The Sun.
London, England, 1861-10-17 00:00:00

and freedom shall be conceded by the CZAR. He
ought, indeed, like his brother at 'Vienna, to be only
too thankful that a nation, superior to his own, will
accept his sovereignty, if it be but governed consti-
tutionally.
To these two sources of disquietude the Russian
authorities have added a third. They have quar-
relled with the undergraduates, and, in a measure,
the professors too of their Universities. The pro-
fessors lectured on economical and political sub-
jects, and the students held meetings for discussion,
and, most heinous of all, actually appointed a chair-
man and passed resolutions. It is hard for an Eng-
lishman to refrain from smiling, indeed from laugh-
ter, to think of a debating meeting of lads being
thought dangerous to the Government, and being
put down by violence. What would the mayors
even of our University towns care if the whole body
of students met and resolved that either absolutism
or republicanism were better than mixed govern-
ment. In Russia, however, public meetings are
illegal. However orderly and peaceful, they
would never do in Czardom, so even lads
playing at public meetings must be put
down at once, lest the future educated leaders of
society should acquire the habit of judging for
themselves, and influeneing the judgment of others.
Hitherto the instruction has been given at the
Universities by a well appointed staff of professors,
gratis; this has attracted large numbers, and in a
country in which education was so much needed,
was probably a wise measure. When it was found,
however, that education made the less wealthy
classes who thus obtained it too intelligent and
liberal, it became an object to restrict it as much
as possible to the better-off classes, property being
found the best guarantee generally for the sub-
missiveness of its possessors. Hence a compara-
tively low charge was made—fifty roubles—about
£8 sterling for matriculation. The professors and
the students were both opposed to this. Had the
real object been to make the University self-sup-
porting it would not probably have been so much
objected to, but it was well known that the inten-
tion was to render the students a more select class ;
and this was made pretty plain, by the rejection of
a plan of paying the amount, adapted to the cir-
cumstances of the poorer students.
Hence the whole affair was dealt with almost
like a mob rising, or a mutiny. Soldiers were
called out; the military commandant of the city
interfered; the Chief Superintendent of the Police
galloped three horses out of breath, for what pur-
pose the public could not divine, for all was ended
by Count PIITIATIN, the Minister of Public In-
struction, meeting the young men in the lecture-
room, scolding them 'well, and sending them ho-crle.
Some of the proceedings seem to have been very
disgraceful. At the request of General PIULIP.
sox, the curator, the students appointed a depu-
tation to confer with him on the re-
opening of the University. It will hardly be
credited that the three young men airmen were
actually arrested, and with twenty-five others sent
to prison ! The object evidently was to entrap the
leaders. But what can be thought of a Government
which can practice such tricks as these on young
men, even if it thinks they are a little less manage-
able than it wishes.

The EMPEROR all this time was on his travels in
the South. When he returns ho will hear
tales of a University insurrection, not at War-
saw, but at St. Peterburg itself. The horse-
killing police superintendent will, of course, have
an awful tale to tell him of what -would have been
done, had ha not scoured the streets like a hunts-
man. IGNATIEFF and all the Generals seem,
however, to have been convincedtbat it was no
case for military intervention at all, and Count
PIITIATIN was able to quell it with words only.
It seems likely, however, that the Minister of
Public Instruction will find himself without any
means of public instruction left him, the universities
having been all shut up.

Two of the most remarkable tributes yet paid to
the Volunteer movement are those which have been
recently proffered to it by Mr. ROEBUCK and
Miss NIGHTINGALE. Of the two, we hardly know
which is the more striking. In obedience to the old
courtly instinct which cries Place aux dames, we
turn first of all to the consideration of the hearten-
ing words lately addressed to the Riflemen of Eng-
land by our Great English Sister of Charity----with
a name as beautiful as her reputation—,FLOßENCE
NIGHTINGALE!

The commendation uttered by the member for
Sheffield is—according to the wont of that
distinguished Tribune of the People—uttered
vigorously and effectively by word of mouth.
The
.occasion afforded to Mr. ROEBUCK
being a Rifle Corps Demonstration down at
Newport. What is said, on the contrary,
about her armed compatriots by the gentle-hearted
Nurse and Comforter of the British Soldier is said
through the more womanly medium of writing.
Miss NIGHTINGALE addresses herself to the still
rapidly multiplying ranks of the Volunteers, pen
in hand, from her desk at Hampstead. But the
words that fell from that pen of hers upon the
paper are not one iota less effective or less vigorous
than those articulated by the lips of Mr. ROEBUCK
at Newport—eliciting though those words of the
hon. and learned gentleman did from his auditors
round after round of earnestly responsive acclama-
tions.

Both the letter of Miss NIGHTINGALE and the
speech of Mr. ROEBUCK have greeted the Volun-
teers of England during this present month of
October ; the speech being delivered, as we have
intimated, at Newport, and the letter penned at
Hampstead. Miss NIGHTINGALE sets forth in her
epistle (which by the way is addressed indirectly
to our Riflemen, through the medium of her cor-
respondent, Sir HARRY VERNEY) with a naturally
exultant reference to the fact that, at the very
commencement of the present year (and we are now
rapidly approaching the close of it !), the number of
Volunteers had even then attained an aggregate of
150,000 men ! By this time, after the lapse of
more than three quarters of another twelvemonth,
that aggregate must have been enhanced to a grand
total but very little short indeed of-200,000 Rifle-
men! And as Miss NIGHTINGALE takes occasion
at once to remark, "These Volunteers are of the same
race with the handful of men who defended the
trenches at Sevastopol, as the Greeks held the posi-
tion of Thermopylte, and who, when dying of slow
torture in hospital, drew their blankets over their
holeda.ds,TahnadnitdieGi owithouttshe a word,
exelaitasl,ik,,eoutrheheroes
f
Volunteers
these slow agonies in the de-
fence of their country.
But I for one (and I speak
notwithstanding an experience
of the horrors of
war which no man has had), was not at all
sorry to see the spirit of war Drought home to
our people's lives in the glorious
rising of the
Volunteers." Miss NIGHTINGALE hastens to ex-
plain herself: " A country," she writes, " needs
re-tempering sometimes. England, from her grand
mercantile and commercial successes, has been called
sordid. GOD knows she is not ! The simple con-
nduring patience, the good sense, the
rage, the e
strength to suffer in silence—Nl hat nation shows
more of this in war
than is shown by her com-
monest soldier ? " Has she not her own wonderful
experiences in this way to refer to ? Tay--she does

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