediately threatened. Added to the dishearten-
ing influence of the seemingly inevitable defeat of
the French fOrces wherever confronted by the
conquering Germans, there is the yet more dis-
heartening influence of the rapid displacement of
one General after another by the Civilian
Dictator. AUItELLES DE PALADINE, by a
stroke of GAMETTA'S pen, is swept from his
" pride of place," and thereby formally disgraced in
the presence of the serried ranks of the belligerents.
KERATRY had been dismissed before that, quite as
arbitrarily. BOURBAKI, for a while, is estranged by
as suddenly removal from one command to another, a
removal so abrupt, and apparently evidencing so
much suspicion as really to be tantamount to a
distinct reprimand, and he is now hurriedly
vominated to another position altogether,
being placed at the head of the First Corps
d'ArmeSe while, are entirely new man, Gene-
ral CHANZY, to wit, has had the. Second Corps
d'Arm6e entrusted by preference to his direction.
These frequent substitutions of one commander-in-
chief for another, recall to recollection the rapid
transference of the baton of command by the KAISER
to one Austrian Marshal after another, in 1849,
during the war then raging between the Empire
and the insurgent Hungarians. M. GAMBETTA
by adopting, as he has apparently done, the historical
motto of DANTON, "Audace! toujours, audace !" is
apparently under the impression that if he dares
enough, he will eventually do ! By following in that
way the epigrammatic advice of DANTON, he seems
to imagine that he will necessarily prove himself to
be a second CARNOT, to be another Organiser of
Victory. CARNOT, however, it should be remembered,
was not a lawyer, but an engineer. He had a genius
especially adapted to the herculean task of organising
the whole of the military arrangements of the Revo-
lution. LAZARE CARNOT was professionally qualified
to undertake the responsibilities of the war admini-
stration. Added to all which, unlike the melancholy
spectacle presented to view at this moment, under
the rule of GAMBETTA, there were giants in those
days in France, when CARNOT, while Organising
Victory, unconsciously presaged the immediate
advent of that wonderful race of Marshals who were
the PALADINS Of the modern CHARLEMAGNE.

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

THE BIRMINGHAM EXPLOSION.

The terrific explosion which has created such. havoc

in Birmingham appears to have had a very simple
origin, if we may judge from the prevailing opinion

in the town. The sheds are furnished_ with
stoves, and the Enfield loading shop had a stove

like the rest. It was near dinner time when the
catastrophe occurred, aild a number of the girls and
women employed were gathered round it, preparing
to cook or warm their dinners. The dress of one of

the girls caught fire, and on seeing this and knowing
the dreadful danger to which they were
all exposed, she lost all presence of mind.
Screaming, she ran to the door, but before
she could reach it some loose powder ignited, and
hence the catrstrophe, which is one of the most

fearful on record. Many of the sufferers were un-
recognisable by their friends, and the description of
the little fragments of feminine finery and industry,
mingled with the wreck of the sheds and
the ruin left by fire and explosion, is
most painful. More than fifty sufferers were
conveyed to the hospital, and of Chess the
hospital authorities fear that thirty will not survive.
Twenty-one dead bodies were taken out the first
day. Mr. Ludlow has charitably informed the
managers that the firm will repay the hospital for all
expenses incurred. The Birmingham Gazette, in
commenting on the disaster, insists that the strictest
safeguards should be adopted in all such dangerous
manufactories, because the work is chiefly done by
young girls and boys at low wages. A neighbouring
firm, after several accidents, have secured safety by
storing the powder above, instead of on a level with
their workpeople, and this plan commends itself to
ail cartridge-making firms. Personal carelessness on
the part of workpeople cannot be put forward as an
excuse when such young people are employed from
whom unfailed prudence must not be expected.

be any contest. No fight for the representatiot. of
Westmoreland has taken place during the last forty
years. The county has been virtually the pro-
perty of the Lowther family, who have
always controlled its seats. One Lowther sat
for this district for 55 years. A story is told in the
Daily News of an ineffectual fight for Westmoreland
made by Lord Brougham in 1820. He made a mag
nificent speech at the nomination, and when one of
the Tory candidates attempted to follow him, he is
reported to have declared that after such an oration
"the least said was soonest mended." So he sat
down again, but Brougham was beaten at the poll,
for Lowther Castle fought, not with reasoning or argu-
ment, but with weapons of a different character.