The Sun.
London, England, 1860-01-13 00:00:00

never yet been once seriously played out. Just as
we have appeared to be on the eve of arriving at
some definite and comprehensible result—
just as we have been preparing to count
up the score and to balance the difference, to see
who had made the tricks and who had won the
honours—the cards were shuffled together con-
fusedly. It turned out to have been from the first a
mis-deal, or some important player having revoked
in some dubious manner, had thrown all the preced-
ing play into inextricable confusion, and made all
the past just count for nothing. Are we to have
the same irritating, tantalising, distracting, mad-
dening spectacle all over again ? Are we, once
more, in this matter of Reform, to begin from th•
beginning, without the smallest reasonable prospect
before us, of bringing the question to a
satisfactory settlement ? We are certain to
have the " dangling" cherry bobbed before us
again in the Speech from the Throne—but will the
tempting morsel, save in a metaphorical sense, be
swallowed ? Is JOIIN BULL at length to get a bite
of it, to snatch the merest nibble ? If not—if
really and truly he is not even now, in 1860, to
taste the flavour of Reform, now that the power
of giving it is again in the hands of the Liberals
of all shades and colours—the Reformers of every
political denomination, Whigs, Peelites, Radicals,
in effect (and to sum up all in one
phrase), the present motley Coalition Government,
or Omnium Gatherum Administration—if we say
JOHN does not at last really and in earnest obtain
Reform from them he is certain to recollect one
Fact and to act upon it ! He is certain to remem-
ber that while the Whigs and their associates, old
and new, have over and over again usque ad nauseam
been promising a Reform Bill without ever actually
giving it—the Tories introduced a substantial Re-
form Bill ONCE—namely, last year—and were only
prevented from carrying it through both Houses
in the form of a bold and sweeping
enactment—by the dog-in-the-manger policy, by
the petty spiteful intrigue, by the paltry political
dodge of their Whig antangonists ! We repeat
—in the remembrance of these Parliamentary and
Ministerial incidents Unless the Whigs and
their associates really do at length in
veritable earnest put their shoulders to the
wheel, by giving us a Reform Bill worthy of
the name of a Reform BiII—JOHN BULL, through
his true representatives, the little band of Indepen-
dents in the House of Commons, who are in truth
honest Reformers, and not mere shuffling partizans,
will act accordingly !

The world-famous light cavalry charge at Bala-
klava has just been repeated by the Spaniards,
upon a small scale, upon the frontiers of the em-
pire of Morocco. An order has again been mis-
understood. The officer bearing it has again ut-
tered a petulant word of command, the fmce of
which, in the confusion of the moment, appears to
have been exaggerated, if not, indeed, altogether
misapprehended. Sir RICHARD AIREY has his
counterpart yonder, a little in advance of Ceuta—
Captain NOLAN his—the Earls of LUCAN
and CARDIGAN theirs—with a difference. Ac-
cording to the graphic account given by
an eye-witness, writing fresh from his recollec-
tions of the scene to the chief of our morning con-
temporaries, " Some Moorish cavalry were seen
(for a while, on the fatal day), but they
kept aloof. The Hussars had made one
little charge, when an aide-de-camp of General
PRIM'S rode up to them, and gave them an order
which appears not to have been clearly understood.
The story has been variously related," adds the
Times' correspondent, " but I believe the aide-de-
camp has cleared himself, and the whole thing has
been shown to have been an unfortunate mistake,
As he was leaving them he said something about
their charging freely when they saw a chance; that
the Moors were cowards, and would not stand. The
commandant of the Hussars misunderstood the
words, and thought the term cowards' applied to
his men. This, at least, was the impression made
on one captain whom I saw and heard, immediately
after the charge, as he returned reeking with sweat
and with bloody sabre, relating it, with marks of
furious indignation, to an officer of the Staff. The
immediate consequence of the misunderstanding
was that the commanding officer ordered a charge,
and away went his handful of Hussars through
the enemy's skirmishers and up a narrow and slightly
ascending valley, or rather gorge, leading from the
level to a secluded plateau on the lower slopes
of the mountain, where the Moorish camp was
pitched." The result of such an insensate course of
proceeding may be readily conjectured. But the
consequences are in no way left to mere conjecture,
when it is added that the Spanish "infantry was
not yet well advanced," while it is observed imme-
diately after "a considerable force of Moors were still
in and around the camp, and from the heights on
either side of the confined lists in which this despe-
rate contest was entered upon a severe fire was
opened upon the Hussars, who continued their
furious career until they reached the camp itself.
Of what passed there," writes the correspondent in
continuation, "one can get but confused accounts.
The Moors, although surprised by the sudden
appearance of this very forlorn hope, quickly re-
' covered from their panic, and the cavalry suffered
severely." All that they brought back from this
charge down that new Valley of Death appears to
have been, oddly enough, besides their wounds and
their glory—a bundle of papers ! "The nature of
which," quoth the eye-witness, "I have not yet
been able to learn." As a significant token of the
barbarous nature of the conflict with the soldiers
of Morocco, we read—" One wounded officer fell
into the hands of the Moors, who busied themselves
with taking off his uniform, which they doubtless
thought worth preserving. He was brought
away half naked, by his comrades, who charged
to rescue him." And again—" Another officer
was brought back with his face and neck
cut to pieces. lam assured that he had at
least a dozen cuts from the Moorish gundas—
straight short swords, which they grind very
sharp." Now read the follow ng, and say if the
words are not identically the same as those we
all of us perused half-a-dozen years ago in regard
to that desperate light cavalry charge down the
deadly valley of Balaklava! " Most of the wounds
received were front the flank fire, as they rode to and
from the camp. The affair was a most unfortunate
one, but at the same time highly creditable to the
gallantry ( f the 71 ussars." It might be a verbati,n
description of the glorious but lamentable feat of
arms perfozmed by our own Hussars—the deathless
Six Hundred, sung in Tyrtean accents by the
thrilling voice of the Poet Laureate. With reason
has it been written long ago that History is but a
series of repetitions.

The social philosophers who employ themselves
in the consideration of the workings of our national
system, usually direct much of their attention to
the relative positions of employers and employed.
They consider justly that no other branch of poli•
tical economy so greatly affects the welfare and
prosperity of the nation. Such reasoners will find
much to interest them in the subject of a lecture
delivered last evening by Mr. BLANCIIARD JERROLD,
at the Marylebone Literary Institution. The