The Sun.
London, England, 1856-01-12 00:00:00

ODESSA, DEC. 29.
The extreme severity of the present winter has
caused not only the outer road tead to freeze, but
the Black Sea, as far as the eye can reach from the
lighthouse, is covered with one mass of ice. Such a
rigorous winter is beyond the recollection of the
oldest inhabitants. The thermometer was for se-
veral days as low 26 deg Reaumur (27 deg. below
zero of Fahrenheit), but the quicksilver has now
risen to 12 deg. Reaumur, and the snow falls with-
out interruption. Many accidents have occurred
and people been frozen to death—even in their
beds ! You can fancy that the deep snow greatly
impedes all communication, although workmen aro
continually employed to clear the roads, and throw
up the snow on either side, forming immense
hedges, so that when the farmers' carts meet with
a train of artillery or baggage waggons they have
great difficulty in making room to pass.
The simultaneous arrival in this city of several
general officers of high standing, from Kiew,
Nicolaieff, Chotim, and even from the Crimea, has
given rise to the report that, council of war is
ordered to be held here. It is added that the re-
sult of the grand council of war lately held at St.
Petersburg is to be laid before it, and the opinion
of the generals taken, before being finally adopted
and receiving the sanction of the Emperor.

The Cologne Gazette publishes the following
letter : Odessa, Dec. 27.
The Commander of the 6th Infantry Corps of
the Active Army, Lieut.-General Liprandi, from
Nicolaieff ; Count Osten-Sacken, the Commander
of the 4th Army Corps ; and General Kotzebue,
Chief of Prince Gortschakoff's Staff, and from the
head-quarters of that general, have arrived hero,
and have had conferences with General Luderi,
General Krusenstern, and Count Strogonoff.
These meetings of military authorities at St. Peter-
sburg in the North and here in the South are
doubtless held for a like object with the military
councils in tho West.

AUSTRIA.
The Cologne Gazette publishes the following :
VIENNA, JAN. 7.
Fresh instructions were sent off yesterday to
Count Esterhazy, and it is said that the question
of again mobilising a part of the army has been
mooted in a quarter from which there is no appeal.
It is certain that the late reduction is regarded as
an error in the military circles here, because the
necessity of recalling the men who were then dis-
banded ought to have been foreseen. As soon as
Russia's answer in the negative shall have ar-
rived the Government will publish a memoran-
dum on the present political situation, and it
will probably be accompanied by a manifest()
to the nation. At the same time, the East-
ern question will, it is surmised, have to be
discussed by the Diet, to be followed by a decisive
proclamation on the part of the German states
against Russia. The negotiations entered into
with the greatest number of the German states to
this end warrant, it is said, a favourable result.
In like manner the negotiations now pending be-
tween Austria and the Western Powers for the
final settlement of the measures that will have to
be taken in case Russia sends a refusal, are tending
to a most satisfactory issue.

" It is known," says a letter from Vienna of the
ith, in oss's Gazette of Berlin, " that most of the
German States have sent to St. Petersburg notes
recommending Russia to adopt a more conciliatory
policy, and representing to her the necessity of re-
establishing peace. The governments of Bavaria,
Saxony, Wurtemburg, Hanover, Baden, and Hesse
Darmstadt have communicated their notes to the
Cabinet of Vienna."

THE INSURRECTION IN MONTE
VIDEO.

