The Sun.
London, England, 1856-10-09 00:00:00

ROBBERIES BY FRENCH SOLDIERS.

The French law punishes with excessive severity any
soldier who may commit a robbery, however petty, in a
house in which be is billeted. On Tuesday the military
tribunal tried a soldier of the 61st Regiment, named
Renard, fur having taken a pair of embroidered slippers
from a public-house in the Department of the Yonne, to
which he was assigned in the course of a march with a
small detachment. The man did not deny having taken
the slippers ; indeed they were found on his feet by the
innkeeper, who on missing them rode after him ; but he
said that finding them placed by his bedside on getting
up in the morning, he bad supposed that the hostess, on
whom he flattered himself he had made a favourable im-
pression, had presented them to him, and that at all
events he had taken them as a simple souvenir without
the slightest intention of stealing them. The tribunal
told the man that he had rendered himself liable to ten
years' hard labour in irons, but that, taking an indulgent
view of the case, it would only sentence him to five
years' imprisonment.
The military tribunal of Paris on Tuesday tried a soldier
of the Army Works Corps, named Gatherot, for robbery.
He formed part of a detachment stationed in Fort Va-
lerien, and on the 12th August last he went with three
comrades to a wine shop at Suresnes. There the four
men drank eight quarts of white wine, and whoa they
came to pay the score Gatherot avowed that he had only
lf. 15c. A little after, however, he took his three
comrades to a cafe in the village, and to their surptit.e
treated them liberally. After they had left the wine-
shop, the landlord discovered that three pieces of 51.
and about sf. in small coin had been stolen from his till,
and he communicated his loss to a corporal who hap-
pened to come in. The corporal went after the four
men, and finding that Gatherot had treated the others at
the cafe, he asked him where had got the money ; be
answered that a friend, named Etienne, of Paris, had
lent him a piece of 201. It was, however, stated teat it
was not with a piece of gold that he had paid in the
cafe, and on searching him the corporal foiled that he
had on him two pieces of 51. and some small coin, which,
with what be had paid, made up about 20f. The cor-
poral insisted that be should take him to the M. Etienne
referred to, in order that that person might declare
whether or not he had made any loan of 20f. ; but, on
arriving in Paris, Gatherot requested the corporal to go
alone to Etienne, whilst he waited for him at a cafe.
The corporal went to Etienne, who told him that he had
not lent the prisoner any money for a long time ; and on
returning to the cafe the corporal found that Gatherot
had left for Rouen. The man was subsequently arrested
in that city, and he confessed that he bad robbed the
Keeper of the wine shop, but promised to repay what he
stole—a promised which he afterwards kept. The Court
• sentenced him to a year's imprisonment.

TURKISH NOTE ON TIIE ISLES OF TEE

DANUBE.

The Nord, of Brussels, publishes the following
new diplomatic document from the pen of Ferad
Pacha, Minister of the Foreign Affairs of the Sub-
lime Porte. The note is addressed to the minis-
ters of the Sultan at the courts of the Great Powers,
arid is dated August 8:
Sir,--At the Congress of Paris, when the works to be
executed at the mouth.of the Danube were under discus-
sion, the Ottoman plenipotentiaries stated that the Sub
lime Porte would willingly make the advances demanded
for those works. This declaration is registered in the
Protocol of the 27th March, No. 10 ; and immediately
after the exchange of the ratifications of the Treaty of
Paris, the Imperial government hastened to carry it into
execution by sending a dredging machine to the Saliva
mouth, and a steamboat to assist in clearing the chan-
nel, and
Iby establishing a lighthouse for the security of
the navigation. The commencement of carrying out
these preparatory improvements, which ought to be fol-
lowed by such as may be deemed necessary by the
European commission, was at the same time a formal
taking possession of the mouths and islands of the
Danube, which fell back to it of right.
The Sublime Porte never had, and cannot have,
doubts as to its rights, or the intentions of its allies, in
respect to the islands of the 'Danube and their direct
ownership. If the question is now reverted to, it is to
render it more clear, and to scatter the slightest doubt
that may remain on the point.
The stipulations of the Treaty of Paris fix new fron-
tiers between the Ottoman empire and Russia on the
Bessarabian side. One part of that province is restored
to Turkey and annexed to Moldavia. . But the islands
of the Danube cannot belong to that class, but must fall
under a special and separate rule.
-The territory that obe annexed to Moldavia is a
portion of Bessarabia that was formerly part of the Mol-
davian principality, and was ceded to Russia by the
Treaty of BuCharest in 1812.
The islands of the Danube, which never formed part
of Bessarabia, were placed under the regime by which
they were ruled, prior to the late war, by the Treaty of
Adrianople, in 1829, and that regime differed essentially
from the Rassian administration of the other bank of the
river. That treaty even bound Russia not to raise any
fortification, and to build no other than quarantine estab-
lishments. Thus the islands at the mouth of the Danube
never formed part of Moldavia, and the period of their
cession demonstrates that they were not ceded to Russia
with Bessarabia as a part of that province.
A part of Bessarabia returns to Turkey, and it is to be
annexed to Moldavia in virtue of the stipulations of the
Treaty of Paris, whilst the return of these islands to their
former state of things issues from another principle.
The cancelling of the Treaty of Adrianople, putting an
end to the domination of Russia, restores them to their
ancient possessor. The same principle that cancels the
neutrality of the right bank of the St. Creorge's Channel
restores these islands to Turkey, from which they had
been detached.

