The Sun.
London, England, 1859-09-17 00:00:00

THEATRE-ROYAL, HAYMARKET.
Lessee, Mr. J. B. Bnckstone.
THIS ETENING the performances will oommenee with
THE ROAD TO RUIN. Mr. and Mrs. C. Mathews.
And PAUL PRY.

Commence at 7.

ROYAL STRAND THEATRE.
Lessee and Directress, Miss Swanborough
THIS EVENING, THE GOOSE WITH THE GOLDEN
EGGS.
And TO PA.REN fS AND GUARDIANS.
After which, TRYING IT ON.

Followed by THE VERY LATEST EDITION OF THE
LADY OF LYONS.
Commence at 7 o'clock.

CANTERBURY HALL CONCERTS.-
EVERY EVENING.—The I.l.tisic of Verdi's Opera of
MACBETH (now first made public in England at these Con-
Verts), the extraorainary Violin Performances of the cele.
I, rated Infant DELEPIERRE FAMILY, and the usual
focal Concer t.
Comic Vocalists -Messrs. George Hodson (the Irish Come-
dian and Mimic), W. T. Critchfield, and E. W. Mackney.
Several interesting Pictures are added to the Fine Arts
Gallery. The suite of Halls have been re-decorated and
beautified, and constitute one of the most unique and brilliant
sights of the metropolis.
Will shortly be produced, a Grand Selection from Meyer-
beer's new opera of DINNORA.

THE WEATHER.—Smi OFFICE, SEPTEMBER 17.
THERMOMETER, IN THE SHADE.
64—highest since noon yesterday.
55—lowest this morning and during the night.
62—this day at noon.
BAROMETER-29.82.
WIND, North and North-Westerly; fresh. It has blown
hard during the night, with rain and squally weather.

HIGH WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE.
Tuts DAT,t—Morning, 4h. 27m.—Afternoon, 4h. 43m.
To-Moratow-Morning, sh. Im.—Afternoon, sh. 2Ont

The Gazette of last evening published the officia
account from Admiral HOPE of the too sad disaster
at the mouth of the Peiho. The gallant Admiral's
description is at once clear and seaman-like, doing
full justice to the manly intrepidity of all concerned
in so deplorable an encounter. But there is this
view of the case which we cannot fail to
take into consideration, now that the calamity
has happened. Either there was too much
made of the honour intended to be paid to the
Ambassadors, and too large a force sent if no hostile
opposition were apprehended, or too little by half
if we were to be met at the very threshhold with a
direct refusal to enter. Taken in either sense there
was a want of due consideration ; for if we went to
deal with a treacherous friend, surely half measures
were not the safe course to pursue. We had enough
experience of Chinese perfidy, and even contempt
for the " outside barbarians," as we were no doubt
candidly, but very ignorantly designated, to be at
any loss for a repetition of their knavery. But it is
all for the best, now that we cannot recal to life
those brave spirits that so heroically volunteered
everything in the cause of duty. We have been
taught a bitter lesson, be it either from jealous
Russian or from cunning Chinese, or from both
combined. Our future course is now clear as our
former was dubious and unprepared. In fact it
was idle from the first to treat the Chinese as re-
spectable people whose word would be taken as
their bond. They respect neither ; and thinking
they were only dealing with Barbarians, perhaps
they were right. But the result will teach
them how idle was their presumption, and how fool-
hardy was their belief. It is impossible for them
to repeat the same trick unless we are as stupid as
they think themselves over-wise. We have had
pretty good training from these Celestials in their
proper persons ; and we ought to be apt scholars by
this time. The Devil himself is no match for an
honest man, but he is all right with a rogue—being
of the same kidney—kindred in all mischief. But
for JOHN CHINAMAN—he combines both characters
—honest for one purpose and over dishonest for
another ! Let us treat him hereafter after his own
fashion and prove to him that we can cheat the
Chinese Devil, even in the dark. This may excite
his admiration for us if it do not increase his