An insurrection broke out in Monte Video on
the 25th of November, and for four days that city
was the scene of a fratricidal war. Between 90
and 100 persons were killed, and a much larger
number wounded. On the 28th the city was de-
clared by the governor to be in a state of siege.
Ou the 29th order was restored, and Jose Mario
Munoz, with 123 of the revolutionary party, em-
barked for Buenos Ayres in the steamer Comiti-
tuicao. In conformity with the expressed wishes
of the diplomatic agents resident in Monte Video,
the subjects of foreign States maintained a strict
neutrality.
It appears from the Nacional of December 4,
that on the 24th of November the governor re-
ceived information that the so-called conservative
party was about to rise in arms. He had only a
small artillery force in the capital, about thirty
horse soldiers. He ordered D. Benito Larraia to
fortify himself with the latter as well as he could
in the police station, and invited all citizens friendly
to the government to join him there. About fifty
citizens obeyed the summons.
At midnight, a group of armed men, under the
command of Jose Maria Munoz, possessed them-
selves violently of the governor's palace, toe artil-
lery barracks with fort St Joseph,and menaced the
city. In the morning of the following day all was
anarchy. About nine o'clock the President of the
Republic, D. Bustamente, installed himself at the
police station, and was joined by General Flores,
Medina, and others. Shortly after a deputation of
citizens arrived at the station, praying that in
'order to avoid effusion of blood a new ministry of
conciliatory character might be appointed.
While this was was going on, a group of
armed men presented themselves, and discharged
several shots, by which the President's life was
placed in danger. Shortly after a collision took
place between the government troops and a re-
volutionary guerilla, when twelve were killed and
twice as many wounded. New propositions were
devised and offered to the revolutionists, who agreed
to lay down their arms on the following day. The
President thereupon issued a decree nominating D.
Florentino Castellanos Prime Minister, and Gen.
Flores Commander-in.Chiel.
On the 26th, at 10 a.m., a casual collision took
place, when one man was killed and several were
wounded. It was the day appointed by the French,
English, and Sardinians, residents of Monte Video,
for a solemn Te Deumin honourof the fall ofSebasto-
pol, and the ceremony drew off a large concourse of
citizens, and fora while stayed the fury of the belli-
gerents. On the following day the government
troops, which had been somewhat reinforced, were
held in readiness to march upon the insurgents.
D. Fernando Torres waited upon the French
charge d'affaires, and begged him to interpose his
good oflices with the governor to get the artillery
force disbanded. The request was refused, and a
proclamation issued by the governor showed that
the earlier convention with the insurgents had
broken down upon thi4 point. On the 28th the
conflict was renewed with great violence, and the
insurgents were defeated. The ministers of
friendly powers then interposed to stay the shedding
of blood, an amnesty was granted, and the leaders
of the revolution left the city. It will thus
appear that the party of Flores and Oribe have tr.
umphed.

DEATH OF SIR A. MACKENZIE, BART.—It is with
much regret that we announce the decease of Sir A.
Mackenzie, Bart., of Coul. He is succeeded in the title
and estates byhissecond brother.— Inverness Advertiser.
Dr. Sandwitb, one of the gallant defenders of Kars,
arrived at the Union Hotel, Cockepur-street, on Wed-
nesday morning, apparently in good health. We under-
stand the doctor has kindly promised to answer any
written inquiry by relatives respecting those who have
been taken prisoners by the Russians.
CIVIL SERVICE SUPERANNUATION PETITION. Mr.
Roebuck—who, we are glad to end, has returned to
town with renewed health—has undertaken to present
this petition from the civil servants who entered since
1829, praying to be put upon an equality with their
fellow-servants who entered before that year, as respects
the scale of superannuation, and the abolition of the
oppressive tax upon salaries.— Civil Service Gazette.
MlNES.—Notwithstanding the decline in the funds,
and the general uneasiness felt i❑ regard to the money
market, a good amount of business has been transacted
in shares ; dividend copper mines, and those approach-
ing a dividend state, being those mostly in request. The
demand for copper is very great, and although at no
time, perhaps, -were copper mines more flourishing than
they are now, the supply of this metal is short of public
wants, and most of the 'old copper in the country is
being eagerly bought up. —Mining Journal of this clay.
At a meeting of the Commercial Dock Company, held
yesterday, Mr. A. Siru presiding, a dividend of 21. 10s.
per cent, for the half-year was declared, and the report
was received as satisfactory.
THE EAST AND WEST INDIA DOCK COMPANY.—The
dividend declared at a meetit g of the East and West
India Doek Company, held yesterday afternoon, Mr. S.
Gregson, M.p., presiding, was at the rate of 6 percent.
per annum, free flora income-tax, and the report and
accounts were unanimously adopted. It was stated that
the affairs of the company are in a satisfactory position,
and that, although business exhibits a decrease, the di-
vidend can be maintained at its present point, with a
balance available for contingencies, including new works
044 replan.,

MR. CAIRD'S SERMON.—This sermon is to be preached
to-morrow evening at St. Peter's church, Saffron-hill, by
the Rev. G. Mansfield. The reverend gentleman assigns
as the reason that the working classes cannot afford to
purchase a copy of it.
BOARD OF TRADE, WHITEDALL, JAN. 9.—The Right
Honourable the Lords of the Committee of Privy
Council for Trade and Plantations have received, through
the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, a copy of a
despatch from her Majesty's ambassador at Paris, for-
warding a copy of a French imperial decree, fixing, for
the present, the duties on the importation of sugar, as
follows :—Sugar of a quality equal at least to the pre-
sent first quality,—ln French vessels—From the French
colonies in America and beyond the Cape of Good Hope,
present duty ; from China, Cochin China, the Philip-
pines, and S►aw, 45f. per 100 kilos. ; from other coun-
tries of India, 47f. per 100 kilos. ; from elsewhere out
of Europe, 50f. per 100 kilos. ; from the entrepote, 60f.
per 100 kilos. In foreign vessels : 651. per 100 kilos.
Sugar of a quality superior to the present first quality,
same duties as above, augmented by 3f. per 100 kilos,:
Gazgte,