The treaty of the 30th March speaks only of that part
of Bessarabia which is ceded by Russia. Art. 20 fixes
the new frontier between the Ottoman empireand Russia.
Art.2l says that "the territory ceded by Russia shal
be annexed to the principality of Moldavia, for the suze-
rainty of the Sublime Porte. The inhabitants of that
territory shall enjoy the rights and privileges assured to
the Principalities, and they shall be allowed for three
years to change their domicile elsewhere with the power
of freely disposing of their property."
The spirit of this last article makes it easy to compre-
hend that the annexation to Moldavia of the territory
ceded by Russia applies only to Bessarabia, and not to
the islands in the embouchure ; for, speaking of the in
habitants of the ceded territory, the treaty evidently ex-
cludes the inhabited islands from the circle of territory
that is to be annexed to Moldavia. If the contracting
Powers desired to give the islands to the Moldavian
principality, the treaty should have so expressed it in an
express clause.
The declaration of our plenipotentiaries at the Paris
Conference, embodied in the protocol without any obser-
vation on the part of the Congress, confirms the return
of the mouths of the Danube to the direct ownership of
Turkey. It promises the discharge of a duty in return
fora right recovered.

The -condition in which the islands at the mouth now
are the spirit of the treaty itself, and this declaration of
taking possession—a declaration accepted by the con-
gress—will be evidence of the intentions of our allies as
to the future condition of the mouths of the Danube.
In stipulating for the restitution of Bessarabia to Mol-
davia,, they undoubtedly had no intention of wronging
Turkey by depriving her of what rightfully returned to
her, to unite it to a province having no claim to it.
Our august allies must have recollected the blood
shed at Oltenitza, Kalafat, and Silistria.
The object aimed at by Europe in stipulating for the
restitution of the mouths of the Danube was the freedom
of that river. It is plainly evident that the best means
of attaining that object is to place thetn-again in tlaa
hands of the legitimate proprietor.

As we have said above, the Sublime Porte, never hav-
ing conceived any doubt as to its right or the intentions
of its allies, took possession of the Delta of the Danube
by beginning to carry out improyetnents. It exerciNes
that right by discharging its duty for the interest of the
whole world.

You are desired, sir, to offer these reflections and ex-
planations to the court to which you are accredited, by
affording a perusal of this despatch.

THE RUSIAN POST-OFFICE AND TELEGRAPH.

