The Sun.
London, England, 1859-04-27 00:00:00

pated, but it is now manifest that a thorough un-

derstanding has long been arrived at between the

despots of St. Petersburgh and the Tuileries.

these are the men who have assumed arms in the

cause of Italian freedom (!) Many abuses. have '
been perpetrated in the name of liberty, but never
perhaps was it so greatly desecrated as on the
present occasion. The Trojan Prince and Priest
exclaimed when the horse containing the armed
soldiers was received with unwise acclamations.

" Tiineo, Danaos, et dona ferentes,"
And every prudent Italian may well dread the
constitutional freedom tendered by the Imperial
Autocrat. Once more we Quote from our prophetic
article of Monday week. We there said :—" If
coming events cast their shadows before, Louis
NAPOLEON has shadowed forth the course of time;
according to his reading of the book of fate. His
new year's gift to Austria may prove a bitter pill

to Europe under the patriotic badge of liberty
to Italy. Yes ! liberty to the. Italians—poor slaves
as they were—made poorer slaves by the very
man who, professing freedom at the head of some
'forty millions of Frenchmen, sent an army to put

down freedom in Rome in order to propitiate the
rancour of priestcraft ! And this is our august

ally !—the snake. who keeps coiling around us
the more stealthily to betray ! But, not feel-
ing too secure in his own power, he wants
to make assurance doubly sure by enlisting
the willing aid of a kindred despot. And England
is all the while cajoled by the semblance of mode-
ration by the bubble of a Congress! Well, it may
turn out all right,' but we much fear that we
shall awake some fine morning and find all in the
wrong' to be the order of the day. Once more we
warn our watchmen to be more wide awake, and
keep their powder dry." We now find to our cost
that " all in the wrong" is the order of the day,
and that notwithstanding the energetic and firm
proceedings of the British Government, the plan
'was too deeply laid to be averted by any merely
human foresight or exertion.
We believe that Austria had, even at the eleventh
hour,once more agreed to accept English mediation on
the terms indicated by Lord. DERBY in his brilliant
oration at the Mansion House. She was well
air are that the proposed Congress was nothing
better than " a mockery, a delusion, and
a snare," intended merely to exhaust her
resources, while France and Russia were
arming for the strife. But she had faith in British
honour and British justice; and, although aware
that on some points the decision must be adverse
to her untenable pretensions, she was willing to
yield with a good grace, provided the judgment
was pronounced by England.
Louis NAPOLEON aspires to military distinction.
Italy is a more convenient field than the Crimea,
and he will have plenty of experienced " dry
nurses" to give him the benefit of their advice and
assistance. He is making extraordinary efforts to
fill the role which he has assumed. A loan of
500,000,000 francs (X 20,000,000) has been already
announced. As usual, the great moderation (!) of
the EMPEROR has been insisted on. He only makes
war because he has " been forced and constrained
so to do by the aggressive conduct of Austria."
This is a repetition of the lupine- argument when
a casus belli was desired against the lamb. It will
not, however, deceive any disinterested and unpre-
judiced person, either in France or throughout
Europe. The recent treaty with Russia is the deep
blot that stains the entire transaction, and clearly
indicates the animus by which the Emperor NAPO-
LEON has been influenced during his warlike pre-
parations. _ _

It is possitively asserted that France has already
taken the first step, and that the French troops
have already arrived in the Sardinian waters, and
violated neutral territory in Savoy. The
EMPEROR, too, is starting for the frontier in
order to take the command in person, and to
prove that the mantle of the First NAPOLEON
has descended to himself. There is, however, no
Imperial or Royal road to military science, and
however the matter may have been studied theo-
retically, practice and experience is indispensable,
He may have " played at soldiers," have speculated
on the qualities of different descriptions of
ordnance—invented new guns ; but none of these
matters will assimilate him to the victor of
Austerlitz, and Marengo, or enable him to defeat
the Austrian cohorts that may be brought into the
field against him. It is true that the Duke of
MALAKIIOFF may be at his elbow—that
BARAGIJAY FITILLIERS, MACMAHON, CAN-
ROBERT and NIELL may whisper their
suggestions, but a general commanding must
have the stuff within him to do so, and no
advice or assistance will compensate for incapacity

on his part.
The Stock exchange has exhibited the violent
fluctuations that might have been anticipated. The
mere rumours of war have occasioned unusual
mischief. We earnestly hope that no English
capitalist will meddle with any foreign loan, the
object whereof must be to carry on hostilities, and
which must greatly depreciate the value of the
other securities of which they may be possessed.

The experience of twenty years has now served
to illustrate in a remarkable manner the extraor-
dinary advantages accruing from the beneficial
system of the penny postage. A blue•book gives
the latest evidence of this in the shape of an official
report, duly sigited and countersigned. Lord COL-
CHESTER'S is the signature—Mr. RoWLAND HILL'S
the countersignature. There is the radiant
puppet—there the potent hand pulling the string
beneath. Yonder is the marvellous automaton
chess player, crowned with an Earl's coronet, in-
stead of an Oriental turban, contemplatively smok-
ing the calumet—now andtlaen impatiently tapping
the board, leisurly and (in the end) unerringly
moving the men that year after year win the
game through all its extending complications.
Secreted within, among all the complex machinery
—hidden from vulgar eyes—lurks the real player
to whom we are all of us indebted for the chief
glory of the whole contrivance—to whose guiding
skill we are still beholden for the annual triumph
of the performance.

Accustomed though we have become long since
to the marvels of the penny postage system—just as
we have come to regard it at last quite as a matter
of course that we should be whirled to and fro upon
our travels by the fiery dragon of the steam engine,
or as we have our portraits painted in a twinkling
by the pencil of the sunbeam, or as we send our
messages hither and thither on the wings of the
lightning—we cannot but recognise the astonishing
benefit secured to us in this the last score of years,
as the fruits of that penny postage system, by one
momentary glance of retrospect.
Let as recall to mind, for example, how exactly
twenty years ago, namely in the year 1839—the
year before the adoption of Mr. ROWLAND HILL's
suggested improvement—the number of letters de-
livered during that twelvemonth in the United
Kingdom a.mlunted altogether in round numbers
to 76,000,000. Andthenthleet
aus
sastoundingisein rate af
few suggestive numerals
increase since then in our magnificent Post-
office establishment. Since 1839, then—to begin
with—we find actually that we have already at-
tained in these comparatively few years an increase