:~

—„,
...,.
suppress the truth in official returns, nor enclea- TIIE GOVEIiAMENT IN FRANCE.
your to conceal defects and mismanagement, is all
....._.,._____. . .
very well as far as it goes, but it is generally ex- , The Ilfouiteur of yesterday publishes in very promi-
pected will have no beneficial practical result. nent type the following remarkable article :
Every day brings to light fresh instances of peen- ; " The constitution ot the people is not only the gua-
lation and fraud amongst officials of rank. Thus rantee of its rights, the result of its civilisation, and the
we find in this day's number of the Marine Jour- exprssion of its habis curs): is mchanism
nal the sentence of a court-martial held on an of it-ie Government in t
the c*nsenzble,it
andalso thethe detaiels of the
"intendant," or storekeeper-general of the navy, machinery of which it is composed. When the legisla•
by which he is degraded to the ranks of the corn- tor has organised the authorities (lea pouvoirs), regulated
'
mon sailors, "for proved connivance in the falsifi-
their functions, defined the connecting links that unite
cation of documents, and purposely making incor-
them, and marked the limits which separate them, it is
reef returns of stores on hand and received by
on the rigorous precision of each of them in the general
him.' performance of the functions of which they are the agents
that depend order, activity, and unity in the process of
the administration and in the direction of public affairs,
"This all-important precision Phich alo-

