The Sun.
London, England, 1856-09-03 00:00:00

THE SUN D , IV

index of national prosperity. It is on that the
Russian financier mainly relies, and we give him
all the credit to which he is justly entitled under
such a state of affairs. There is, at least, this
difference between the pecuniary afflirs
of England and Holy Russia. In this
country the people are the creditors of the State ;
in Russia they are the debtors. We are
grievously oppressed by taxation, but there is
some redeeming feature in the case ; but there
they have not only to pay the general imposts,
but usurious interest on sums long since expended,
and levied with a " forty-bill broker power." We
cannot, therefore, greatly envy the position either
of the national debtor or the national eiditor in
Russia, or believe that every prospect of the
AUTOCRAT, even at the time of his corona-
tion, is altogether couleur de rose. We
should at least advise our compatriots to
make further inquiries before they part; with
their hard cash, as investments on any Russian
securities, whether public; or private. We do
not appeal to their patriotism, for, unfortunately,
we know that such an argument is but little at-
tended to on the Stock Exchange?.; but let them
closely button their pockets, and not unloose their
purse strings, unless thoroughly acquainted with
the reason why.

Austria rejoices at the castigation (1) adminis-
tered by its favourite pupil, 80N1A.3 to the Eng-
lish Government. According to its official organs
Ireland is in a worse plight than Italy or Hun-
gary. The gallows still groans under its victims,
and the unfortunate inhabitants are suffering
under oppression in its most intolerable forms I
We are, therefore, notwithstanding all our toady-
ism to the "Red Emperor," all our patient wait-
ing for Austria, told to pluck the beam from our
own eye before we attempt to notice the mot*
obscuring the Neapolitan vision. We have no
right to interfere—we must adopt the non-inter-
vention policy, or expect a fearful retaliation.
The twin despots will unsparingly stick atthe sore
point the raw that has been so long established.
But, to use a homely but expressive illustration,
" What is sauce for the (British) goose may also
be sauce for the German gander." If Austria is so
very indignant at the British interference, why
does she not take her own foot out "of the b3ot ?"
She has surely no right to occupy neighbouring
territories and to dictate to their nominal rulers.
Why should she b 3 paramo ant throuflio-at
Italy, save in Piedmont, thc solitary oasis in the
political desert ? Why should she dictate to the
Tuso m, Modenese, and Papal governments, and en-
courage BOMB A. in his reckless course while afl3cting
to rebuke and admonish his intemperance ?
We fear that no plausible excuse can be put for-
ward for such duplicity and turpitude. Austria,
though " ever strong upon the strongest side,"
and resolute to save herself harmless from any
cAnplication, knows how to use minor tools which
she can set aside at any moment whenever it may be
possible to share largely in the spoils of the " sick
men" whose illness she has fostered.

The game may be very cunning, but it is
neither very wise nor politic. There are "talis-
manic words," the utterance whereof would
drive the ruler over such heterogeneous eleuents,
to despair. When "Hungary, Lombardy, Poland"
are proclaimed, trumpet-tongued, from the British
Isles, the intriguers of Vienna will be silence.].
A golden opportunity has been disregarded, thanks
to the secret and unconstitutional influence pre•
vailing in Diwning-strcet. But even that will
not suffice to procure impunity for Imperial cri-
minals, err to silence the groans of oppressed and
long-suffering nationalities. Let the Cabinet of
Vienna look at home before it permits its organs
to echo the howls of infuriated depots. Lct it
strive to asc,:Ttain whether the Neapolitan charges
are well founded—to learn whether the state of
Ireland is indeed so very deplorable, before it
joins in the cWcry. A little accurate information
would be peculiarly beneficial, inasmuch as it
would prevent it from becoming ridiculous in the
eyes of assembled Europe.

M. Da Li GUERRON I ERIE has found a rival iu
M. GABILIEL HUGE'LIi A NN. Vet the Apologist of
the Madrid d'etat of 1856 cannot be slid to
have revealed any great skill in the art of white-
washing. Marshal O'DONNELL comes out of the
scrubbing like the blackarnoor in the old ApJlogice.
Glistening, even, it :seems to us with a darker
blocs than ever—now that his "deeds of datk-
ness" have been glossed over so unctuously by the
" Directeur" of the Journal de Madrid ! To
paraphrase a jocose panegyric once pronounced by
BoA upon one of the drollest creations of WASH-
INGTON IRVING, to wit, Mr. TAM Ern —" His
shame deepened into an immortal blackness, and
his crime lacquered with an uadying glazl." It
is so with the crime and the shame of O'DONNELL
—lately the Oataline Conspirator, not the military
Dictator of the Peninsula. It is so literally with
his crime and his shame—now that they are both
simultaneously presented to us under the magni-
fying influence of that ingenious political micro-
scope, Hu*ELYANN'S daring and 11 Igitious
brochure.* "L'Espagne et ses °venom 2nt9." A
pamphlet openly violating it famous moral of
Shaksperian advice—much being set down in ma-
lice and a great deal extenuated, or attempted to
be extenuated. M. LIUGEL3IA.NN--.O'DON NELL'S
Pugleman he should more rightly be callel—has
penned these xxii. chapters, or 217' pages octavo,
he tells us himself almost boastfully in " two
days"—boastfully ho says this, oblivious of the
time-honoured aphorism incubative of the truth
of "more haste" being " worse speed," or of
that little dog's eared scrap of latinity hinting
pretty much the same thing by means of the
simple phrase featina lente I According to our
veracious pamphleteer, who was an eye-witness (he
takes particular occasion to remind us) of what
occurred in the late sanguinary struggle in the
streets of the Spanish capital the Duke of
'VICTORY is ungrateful, the present Government
is element, white is black, black is white, every-
thing, in short, is absolutely topsyturvy at Madrid,
Mon and Measures, Administrators and Admini-
strations. The absurdity of all this would be really
laughable, but that it is at the same time most
heinously criminal : it would be ludicrous, but
that it is also replete with atrocity. Why, for a
Spaniard to traduce ESPARTERO it is hardly less
infamous than it would be for a Frenchman to
traduce Liatkorrum. Not quite so infamous, of
course, as that would be--but very nearly. Es-
I'ARTERO "ungrateful "---ESPARTERO the magna-
nimous victim of so much ingratitude ! O'Dols.-
MILL " dement''—O'DOXllßLL, the heartless and
pitiless conspirator, who dragged a precious dia-
dem through the blood and dust of a street-fight,
and—" put it in his pocket 1" " Voici," ex-
claims M. HITGEL3IA.NN, with astounding com-
placency, after distorting the heroic patriotism of
the butchered citizens of Madrid into something
little short of revolutionary incendiarism—c( void
le recit du combat, tel quo je l'ai publie dane les
colonnes du Journal de Madrid " Apparently
quite unconscious that all the while this same
Journal de Madrid, by giving to the world such

* " L'Espagne et ace Derniers .Evenentents. Par M,
Gabriel Hugelmanu, Directeur du Journal de Madrid.'
Pp, 217, evo. Paris ; Locloye. 1556.

execrable falsities, was winning for itself an evil
reputation only comparable to that acquired
during the late War by the audacious Journal de
St. Petersburg.