The Sun.
London, England, 1856-01-22 00:00:00

GENERAL AFTER ORDER.

Head Quarters, Sehastopol, Jan. 1, 1856.
The Commander of the F.,rces has received, by order
of Field-Marshal Viscount Hardinge, a copy of resolu-
tions ac4reed to at a public np.etieg in Llndon. They
have reference to Miss Nightingale and those ladies
who were with her in the hospitals of this army.
The resolutions were in substance :
" That the noble exertions of Miss Nightingale and
her associates in the hospitals of the East, and the in-
valuable services rendered by them to the sick and
wounded of the British forces, demand the grateful re-
cognition of the British people.
" That, as she does not wish to accept any tribute for
her own personal advantage, funds be raised to enable
her to establish an institution for the training, suste-
nance, and protection of nurses and hospital attendants.
"That all classes be invited to contribute."
Field-Marshal Viscount Hardinge has wished that all
ranks of the army be afforded the opportunity of contri-
buting towards this fund. This can easily be done by
company officers being requested to read this order to
non-commissioned officers and men, and to take upon
r themselves the honourable trouble of collecting whatever
is given by them freely and of their own accord.
There would be no value in any such offering from
the army were it not free and spontaneous.
Last year, instead of the Christmas we have now
passed in abundance, in health, and in Krength, we bad
difficulties, we had sickness, we had sad mortality. It
was during these days of trial that our wounded and our
suffering comrades were helped by the exertions and the
devoted earnestness of Miss Nightingale and the ladies
who accompanied her.

All must have heard, many of this army must have
then seen, have known, have benefited by, their kind-
ness and care in Our hospitals ; for they flinched not
from their high duty in the midst of sufferings difficult
to be relieved, and of pain impossible to prevent.
It is to do honour to such disinterested good that we are
asked to assist ; and the money will be devoted to the
continuance of these benefits to others, by which we
ourselves have well profited.
The commander of the forces will give to this fund
ono day's pay, on the 6th January, 1856 ; and generals
of divisions and heads of departments will be good enough
to faeilitate any similar voluntary contributions from
officers, non-commissioned officers, and men. The
amount to be general, by division staff, by regiments,
and by departments, to be received by paymasters, and
notified to the military secretary —By order.
(Signed) C. A. WINDHAM, Chief of the Staff.
Twelfth-day was appointed for the collection to
be made throughout the whole army. The amounts
are to be collected in hard cash, which will be paid
into the commissariat chest, and a bill for the money
will be given on the Horn Treasury.
The following committee in the Crimea now re-
ceives and remits subscriptions to England :
Attjor-General Lord W. Paulet, C.B.
Colonel Wilbraham,' C. B.
Staff Surgeon Dr. Hadlpy.
Captain Jasper Hall, A.D.C.
Rev. E. Parker.
Asst.-Com.-General R. Routh.
H. Whiffin, Esq., Ordnance Paymaster.

THE BOILER EXPLOSION AT LEA BROOK.--The ifl2
quest on the bodies of the men, Michael Gannon, Ed wd.
Powell, and Wm. Hubbard, who were killed by the late
explosion of a boiler at Lea Brook, Staffordshire, took
place yesterday before Mr. Hinchcliffe, coroner. An-
other man, James Hickman, has died since the adjourn-
ment on Wednesday, making 5 deaths from the accident.
Mr. Brough, a Government inspector of mines, was pre-
sent, and questioned the witnesses with a view to elicit
the cause of the accident. Amon, the facts it was stated
by a witness that at the time when the boiler exploded
there wa4 a pressure of 351 b. per inch upon it, which the
witness said was an extraordinary weight. The inquiry
was not concluded when our report was scat off •

A RUSSIAN VI-ATV OF RUSSIA'S 1
SUBMISSION.