, which can a Government all its powers to do good,alone is not
imme-
diately obtained in the construction of anew constitution;
there are inveterate traditions which resist the most im-
perious applications of the principles which condemn
them, and of the necessities which transform them. PrO-
gress, in all things, is not attained in a day ; it is the
laborious and slow conquest of perseverance and time.
However adapted a constitution may be to the habits
and to the interests of the country of which it is the law,
however evident may appear the truth of its principles,
the new powers which it creates are always involun-
tarily drawn into borrowing something from the ancient
powers they have replaced. Before thoroughly under
standing the importance they must derive from the
functions proper to them, they endeavour to revive the
customs by which their predecessors had founded the
authority of their prerogatives.
" This is what hsppened with the senate in the applica-
tion of the constitution of the 15th of January, 1852.
The two charters of 1814 and 1830 had made the Cham-
ber of Peers simply a second Chamber of Deputies. With
a different origin, their functions were nearly the sanie.
Under that regime the two Assemblies which sat at the
Palais Bourbon and the Luxembourg were simply
the double representation of a Parliamentary oligarchy
in two branches, one of which pretended to represent
the people, the other the aristocracy ; but, in reality,
neither the one nor the other corresponded to the people,
which did not name its deputies, or to the higher classes,
which did not find in the peerage the reflection of their
power, of their traditions, and of their interests. The
actual constitution, on the contrary, distinctly separated
what the charters of 1814 and 1830 confounded. It de-
.
sired that each of the powers which it instituted should
' have an independent, so as to have a useful task. By
giving to the Emperor the authority and the responsibi-
lity of the Government it gave to all the agents charged
to second him, Ministers, Council of State, Legislative
Corps, and Senate, the different functions which, by a
catenation as simple as it is logical, allows each of them,
in his sphere of power and action, to take part in public
affairs, and to work for the order, greatness, and safety
of the country.
" This constitution, which is less the work of a man
than the work of experience and time, ordains, combines,
and defines all things in the simplest manner possible.
It gives to the executive power its independence and its
force, by associating the duty of governing to the privi-
lege of reigning. It makes the Ministers the direct
agents of the Crown, the highest and most honowred
auxiliaries of the Emperor's Sovereignty. By their side
it places the Council of State to second them, to solve
the difficulties of administration, to fix its principles, to
prepare and support the laws they propose. It gives to
the Legislative Corps the vote of the laws and taxes.
Finally, it concedes to the Senate the initiative, and
intrusts to it the guardianship of all the principles and
all the interests of which it is the embodiment and gua-
rantee.
" The intention of the legislator of 1852 is easily pene-
trated in this very simple mechanism, where everything
is managed to produce harmony from which order and
power result, and to prevent conflicts which give rise
to revolutions.
" The legislator of 1852 had, in fact, a double object
in view—the first, to free the Government from Parlia-
inentary tutelage, and to render the administration quick
and easy by leaving the management of affairs exclu-
sively to the Ministers ; the second, to create an inde-
pendent legislative body by having it appointed by uni-
versal suffrage, by assuring to it the most perfect liberty
of discussion in the vote of the laws and of the budget,
and by not admitting any public functionary into its
body. Only the constitution regulates the right of
amendment, and it takes from the Deputies to give to
the Senate the right of initiative, which was but too fre-
quently the sudden inspiration of party spirit and local
interest.
"An executive power strong enough to do good with-
out being impeded, a legislative power independent
enough to be useful without being dangerous—such is
the double problem which the constitution of 1854 pro-
posed to itself to solve.
"But, while the Ministers, absorbed by their daily
task, are incessantly occupied with the great interests of
the country, and while, seconded by the Council of State,
they provide for the wants of the administration and
legislation, another power exercises functions exclusive
of them, and gives to the Government the aid of its
wisdom and great experience ; that power is the Senate,
The constitution wished that there should be a body of
men matured by practice in the highest affairs, having
belonged, and still belonging, to the army, the magis-
tracy, politics, diplomacy, industry, science, and litera-
ture ; a permanent and independent body, which, in the
interval of its sessions, would have sufficient time to
travel through the country and gather information re-
specting its wants, and afterwards prepare projects of
law to meet them. It wished that by means of this local
investigation by each of its members, with the influence of
his position, this body should continually be able to en...,
lighten the Government on the moral and material state
of society. It wished, in a word, that the Senate should
be placed so high in the constitutional hierarchy, and in
a sort of independence towards the other powers and
towards the Government simply to point out with more
authority to the Emperor's solicitude all that may contri-
bute to the glory of his reign and to the progress of civi-
lisation.
"Has the Senate itself fully understood all the im-
portance of so high a mission ? Has it allowed itself,
perhaps, to be dominated by the souvenirs and customs
of the ancient Peerage ? Only similar things must be
compared. Now there is not any analogy between these
two institutions. If the Senate was only like the Peer-
age, a branch of the legislative power, it would have far
fewer prerogatives than that assembly, for it does not
possess, as it did, the right of discussing and voting the
laws. The Chamber of Peers can remodel the laws by
remodelling the speeches made at the Tribune of the
Palais Bourbon. But the Senate would be devoting it-
self to a fruitless labour, consequently one without autho-
rity, by discussing what it has not a right to change un-
less on grounds of unconstitutionality. Its task is limited
to verifying the general character of the projects sent to
it from the legislative body in the point of view of the
fundamental principles of which it is the guardian. Its
prerogatives are not those of the Peerage ; they are
different ; but they are far more numerous, more serious,
more elevated.
"The Senate is above all things a great political and
moral power. The legislator of 1852, in instituting it,
di ,1 not wish to make it the feeble image of another in-
stitution, which beeings to history. He wished to create
a body suited to the Government which he founded, and
to our social condition,_ such as it came forth from the
French Revolution. He gave to this body a part as ele-
vated as it is important. In regular and calm times it
may suggest all the great measures of public utility ; it
hears the petitions of the citizens ; it examinee the situa-
tion of the country ; it investigates its wants; it studies
the perfecting of its organisation ; it points out useful
reforms ; it proposes real improvements. In extraordi-
nary times it may, like the ancient Parliaments, stop
the ruling power when it goes satray ; it watches over
the safety of the country, the integrity of its territory,
over the respect for the national pact, over the mainten-
ance
of all the principles and all the interests of society.
"That this part may stand as high in the opinion of
the country as it has been made important and privileged
in the will of the author of the constitution, the Senate
has only to enter resolutely into the spirit of its high
mission. It depends upon itself to render its leisure time
more useful than were the labours of the assembly whose
place it occupies at the Luxembourg. It is, moreover,
with a calculated intention that the constitution of 1852
gave it time. Time is the study, the observation, the
reflection, the incessant investigation of everything
which the moral condition of the people requires, of its
welfare, of the interests of agriculture, of the develop
ments of labour and of credit, of the prosperity and
safety of France. Time for statesmen is the power to
seek the good, to discover it, to prepare it, to propose
it, to defend it, to accomplish it. Time is what was
wanting to Parliamentary assemblies, that which is still
wanting, and ever will be wanting to Ministers over-
whelmed with so many cares and responsibilities. What
greater strength could be given to an assembly which,
having the right of initiation, has the power to realise
all that is really useful ?
" Thus, to resume the description of the constitution,
the Emperor governs by means of his Ministers. These
latter have the Council of State as a vigilant fellow la-
bourer. A full and free control is exercised by the
Legislative Corps.
Finally, by the side of the Govern-
ment sits the Senate ; while all the other powers and the
Emperor himself are absorbed by the innumerable gees.
tions of each day, and by the immense cares of the home
and foreign policy, it never quits its task of observation
except to ascend to its task of high protection over all
the interests of society. A moderator of the government
if it becomes impetuous, an instigator if it slumbers, it
thus exercises an ever-active influence on its progress;
the support and council of the Throne, it brings to it,
with the tribute of its experience and the results of its
investigations, the means, always new, of doing good
and deserving the gratitude of the people."