The Sun.
London, England, 1856-09-27 00:00:00

correspondence" now going on on the sub-
ject be conducted with firmness on the part
of the Allies, seems likely to retain pos-
session of it. The British and Austrian Go-
vernments are said to be extreme'y indig-
nant at the bad faith of Russia—but what
right bad the former to look for anything else ?
and really Austria, however firm, should be as
mum as she can about the matter. The question
then being, as we fancy—shall Russia be per-
mitted by the aid of false maps to frustrate the
grand object the Allies had in view in this portion
of the Treaty, viz., her exclusion from the Danube,
or not ?—the nation will look with considerable
interest for the reply, and will hold the Govern-
ment responsible for its nature. Another blunder
may prove one too many.

Mr. COBDEN has a right, if he pleases, to tell
all the world what foolish spendthrifts his coun-
trymen are. Had we taken for two or three years
a course which the country would not follow, we,
too, might not have been unwilling to endeavour
to right ourselves, or at least to assert our persist-
ency in our creed, before all Europe. We must
bear with him, therefore, if he use a letter declin-
ing an invitation to the Brussels Free-Trade Con-
ference, as a peg on which to hang a diatribe
against the late war. He should, however, not
practise the vulgar fallacy of unexplained statistics
to those who may, perhaps, forget to look beyond
his figures. The years 1854 and 1855 showed
some falling off in our exports, say, together,
about four or five millions ; this year the exports
of the first seven months will fully attain to what
might have been expected from the average annual
increase since the inauguration of Free Trade.
If all goes on as it has (lone, we may export about
twelve or fourteen millions more than we did
during the years of war. " Observe," says Mr.
COBDEN, in one of his sly parentheses, " observe
the upward rebound of the present year of peace."
Now, we always respect the parentheses of a
careful thinker, and suspect those of an advocate.
Your exact man, cannot write without giving the
qualifications of his statements ; hence they increase
his credibility with thoughtful readers like him-
self. Very different is their use in the hand of
the partisan. He suggests to you in his paren-
theses what he would prefer not to attempt to
prove. Now, Mr. COBDEN willingly overlooks two
facts, though one of them stares him in the face
in his own table. In the year 1848, the third of
Free Trade, our exports fell off six millions, from
the previous year, and the next year advanced

about eleven, millions. To any one quoting figures
to deduce truth from them, this surely was worth
attention. It showed that the fallings-off and
" cebounds" of commerce are not necessarily de-
pendent upon war and peace.
As to the smaller falling off and rebound to
which Mr. COBDEN' refers, the singular and notori-
ous fact is that these fallings off were in the Aus-
tralian and United States trade, which was
surely unaffected by the war, at least were more
than accounted for by our diminished exports to
those quarters, while any difference in our trade
with Russia was much more than compensated by
those which went to various parts of the East (in-
dependently of war stores), and to India also.
Mr. COBDEN was fully cognisant of these facts ;
and bow, then, could he honestly imply that a
state of war and a state of peace were the cause
of the deficiency and the rebound ? The truth is,
that never did a war interfere so little with com-
merce as this "foolish, just, and necessary war."
We strongly incline to think, however, that had

the wit whom Mr. COMDEX quotes been living

now, he would have laid the folly at the right
door—or doors. One fool would certainly have
been the man who began thewar; and SIDNEY SMITH
would have thought it, we apprehend, the opposite
of wisdom for England to pule about a peace policy
till the fool, more ambitious of territory and
power than of exports, thought that no European
injustice, no prospective injury to our position,
would induce England to fight.
Europe, however, well knows that if Mr. Coa -
DEN retains his opinion, so does his country hers.
It was indeed no groat compliment to the under-
standing of the delegates, or of any one else, to
moot the question whether " Free Trade were
responsible for the nation's misuse of its wealth."
We know not who in his senses holds a man's
mode of conducting his business responsible for
the use ho makes of the money he earns by it.
Some will spend it in pleasure or speculation, or
even in gambling ; some will extend their business
with it ; some will invest it in land or the Three
per Cents., and retire ; and some will spend much
of it on humane and philanthropic objects. It
was, in fact, on the last that the •ountry spent
its money. Statesmen, and Princes, and Courts,
we know, had baser designs, but nit those who
had earned the wealth by free trade. They had
noble and elevated objects in view. They were
sick at heart with the succumbing of all Courts to
the great Despot of the North. They groaned
over the wrongs of Poland and of Hungary, and
of Italy too ; and had not the COBDEN clique com-
bined with Louis NAPOLEON and Austria to stop
the war, another year might have seen Scandi-
navia encircling the Baltic, Poland eta Incipated,
Hungary asserting its rights, and Italy standing
on its feet. The nation sees the folly only of
those who at the beginning and the end converted
a just and necessary war into one of " foolish "
results.

Desirous as the substantial metropolitan house-
holder has very properly shown himself to have
reduced to a minimum the temptation which in
the guise of "cold meat" has so often led the
nocturnal policeman to a temporary deviation from
his beat, he may not unfairly be called upon to
show such desire.arose from no animosity to the
force by lending his voice to the removal cf a
cause of temptation of a very different nature, but
likely to be attended with the same effect. In
our impression of Wednesday the reader might
observe a report from Dr. LETIIEBY to the Com-
missioners of Sewers, from which it appeared the
sworn defenders of the peace in the region of
Whitefriars are subjected to what they not unjustly
designate "a terrible nuisance." While pursuing,
more particularly in the silence of the night, the
by no means " oven tenour of their way," their
nostrils, it seems, are assailed by a disgusting and
injurious stench, so much so as to cause them to
feel sick and sometimes to vomit, which effects
are followed by a falling away of their strength
and condition to an extent which, it is said, ne-
cessitates their removal elsewhere. We have but
to name the foes malorum to convey the assurance
that there is no exaggeration in the above state-
ment. It is the City of London Gas Works,
which, doubtless to the surprise of all provincials,
are situate in the very centre of London, and, as
in a crowded locality.
a necessary inference,

The noxious fumes, we are told, are evolved
in the process of purificltion, which the great
artificial source of light in our cities requires. In
conducting this process the company, it would
appear, have manifested no indisposition to ren-
der it as little offensive as the appliances of science
would enab'e them ; on the contrary, everything
they could do, we are told, has been done, and
the only result of the newest process recommended