respect.
The question, then, is how to counteract the effects
of this disaster. We say—be prompt, powerful
and decisive. All these are happily within our
power. But how ? We answer wey how. If the
Peiho River and tne Gulf of Pee-chee-he be frozen
over in the winter—there are other courses open to
us now as heretofore. The Chinese EMPEROR is
only to be treated, with after a vulgar
fashion—he must have hard knocks, as the
Middy answered the people who asked
what he had for barter—Hardware ! was the
young Pedlar's reply—and hardware of heavy
calibre must be our future Ambassadors to his
Celestial MAJESTY. The Chinese worship that
EMPEROR as a god from a sense of sheer policy
and he seems to believe in his ascribed divinity
from a similar policy to take all for the best.
Mystery is only great because we don't know it ;
but once unfold the imposture, and all our belief
vanishes in empty vision ! Who would have
thought it ? is only the expression of vacant unre-
fleeting minds. There is the bugbear so dear to
superstition, and now grasp it if you can ! It is
all illusion ! and just turns out to be :so to one's
utter confusion.
The Chinese know us to be powerful, but they
think we are too generous to be wise. And per-
haps they are half right. Let us undeceive them
for once and for all. A worthy Veteran informs us
that no operations can be undertaken on the Peiho
before May or June next, because the river will be
frozen. Well, then, China is wide and large
enough for more central operations. There is the
great river leading to Yan-tze Kian-keu, on the
grand canal which supplies Nankin and Pekin with
food. Let us take that by way of a beginning and
touch them up in their very vitals. Then, again, as
the Peiho is only a water way to Pekin, surely we
can make good a landing in the vicinity, for if au
army be essential that army cannot operate on
water, only to land ; and it were well to take the
Chinese by the horns-qt once, and so impress them
with a proper sense of our metal. There is no half-
w/IT to the goal—it must be mastered at whatever
cost-

That the enemy is no,
wide awake to our capa-
bilities there is little
or no doubt; but the thing to
be achieved is, to leave no room for any further
doubt. Our army can as well winter .
Chinam as
in India; and if, as our veteran Correspondent
stag.—thc men must have double pay, be •
he so, for
t
the C.,41.5,,8e5e will have to stand " the blunt"--now
and for ever more.
Let vs tsice Nankin first, and keep it—that was
the capital when the Chinese were their own
masters. Let us then take Pekin, and keep that,
too, until I%lle ransom—a right heavy one—be paid.
This will bcring the EMPEROR, Mandarins, and all
the believeirs in CONFUCIUS, to believe there may
be yet something even better worth paying atten-
tion to.
A good ideal has been remarked on the cunning
of the Chilaese in digging holes in the mud-banks,
so as to give our gallant men a sousing in their
attack. The idea was worthy of the Celestials ; but
it was may common to Asiatics, for it may be re-
members xl that the Burmese played the same
game yet Ira ago. They sunk pits in the course of an
hour, as Id the whole army disappeared as if by

magic into the very bowels of the earth on which
they were encamped! They reasoned well and
practised better. In all hot countries, especially
in the East, people go under ground to avoid the
heat, as they do in cold regions for shelter from
frost, thus pro'ving that extremes meet. And the
Chinese, reasoning by analogy, turned their
knowledge to account by making the deep
deeper still. " All is fair in war," so the adage
runs ; but sometimes people dig pits into which
they may some day fall themselves ; and that the
Chinese have done so is now to be proved by the
promptitude of our policy and the unrelenting
sternness of our actions.

The passage of the Ticino, resulting in the counter
passage of the Mincio, has done more already than

we had at one time ventured to hope. Surely some

Delphic oracle whispered in the ears of FRANCIS

JOSEPH as Count GYULAI and his legions stood on
the banks of the former stream, " if Austria cross

the Ticino she shall destroy a hateful policy." And

he modern CROESUS—CROESUS in the sense not of

wealth certainly, but of willing delusion—believed
that the " hateful policy" was the one so odious to

him, that of spreading abroad in Italy and else-
where the principles and practice of civil and

religious liberty. ])ash forward, therefore, GYULAI
—down with constitutions and religious toleration
—up with despotism and the POPE !
For a week or'two the despot interpretation of
the oracle seemed right ; the free, unarmed pea-

