The Sun.
London, England, 1860-11-01 00:00:00

61—this day at noon.
42—lowest this morning and during the night.
51—highest since noon yesterday.
BAROMETER-30.09.
VirlND—North-Easterly; rather fresh, with fine weather;

but cool.

HIGH WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE.
Tam DAY.—Morning, 3h. 2m.—Afternoon, 3h. 13m,
To-moßßow.-Morning, 3h. 34m.—Afternoon, 3h. 62m

ttr-z
.rSR,
.44
•
• - —l4:.s 1' •at o

THE SUN.
LONDON, THURSDAY, NOV. 1, 1880,

Late last night the Government received inte
ligence that the Peiho forts were taken on the 21s1
of August, and that the British and French ambas
sadors were at Tien-tsin on the 26th. The tele
grams from Shanghae, add a few particulars which
seem to give us some glimpses into the nature of
the operations. They would seem to have been
carried on by land, since not a ship or gunboat is
mentioned, two regiments and the Marines, with
1,500 French were the troops, principally, engaged.
We hear nothing of any barriers being forced, and
do not know that a vessel of war had crossed the bar.
The Plenipotentiaries had arrived, however, at
'Tien-tsin, on the 26th, and would hardly have gone
thither, we may suppose, without a naval foree
accompanying them. They were to start shortly
for Pekin, " escorted by cavalry," but that was
possibly because ships of any size do not easily
advance beyond Tien-tsin.
The fight must have been a hard one for such
enemies. It lasted for five hours, and the allied
loss was 400 killed and wounded. Prince SAN-
-KO-LIN-SIN is plainly a general whose courage is
not to be despised, and who must have the general's
quality of inspiring his troops with something of
his Own feeling. The mode of attack we cannot
conjecture even, yet. Part of the forts lay on the
side of the river Peiho as that on which the
allies landed- Originally the French were to have
len ded on tie other side, but the country was so wet,
muddy,
and impassable, that that arrangement was
given up, and the French and English both landed
at the mouth of the Pehtang to which Admiral HOPE
was told to go last year, with the lying statement
that it was another mouth of the Peiho. They
had, therefore, to cross the ten miles between the
two rivers, and would then find some of the forts
on their own side. How they attacked those on
the opposite 'side we have yet to learn.
As to the results—" the enemy were allowed to
march out, leaving munitions &e."—probably
nothing better could be done. They would be
very harmless opponents, except behind their de-
fences, and it could be of little service to our troops
to be encumbered with the care of Chinese pri-
soners. The other result—that of the Plenipoten-
tiaries, instead of the army, marching to Pekin
seems more doubtful in its se en
conquces. The
Chinese Government has " promised them an
honourable reception "—but ought they not
to have taken one for themselves ? After
all that has passed, and the lessons We have
had of Chinese duplicity, ought we to allow- the
Chinese Tories the last opportunity of again re•
presenting the Barbarians as coming to
pay homage
to HIE:V-FUNG ? Of course in the absence of
detailed information, we may hope that

when we know the whole, we shall be able to
justify their •course. It is a curious fact,
indeed, that only a few days before we
were storming ithe Taku forts, at the mouth of the
Peibo, we were saving the town of Shanghae from
being stormed by the rebels against the Chinese
EMPEROR. 11 Then the accounts previous to those