The Sun.
London, England, 1856-10-30 00:00:00

LONDON, THURSDAY, OCTOBER 30, 1858

we Warned the
It is just a fortnight since
public respecting the new operation, by which an
ernthent firm had contracted to supply an enor-
mous amount of tipeois, 140,000,000 francs, or
6,400,0004 iterlin, to the Beak of Twice.

We then pointed out the serious consequences 1
that might follow a continuance of the drain that
has so long been carried on, and emphatically
called on the Government to adopt early and
energetic measures to arrest the progress of the
formidable evil. But another transaction has
just been concluded of such magnitule that the
matter above alluded to sinks into comparative
insignificance. The Cabinet of St. Petersburg
has just contracted with a French company for
the construction of an extensive system of rail-
ways throughout the North, the cost of which will
amount to no less than 1,000,000,000 francs,
or 40,000,0001. sterling ! As we have already
explained, it is utterly impossible under the sys-
tem that casts so many impediments in the way
of travelling in Russia that these lines can pos-
sibly prove remunerative speculations. The
population is sparsely sprinkled through Russia,
so that if even the most perfect liberty of loco-
motion was tolerated there could be no travelling
equal even to that which takes place on our own
most neglected lines, and the production of articles
for exportation are no less than 70 times greater
per square mile in England than in Russia.
What chance then, we ask, is there of any profit
beyond the Government guarantee ? Are there
not opportunities for investment at home, just as
favourable as those now offered by Russia, viz.,
5 per cent. for a limited time—the whole of the
railways ultimately becoming the property of the
State ?

We have put these points prominently forward,
inasmuch as they are the matters which capita-
-alists will most closely look to. There are few,
indeed, who are actuated by patriotic considera-
tions. A quarter per cent. more or less has far
greater effect than anything connected with the
welfare and prosperity of the nation, and the
happiness or misery of the working population.
We must then speak to the great majority of the
speculators by the only arguments that they will
attend to—viz., the prospects of profit or loss,
so far as they are individually concerned.
Many of the parties who are now disposed to
venture their hardly-acquired savings may re-
member the fearful crisis of 1825, when a na-
tional bankruptcy was only averted by the fortuitous
discovery of a box of 1/. notes. A still greater
number have had cause to ponder over the rail-
way mania of 1845.6, when " the nation got out
of its depth by undertaking more than it could
accomplish." None of these things, however,
seemed so ominous as the course on which
the Western Powers have just embarked.
Although the English railways might not return
very large dividends, the money was spent at
home ; although many private families were
heavy stifferers, the nation greatly ben efitted in
the,long run. Time and space were, if not prac-
tically annihilated, greatly economised, and the
productive powers of the nation largely enhanced.
The parties who lung their capital into the gulf
might to some extent be regarded as national be-
nefactors.

But in the present instance there will be no
stimulus afforded to the national industry.
ft will be a constant and unceasing drain.
Every shilling, too, of the 40,000,0001.
subscribed for by Englishmen must be paid
in hard cash. Nothing but gold or silver
will be received, and the bullion thus exported
will be retained in Russian coffers, while the
work will be paid for to Russian serfs in greasy
rouble notes that cannot be exported from the
country. Russia will, undoubtedly, greatly
benefit by the operation. She will replace the
stock of the previous metals exhausted during
the late war, and obtain a valuable series of
military railways, which she well knows how to
render available when she thinks proper to re-
sume the " traditional policy," which has only
been suspended for a brief period. By suf-
fering ourselves to play the Russian game ; we
are providing her with intent weapons to
use against ourselves when the time arrives for
"Cossackising " Earope. The Western Powers
will be exhausted by the fruitless attempt to
supply bullion to_ the insatiable claimant, whose
unceasing cry, like that of the horse-leech, will still
be "Give, give." The speculators may too late
find that they have entered into engagements far
beyond their means, in contracting to supplA
bullion to more than four times the amount of
that now stored in both departments of the Bank
of England, which only amounted to 9,760,452/.
at the time of the last return. Long before
the last instalment has been transmitted, there
may be a change in our currency laws that
will prevent the victimisation of England. How
will they then contrive to make their remit-
tances ; and should they fail in so doing, may not
all their previous payments become forfeited ?