santry and burghers of Piedmont had to pay the
penalty to Austrian savages of belonging to a free
country; but soon the tide began to turn. And at
Solferino the superstitious young dupe of the
Jesuits had to wring his hands at finding that the
odious policy he had subverted was of civil and
religious oppression. From the very banks of the
Mincio paragraphs were indited to Vienna journals
which promised all kinds of reforms, especially a

fair measure of religious liberty even for Jews
while the Duchies ha& begun that free, self-reliant

and admirable course, which has issued in the ten

dering of three Austrian Crowns to the only Italian
Monarch who has firmly maintained the civil and
religious rights of his subjects. Solferino seems,
after all, to have been a stroke which shook Austrian
policy to the north of the Alps, besides over-
throwing it entirely in Central Italy. Not only
have the Duchies and the Legations thrown
off priest-rule and Austrian rule, for the rule of a
constitutional monarch ; but throughout all the
provinces of her empire, Austria has been obliged
to proclaim new liberties for the non-Catholic
churches.

The document lately published in the Wiener
Zeitung (the Vienna Gazette) conferring apparently
equal or nearly equal political and ecclesiastical
privileges on the principal Protestant churches
with those enjoyed by the Roman Catholic Church,
is perhaps one of the most remarkable results of
the Italian struggle. For those which we have
seen in Italy, we were in some measure prepared ;
but few of us looked for religious liberty in Hun-
gary, Transylvania, Croatia, Sclavonia, and other
minor provinces in that part of the empire, as a
consequence of the Austrian reverse in Lombardy.
Such a result is, however, perfectly natural. The
state of the empire was such that it could not bear
defeat, and the angry dissatisfaction of millions of
its subjects also. An army of half a million men

seemed enough to keep quiet all the heretics in the
empire ; and it was so while it was supposed to be
an invincible army ; but an army beaten in a fight
against national independence and free institutions,
lost half its terror for subjugated nationalities and
subjugated churches to the north of the Alps.
The independence and civil status conferred on
the Protestant churches seems now to be about as
much as they probably desire. They have practi-
cally become recognised State churches. The word
" parity of rights" with the Catholic Church, is
avoided, it is said, for fear of giving offence to the
yet more numerous party ; but the thing appears
to be pretty well secured. The Roman Catholic Su-
perintendent of Protestant affairs at Vienna, though
a man much respected and esteemed by Protestants
themselves, for his liberality and interest in their
welfare, has to give way to a Protestant Superin-
tendent. The different conferences are authorised to
form their own synods and religious assemblies, to
elect in the parishes their own rectors, vicars, and
schoolmasters ; matrimonisl affairs are to be en-
trusted to the management of the religious courts
of each confession ; the Protestant schools are to be
under no apprehension of Jesuit interference, but to
be for the future under the direction and inspection
of their 3w n ecclesiastical authorities. Some police
rights are indeed reserved, and they might no doubt
be abused, but we are willing to believe that the
document is sincerely intended. The object is con-
ciliation. And it is hardly likely that with a Pro-
testant Superintendent at Vienna the Austrian
police will be suffered to thwart what really seems
like a new policy.
What are we to look for next in Austria ? If the
Concordat be thus thrown aside what else may not
go with it ? It is true that these franchises concern
the Protestants and their clergy only, immediately.
But will the Roman Catholie clergy be content to
see their Protestant confreres enjoying such power
and liberty while they themselves are enslaved to
Rome? The Concordat was almost entirely framed
in the interests of the POPE and the Bishops. The
parochial clergy were much aggrieved by it. They
will in all probability now demand their emancipa
tion also. If it was important to allay Protestau
disaffection, it must be yet more so to satisfy f
parochial clergy of a Catholic Empire.
May we then venture to hope that even Austria
is beginning to feel that the rule of repression must
be relaxed. After 1848 the policy was adopted,
and has been pursued with unscrupulous cruelty,
of centralising all administration, civil and re-
ligious, of ruling everything direct from Vienna
and Rome, and of effacing all natural and ecclesi-
astical distinctions in one uniform slavery. The
Italian war has revealed to the most besotted and
stupid Government in Europe that this will not do.
It has begun to learn the lesson that contentment of
subjects is the strength of a Government, and that
contentment there cannot be in the leaden rule of a
Viennese bureaucracy and a Catholic priesthood.
Will the young Emperor and his advisers go on to
learn ? They have but got through the alphabet
yet. Dull pupils we must expect them to be. How-
ever, they have made a beginning, and, for them, a
promising one. We confess we did not expect any-
thing half so good at first in this department.
Ecclesiastical liberty and self-government for Pro-
testants, even under central supervision, is a great
deal; and we will not cavil till we hear that those
concerned detect anything underhand or seriously
opposed to their interests. We would hope, on the
other hand, that Austrian
i rulers may find the effect
of this first
seriously set to work to vieso
wth pleasant
Sardiniathat the y ‘ i
nIN,
renders her the admiration of all the oppressed of
Austria who can place themselves beneath her
sway. It would indeedbe
her
amusing v
various
osue es
peoples,Austria
bidding for popularity among
by outstepping Sardinia in the race of freedom I