Various persons (says a correspondent from Moscow)
have shown me letters just delivered to them which had
manifestly been opened before their delivery and after
their postage. There was one such I saw on Friday,
addressed to an Englishman in the same hotel with me ;
it had been fastened first by the gum of the adhesive
envelope, and secondly by wax. To open the gum or a
wafer, without tearing the paper, nothing but humidity
is necessary, and for wax heat ; but for both together
both moisture and heat are required, and required simul-
taneously. Steam affords the only adequate process.
The letter in question had evidently been subjected thus
to the action of a powerful jet of hot vapour, all about
the juncture of the envelope. This had been done with
defiant carelessness, for the whole of the part I have
mentioned was still damp, distende I, creased, and limp
with the process ; while instead of the seal which the
addresses expected, there was a rude blotch of wax,
stamped crosswise with the back of a knife, as it seemed.
In general, the seal is copied before the steam is applied;
the letter is placed, face downwards, on a block of
soft lead, into which the impression is struck by one
smart blow of a broad steel hammer, made for the
purpose. But in the case to which I allude, no such
pains had been taken. All persons, besides, tell me that
nothing can be more wayward than the delivery of letters
and papers sent to them from their countries ; a portion
is all they ever see. But you may say this is only ex-
perience at second hand, what is your own ? Well, on
Friday there came to me a letter from home, calling
itself the eleventh which the same writer had despatched
to me, and it was only the fourth which I had received
from that writer. At Moscow, when you prepay a letter,
they give you a receipt for the money you disburse ; at
St. Petersburg, never. It will have some relation to this
subject to mention what occurred to me with respect to
a telegraphic message which I wanted to send, just be-
fore leaving Moscow. The telegraph office for foreign and
distant places is in the Kremlin, under the palace ; that
for St. Petersburg is at the railway station. After the
rain-pelted festivities of the 20th at Hadinka, I proceeded
to the Kremlin with a certain message which I wished
to send you. This was on Saturday evening. The clerk,
after a moment's consulation with another person, told
me that they had upwards of a hundred despatches, and
could not undertake to send my message that day. Could
I return to-morrow ? To-morrow I was going to St.
Petersburg. He advised me to apply at the office there.
On my arrival at St. Petersburg I proceeded with my
message to the telegraph office, in Galernoi. The clerk
read it, carefully counting the words, which, including
the address, were 89 in number. He then read the rues-
sage a second time, looking up here and there at me
with an uneasy and even startled expression. After this
he said quietly, "Thirty-five silver roubles." "And
when will the message be delivered in London ?"asked I,
baking out the money. "Ah ! that I cannot say, "How!
cannot say? But yet you can take the 35 silver roubles. I
suppose you know for what they are paid ?" He immedie
ately began to expatiate on the number of despatches
they had to forward, and said, with a confused look,
that, if I would pay for the message and leave it, he had
no doubt that, in a day or two, it would be expedited.
I begged him to tell me frankly *Mather there was any-
thing in the message itself which would prevent it being
sent. Ho answered, "No ; oh no ;" but with such a
guilty look, that I repeated my question more earnestly,
promising that, if I requested them to forward it at all,
I would mysdlf erase anything that might be disliked.
Upon this he took the slip of paper into an inner room,
and when lie reappeared he told me the chief would
speak to me. About two minutes elapsed, when this
functionary came, holding my- message. He was ex-
ceedingly civil. He pointed out two passages, and
said it would be better if I erased them. "These
things will be known in the end," he remarked, "but
to mention them now would cloud over a joyous mo-
ment." Now here is my message, word for word as I
wrote it :—" St. Petersburg, September 22.—Deux
cent mille paysans dinerent ensemble, sainedi, pres
Hadinka, is neuf heuses, aux frais de l'Empereur. A
midi, qnatre cent tale curieux s'y rassemblerent pour
voir un festin gulls ne savient pas etre deja fini. II
tombait des torrents de pluie. Deux personnes furent
ecrasees. Le banquet donne par l'Empereur aux
ambassadeurs eut lieu le 18 au Kremlin. Le 16
l'lmperatrice-mere rtcut tine legere blessure aceiden-
teele. Les departs commeneent." The two passage'
which I was to omit were those where I stated that
two persons had been crushed (I fear the recent version
of thirty is the truth), and where I mentioned
_the
Empress Mother's " slight accidental wound,"
cow. If
storylffor oefuNeVhhipoahssli.ggaeeveasytohuesien
thaelyetute.erulfdr.oem.upMprotssa•
awaited
have
or mangle a message for which they had pocketed neatly
I six pounds sterling,
what fate not
too much truth to
long letters containing a great deal