We trust that all persons who contemplate taking
any share in the inauspicious speculation may
calmly and attentively think on these rnat-
ters, before they engage themselves in specula-
tions that may bring ruin to themselves and
families, and which, under the most favour-
able circumstances, will not pay a better rate of
interest than may be obtained in many legitimate
undertakings at home, which, in place of
leading to a commercial crisis, would tend
to a healthy activity iu the industrial
market, and the creation and production of
national wealth of an important character.
If, however, the people will not take care of their
own money, it is the duty of the Government to
step into the breach and to prevent, while there
is yet time, the consummation of the most fearful
transaction that has ever transferred English
capital into the pockets of foreigners.

Very low indeed. • Hardly possible to get
lower ! Our precious Government have taken
service with Austria, and actually commenced
doing some of the dirtiest of her particularly dirty
work. The dignified gentleman at the Foreign-
office who placidly assented to the onslaught on
the Belgian Press, and courteously suffered him-
self to be otherwise outwitted by Corsican craft,
has assumed the office, if not the livery, of an
Austrian gaoler, and has found his first victim, of
all men in the world, in Colonel Turin ! On that
gallant but unlucky individual he has locked what
we suppose we must call the gates of England.
The Colonel, who has his bread to earn, wants a
passport for Constantinople, whither he desires to
go in search of civil employment, and the Foreign-
office refuses him A, passport. Refuses him for
fear of offending Austria ; imprisons him—for a
kingdom is a prison to a man who longs to get
out of it, and cannot—and is not ashamed to
assign as the main cause of this shameful outrage
ou liberty the fear of his liberation occasioning
acerbity a second time between Great Britain and
Austria ! The next news, we suppose, will be
the same consideration being shown for the feel-
ings of Austria's friend and ally, his Sulphurous
Majesty BOMBS of Naples ! About the lowest
depth of degradation to which a Ministry can
sink.

It may assist the reader's comprehension of the
entire affair if we again record the circumstances
which brought the name of Colonel Tuas,
promi-
nently before the British public. A native of
Hungary and enrolled in the Austrian ranks, on
hearing of the Hungarian revolution he joined the