The seaworthiness of the Great Easter, has now
been proved incontestably, Her enormous strength
has been demonstrated. Her speed is no longer

matter of mere conjecture. With her engines
only moderately worked she has made easily fifteen
knots an hour, careless alike of tide, wind, and
weather. In spite of that tremendous detonation
which shattered to atoms, in the twinkling of an
eye, the solid iron casing of one of the paddle
funnels, the funnel itself, several cabins, and the
ladies' saloon—the machinery was in no way put
out of order, and (as conclusive evidence of the
adamantine character of the whole structure) two
superb mirrors, embedded in substantial metal
bulkheads, of the ladies' saloon remained unflawed
in the midst of the ruins of that noble apartment
after an explosion that would have sunk the
largest line-of-battle ship ever yet launched. The
extraordinary solidity of the whole giant fabric of
the Great Eastern is, in point of fact, absolutely
proved beyond all further question by the preserva-
tion of those two mirrors in the ladies' saloon.
For had there been the slightest vibration in the
iron bulkhead, upon the surface of which they are
framed, or, so to speak, empannelled, they must
at the least have been cracked, if not (which is far
more probable) actually shivered into a thousand
splinters. There, however, unharmed and perfect,
those large mirrors reflected within them the splen-
did debris of the ladies' saloon, after the steam and
smoke and dust of the explosion had subsided.
Proof positive was thereby given of the matchless
strength and solidity of the whole colossal frame-
work of this leviathan of the deep. The confidence
previously placed in that strength and solidity has
been now, consequently, confirmed and justified.
The catastrophe which most unhappily occurred off
Dungeness, so far from militating against the repute
of the Great Eastern, tends very considerably and
directly towards the enhancement of it. No one
can hesitate to believe now in the perfect seaworthi-
ness of a vessel that rides out an explosion like that
of Friday se'nnight scatheless and unharmed save
in the compartment in which the funnel casing
burst with the eruptive concussion of an artificial

