The Sun.
London, England, 1859-10-15 00:00:00

~Ax: SUN, LONDON, SATURDAY E V ENI NG, OCTOBER 15, 1859,

prepared to prove that fire and candle had be the Don Francisco de Axis, of 74 guns, which
been',!xtinguished in the mess kitchen, whence the was lately at Carthagena.
flair .es were first seen to proceed, at least an hour The Right Rev. George Tomlinson, D.D., Lord
be'iore the fire broke out. Bishop of Gibraltar, with his two children and ser-
vants, arrived at Gibraltar, on the 7th inst., from
Marseilles, in the Dutch ship William 111. Mrs.
'Drummond Ilay, the lady of her Britannic Ma-
jesty's Chargé d'Affaires at Morocco, likewise ar-
rived in the same steamer from England via France.
The 25th Regiment (King's Own Borderers),
under the command of Col. S. B. Hamilton, removed
from Camp.to Town Range and Wellington Front
Barracks on the afternoon of the Bth. The 2d bat-
talion of the 6th Foot, commanded by Col. Robert
W. M. Fraser, replaces the 25th in camp.

Kok i

WHAT ARE THE RUSSIANS ABOUT
AT PORTSMOUTH.

PORTSMOUTIC, Friday. We remember, prior to
the breaking out of the war with Russia in 1853,
having had such confidence in the friendship of
Russia, that her ships were permitted to be sub-
stantially repaired in the Portsmouth Dockyard,
and officers and crew roamed about at leisure. One
of those ships—a 46-gun frigate, the Aurora—left
suddenly, and the next account from her was that
she knocked over 170 of our men at Petropolowski,
at the time when the unfortunate Admiral Price
destroyed himself on board the President, 50, flag
ship.
Well, we have had at Portsmouth within the last
three months 12 most powerful Russian screw
line-of-battle ships, frigates, and corvettes.
The usual courtesy has been shown to the officers,
&c., but surely it was never contemplated that
Russian scientific officers should be permitted to
to get upon our earthwork batteries and ravelines
and with instruments and photographic apparatus
take minute sketches of our fortifications. Yet
such was positively the case yesterday morning on
the King's Bastion, at Portsmouth. A couple of
Russians were discovered by a bombardier of the
Royal Artillery, with instruments spread out;
sketching and measuring the extent of our defences
seaward.
The bombardier, to his credit, took upon himself
to peremptorily order the intruders off, or he would
give them in charge of the sentry, whereupon they
took up their instruments and departed.
The bombardier then reported the circumstance
to the commanding officer of artillery, Col. Lake.—
Horning 'lowa

BANK OF FRANCE.

The Monitur of yesterday morning publishes the
usual monthly debtor and creditor account of the
Bank of France, made up to Thursday. The cor-
responding.figures of the last month are added :
DEBTOR.
Sept.

all, that of the country villages. The original ar-
rangement provided an endowment of land for each
village policeman, but the land was soon appro-
priateV-hy the Zoniindar, and a very imperfect
equivalent-offered In As stead. As a matter of fact,
there is nobody to -prevent crime, and nobody to
detect it; the police, being ill-paid and worse orga-
nised, are often thieves themselves, and the chief
protector of property is the village dog. All this
time, however, while a large police was performing
its functions so ill, a large native army was per-
forming no function at all, whereas a good native
force might have been so employed as to protect
life and property, and find a diversion from its own
delusion in this desirable service. That theft
should be rife in India is certainly not surprising.
A robber runs little risk of being captured at all,
and when at last his time arrives he is lodged in a
prison arranged in the most luxurious home model,
and is far better kept than he ever was before. _

From these observations our radical errors in
the civil administration of India will be very ap-
parent. We have not been indifferent or oppres-
sive rulers. The very complication of our machi-
nery arose from attempts at perfection, but we
went exactly the wrong way to work. We pro-
vided so many checks upon injustice that at last
we made justice inaccessible, and in the endeavour
to deal fairly between one man and another we en-
abled the cunning to overreach the ignorant and
improvident. If our police system was bad it was
not from stint of men or money, but from a vicious
organisation. Our. European functionaries had no
sinecures; in fact, they were"overworked, but their
labour was lost upon a needless multiplication of
forms. The direction in which the improvement of
such a system should be commenced is sufficiently
obvious, and we rejoice to hear, on anthority so
good as Mr. Court's, that it is likely to be attended,
not with additional expense, but with a consider-
able economy of our now precious funds.—Times.