The Nord publishes the following article :
" Will it still be pretended that Russia is the ' make-
bate' of Europe ; that it is Russia that wished for war ?
It i> scarcely 43 hours since we said that Russia, listen-
ing to the unanimous wishes of Europe—which, anxious, ;
timid, and foreseeing terrible calamities in the prolonga-
tion of the war implored peace from her—would not
turn a deaf ear to that plaintive voice of humanity, and
would make sacrifices with the most noble self-denial.
We said so frankly, convinced that we were right, and
we have not been deceived. But we should be deceiv-
ing our readers, and showing ourselves unworthy of the
confidence with which we always sought to inspire them,
should we pretend that Russia only accepted the propo- ;
sitions of peace made to her to please Europe.
"It is not for us to develope this argument, for it
would not satisfy us, and, thank Heaven, we are inde-
pendent enough to say what we think. Truly, a Power
like Russia should never lose sight of the wishes and
interests of Europe. She ought to know, at a pinob, I
how to sacrifice her welfare to the happiness of ethers.
But there is a limit to all things, even to generosity,
even to self-denial. Who would believe it, even if we
state it, that Russia has just sacrificed her interests to
those of Europe, and that she has shown herself more
European than Russian? No one. And we ourselves
—we own it—we would not believe it.
"We shall therefore be more sincere, and we shall be ;
the more readily believed when we say that Russia only
accepted the propositions made to her because it was her
interest to do so, because she ought to do so ; and we
will say why.

" Every impartial, loyal, and just-minded man must
own that since the commencement of the war Russia
was always desirous of peace, and that it always slipped
through her fingers because she was never allowed to
conclude it. This time she found herself in more ad-
vantageous conditions to obtain her object. After the
heroic defence of Sebastopol the efforts of her adversa-
ries to seize upon the Crimea failed before the immense
obstacles opposed to them by the Russians, and in Asia,
where she took the offensive, she achieved a great suc-
cess by the capture of Kars.
" In this position, and still in her full vigour, Russia
could await, yet desire peace. She herself made the
first propositions, and when those of the allies reached
her through the medium of Austria she did not hesitate
to accept them, for, with a trifling difference, they were
nearly the same which had received her assent at the
Vienna conferences. One point only presented itself ,
for the first time, and seemed to have been purpc,sely la-
sei ted to prevent once more the work of peace.
"Already, on her first refusal, which, however, was
not a categorical refusal, Austria evinced an inclination
to break off her relations with Russia, and to increase
the complications of the war, while at London men ex-
ulted at beholding Russia once more fall into the snare.
She might, in fact, find the whole of Europe arrayed
against her, which the force of circumstances and a com-
plication of insidious engagements would have reduced,
even against its will, t 9 that hard extremity. It was
here that the real enemies of Russia laid wait for her; it
is for this result that England laboured. Russia has
upset their calculations, and she has done well.
"But we maintain that it was her duty to do so on
another ground, which refers to the future—a word
which a great power must never lose sight of in its most
grave resolutions. What, is, in fact, the real cause of
the war ? What is the motive of this general universal
mistrust into which the very friends of Russia have been _
driven ? The cause is that which all the most solemn de-
clarations of Russia have not been able to annul, and
which would always have existed as long as no positive
and, so to say, material proof has been brought forward
to contradict it ; it is th© idea that the dream of the am-
bition of Russia was the conquest of Constantinople.
However absurd, ridiculous, contrary to the most patent
facts was such a misconception, nevertheless it was so
widely spread—it had struck such deep root in public
opinion—that it would always have been an immense
and most disadvantageous obstacle to Russia. Her ad-
versaries, therefore, put a syllogism to her, which, al-
though coning from an enemy, had, nevertheless, a
certain value.

"If you are sincere (they said) in your protestations
not to wish to seize upon Turkey, why not at one blow
demolish that terrible supposition, which, rightfully or
wrongfully, will always be suspended over your head, by
ceding to the Porte a small tract of land which brings
you in nothing, and which is of no possible use to you
except for the invasion of the Ottoman empire ! The '
day upon which you make that material concession all
Europe will believe that you do not follow the dreams of
aggrandisement attributed to you ; it will do store—it
will own that it was in error.
" faith to Russia has just given this material proof of goEOV,
Europe, and in giving it she exclaims, 'Do
believe me now !'

•
" Russia has therefore destroyed at one blow the im-
mense distrust which exists on all sides against her, and
the snare about to be again laid for her too great suscep-
tibility by the hatred of those who regard the present
war less as a political than as a national one."

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