volcano

Now that these happy conclusions have been
arrived at in regard to an incident that first of
all appeared to be nothing less than an unmitigated
calamity—it remains to be seen what may most
judiciously be done by way of clearing up that
disaster, with a view to the prevention of any re-
currence of anything in any way similar to it, either
in the way of carelessness or in the way of experi-
mentalising. There cannot be a doubt that there
were three points in regard to which there was very
grievous culpability ; and through the com-
bination of the culpability in regard to which
we have had this most deplorable and really
appalling catastrophe. Those three points ought
to be thoroughly inquired into and laid bare—they
hardly require enumeration, they are so clearly ob-
vious—they are so perfectly self-evident.
Mist and foremost—it will be well to arrive at a
distinct understanding as to who was really the
cause of the adoption, in regard to the paddle-fun-
nels, of that experimental casing the generation
between which and the funnel itself transformed
one of those two paddle-funnels so encased into a
gigantic exaggeration of an Infernal Machine.
Somebody manifestly was peculiarly responsible for
the adoption of a plan which was known to have
always hitherto failed—which was distinctly re-
jected as hazardous by Messrs. BOLTON and WATT,
the engineers entrusted with the construction of
the engines —and which, adopted by this Somebody
in spite of this warning rejection, has proved in the
end so fearfully destructive.
Secondly—who is responsible for those bungling
donkey•engines (engines for once aptly enough
designated) which failed so miserably within so
short a time after the Great Eastern had quitted
the waters of the Thames ? All those donkey-
engines were required to do, was to feed the casings
of the paddle-funnels with an adequate supply of
cold water to be thus pumped in at the top to be
gradually heated by the hot air, steam, and smoke
passing up through the funnels, and so to be run
off ready warmed in due proportion into the boilers
beneath them. As we all know now, one of these
two miserable donkey engines, after wheezing and
puffing very inefficiently, at length actually broke
down—leaving all the rest of the work to be done
by its hardly less efficient companion. Hence the
plan of heating the water gradually in the fun-
nel casings, to be thence passed duly warmed into
the paddle-boilers, had to be abandoned, the cold
water being pumped directly into both boilers by
the one donkey engine. Somebody here plainly
may be held responsible—the somebody who sup-
plied the said donkey engine.
Thirdly, and lastly—there was the stop-cock at
the top of that lamentable funnel-casing shut when
it ought to have been open. Who turned that cock,
shutting off the steam from the chance of escape ?
Somebody there, too, was responsible for the
stop-cock in question is proved, beyond a doubt, to
have been open (as it ought to have been all along)
on the -Wednesday preceding the catastrophe.
Between the Wednesday, when it was last known
to have been open, and the Friday night, when it
was proved very dreadfully to have been shut—
proved by this astounding explosion, causing the
destruction of at least six lives and £5,000 worth
of property, by one instantaneous detonation—
Somebody (it is self-evident) must have tampered
with it, and—for some reason or another—have
shut up the steam, and so transformed the funnel-
case into a gigantic bombshell. It will be well, if
possible, to discover the real delinquents upon
whom rests this threefold responsibility.
he

DESPATCH OF TROOPS TO CHINA.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN.

Silt, From your leader of this day, on the de-
spatch of troops to China, it would seem not to be
generally known that the river Peiho, and indeed
the whole gulf of Pee-thee-lee, are frozen Lard in
the winter, so that even if our ships could get there
in time for the gun-boats to get up the river before
the cold weather sets in, they would almost inevit-
ably be frozen up, and any troops operating against
Pekin would be separated from its base of opera-
tions—the fleet. This was the reason why Lord
Gough refused to proceed against Pekin in the
winter; and he was perfectly right. It was then
decided to go up the Yellow River instead.
This time, however, we must go to Pekin, and
rely on it that cannot be done before May or June.
You seem to think that our Government will send
troops from India. No such thing—unless the pub-
lic voice compels them. Troops in India get double
pay, which could not well be curtailed if they were
sent to China. Besides this, it would take the pay
of 10,000 men from off the shoulders of the im-
poverished Indian Government, anal put it on those
of the British. Will Mr. Glath tone consent to
that ? Never! unless compelled. Remember the
3,000 artillery men.
Your obedient servant,
A VETERAN.

Sept. 16.

A ship of the line, to be called the Magenta,
which is to be steel-plated, and the largest vessel in the
Freneh navy, has been put upon the stocks at Brest.
Madame Clara Novello, whose spirited defence of
Mr. Sims Reeves at the Gloucester Festival last Wednes-
day elicited so much enthusiasm, will leave England for
Italy on Thursday next, the 22d inst. ; but previous to her
departure she has engaged to sing at a popular concert at
the Crystal Palace on Wednesday next, the 21st. As this
will be her last appearance in England for a considerable
time a large attendance may be expected, especially as the
a lvertisements announce that the admission will be the
same as on ordinary days—one shilling.
MISS AMY SEDGWICK.-011 Monday evening
next, the 19th inst., this popular artiste will make her
reappearance at the Haymarket Theatre, in the character
of Rosalind, in Shakespeare's comedy of " As you like it."

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THE SUN.
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 1859.