army of CHARLES ALBERT, under whom and else- '
II where he did good service to the cause of Italian
and Hungarian independence. During the late war
he distinguished himself in the Crimea, more par-
ticularly at the battle of the Tchernaya, where he
won the notice of certain British Officers, which
resulted in his being employed to purchase horses
and carriages for the British Land Transport
Corps. In the conscientious discharge of this im-
portant duty he entered the Principalities, then as
now, occupied unwarrantably by Austrian troops,
having, however, first obtained an assurance that
he would not b 3 meddled with. He was treach-
erously seized and imprisoned, then tried
and sentenced to be hanged as a deserter,
which fate he only escaped by the resolute and,
we believe, compulsory intervention of the Fo-
reign-office. On his liberation he went to Con-
stantinople, where, as his reward for fidelity to
us and months of mental and corporeal suffering,
he found he was discharged from the British ser-
vice. He repaired to Rustchuk to look after his
effects and give an account of his stewardship. A
telegraphic despatch from our Government over-
took him, bidding him instantly depart, Rustchuk
though Turkish territory, being in too close
vicinage to Austria not to awaken the apprehen-
sions—the cowardly fears rather—of our rulers.
He came to England, where his accounts arrived
after him, in July, and he has had to wait until
within the last few days before the small sum due
to him was paid, with sundry deductions, includ-
ing income tax, by one of the Circumlocution
Offices. Having left a number of his brave com-
panions in arms in Turkey, where a grant of land
awaits him, and being comparatively destitute, he
applied to the Foreign-office for a passport to
Constantinople as a naturalised British subject.
This has been refused him !
On what grounds ? We have already indicated
the substantial one ; but we will here give the
whole, as assigned at the Passport-office :
" Ist. That he wants proof that he has resided five
years in Great Britain.
" 21 That he went last year to Wallachia, where he
was arrested by Austria on account of a military crime
that he had committed, which caused much embarrass-
ment to the British Government, and which occasioned
an acerbity between the British and Austrian Govern-
ments.
" 3d. That after he was liberated he proceeded imme-
diately from Constantinople to Rustchuk, in the neigh•
bourhood of the Austrian head-quarters, which caused
a new proteßtation.
" 4th. That he, stated that he meant to stay in Eng-
land, on naturalisation, to which this request for a pass-
port to Constantinople is a contradiction 1"
The facts being that he has notoriously resided
for a considerable portion, if not the whole, of
each of the last five or six years in England.
That the only military offence with which he can
be charged is leaving the Austrian army to fight
under the banner of CHARLES ALBERT and his
native country, and that the cause of acerbity
between England and Austria was the interfer-
ence of the former to rescue him, a British agent,
from the fate to which Austrian treachery, cruelty,
and contempt of international law had consigned
him. That, in going to Rustchuk, he merely
moved from one part of the Turkish territory to
another, the latter being nearer to Austria than
the former. That he has the best of possible rea-
sons for going to Constantinople, viz., to provide
himself with the means of living.
It has actually come to this. The Government
of Great Britain is afraid of that congeries of
political abominations—that most dastard, de-
ceitful, cruel, and cowardly of tyrannies, Austria
It dare not perform an act of ordinary justice for
fear of exciting the " acerbity," forsooth ! of that
lion-coated calf. We are in want of Austrian
aid, and to get it our Foreign Minister must con-
denu\--lid by Flay eu part or gaol—
honout dignity, and credit of England laid aside ;
and theNfir4t prisoner must be a gallant soldier,
whose only fattlt is, he has served us with unsur-
passed fidelity--.a noble patriot, whose life has
long been, and now is, at the service of his coun-
try. The acerbity of Austria !—an alliance with
Austria. An English Government afraid of the
one, and solicitous for the other ! Austria, that
licksthe dust as readily asit crushes with its armed
heel. Austria; that never yet was confided in,
and failed to earn the infamy and the plunder of
treachery ! If this sort of thing is tolerated,
where are we to stop ? Austria may demand the
extradition of Col. TIMM and KossuTH—may call
on Turkey to deliver over OMER PACHA and other
refugees to her tender mercies. The public should
speak out. Their interference it was alone that
induced our Government to rescue Colonel TITER.
Let them move again, and Colonel TURR will have
every facility for his intended departure offered
him. But the time has also arrived when the
Foreign•office must feel to its innermost cabinet
the power of public opinion. The abject slavery
of the people under the dominion of the Foreign-
office must cease. The people must know what
is doing, and not be content to know what is
done, when a blunder cannot be repaired. Else
woe for our future interests as a nation !

MUSIC.

The Little Gipsy Girl. Ballad. Written by
Henry P. Novra. Composed by Frank B.
Tussaud. F. Moutrie.

A charming little song, the words of which are
as unpretending a.' the melody is sweet and viva-
cious. It is the first time we have enjoyed the
privilege of estimating the musical abilities of Mr.
Frank Tussaud, hitherto wholly unknown as a
composer, but very well known indeed in
a minor, but very attractive, branch of the Fine
Arts, as one of the sons of the late Madame Tus
sand, the eminent modeller in wax, and once upon
a time a chosen attendant at the Court of the un-
fortunate Marie Antoinette. We hope it may by
no means prove the last opportunity we shall have
of according to Mr. Frank Tussaud, as a graceful
and original melodist, the weed of two or three
passing words like these words of merited, and, at
the same time, of cordially sincere encouragement.
" The Little Gipsy Girl " is pretty enough, and
sparkling enough, and altogether, be it said, freshly
exhilirating enough to be quite secure of this for
some time to come—of not lying forgotten and ne-
glected i❑ the drawers of many a fair young
musician's Canterbury, wasting its sweetness, not
like Gray's flower, "on the desert air," but among
the deserted airs of many new and old ballad-
favourites.