The Sun.
London, England, 1861-01-08 00:00:00

-PROPOSED NEW RAILWAYS.

it is not surprising that there are more railway
bills than usual for the session that is now close
upon us. In London railway history especially the
past year has been very remarkable. The first
metropolitan railway bridge across the Thames has
"been opened, the works for a second at Charing-
cross have begun, and Parliament has passed an
act for a third at Blackfriars. The Metropolitan
line, which is here to meet and join the Chatham
and Dover, and with it constitute the first railroad
entirely through the heart of London, has at length
set to work in real earnest, and is likely to be
opened in the spring of next year. When we add
that many railways have been paying larger divi-
dends than at any time since the great break down
10 years ago, and have risen greatly in value as
investments, and that the crowding of the streets
has been getting more and more intolerable, there
need be no wonder that the ice once broken, and
London opened to the iron king after long denial,
scheme upon scheme is now pouring in. First of all,
this Metropolitan line just mentioned, which will
come from Paddington by Euston-square and
King's-cross, and bring the traffic of the Northern
lines to Farringdon -street, has a bill for an exten-
sion to a more thoroughly "city station" in Fins-
bury-circus, to which point also it is proposed to
bring the Eastern Counties line—measures which
would certainly tend to relieve the streets and give,
an unbroken communication through London from
the east to the west side of the kingdom, as
well as from north to south. Whether
Finsbury-circus will be able to hold its
own against the invader is very doubtful ; but
if that spot is too central to be spared for open
space, the Thames embankment may compensate
for its loss. Another city station scheme has also
made its appearance, in the shape of a plan for
bringing the North London line from Kingsland
to Liverpool-street, Broad-street, saving the absurd
round by Bow and Stepney; and:there is also a bill
for a line from Broad-street to Irongate-wharf, on
the river. But besides conveyance into the very
midst of London, and a railroad through London to
save through passengers anl goods the drive along
the streets from station to station, there is the
pressing need of another line of communication east
and west through the town. Accordingly, we have
the " West-end ;and City" scheme for an under-
ground line from Regent-circus to join the Metro-
politan at Holborn-bridge ; there is also a proposal
to extend the Metropolitan itself from its Padding-
ton end to Bayswater and Kensington ; and the
" Charing-cross Railway (City Terminus)" offers a
line from the Charing-cross Railroad in St. Saviour's,
Southwark, over the Thames to Cannon-street,
giving a route from that street to Charing-cross,
the passengers crossing the river twice. Last, but
by no means least, there is the Thames embankment
from Westminster-bridge to Blackfriars, with, it
seems, a railroad, and, in all probability, a now
street eventually from Blackfriars-bridge to the
Bank. This may really become the greatest
metropolitan improvement of modern times. With
the river purified, the slimy mud banks gone, the
railway under cover, and a broad road and prear-
nade planted with trees, it would, as the Commons
committee was told, almost answer the purpose of
a park in the very heart of London. But these are
not the only metropolitan schemes; there are
others, links in the girdle round London. It is
proposed to make the Regent's Canal supply a
railroad from Maiden-lane, in the north, to the
Thames at Limehouse, with branches to existing
lines. The Kensington-station line asks leave
to extend itself to Prince Albert's-road, Ken-
sington ; a line to Hammersmith is projected,
and a line from Greenwich to Woolwich. Other
branches are proposed, some of them uniting
the great trunk lines—a line from Edgware
to King's-cross. and the North London line,
another from Hornsey to Hendon, one from Tot-
tenham to Hornsey, a line connecting the Great
Northern (at Barnet) with the North and South-
Western Junction line to Kew, lines from Brent-
ford to Richmond, and Rickmansworth to Uxbridge,
the latter completing a connection between the
Great Western and North-Western, which may
bring the smokeless Welsh coal into a paper-mill
district. London and its neighbourhood form the
great mark for the competition of this Session.
But if we pass into the country we shall find
many changes in progress and in prospect. In the
south the direct line from London to Exeter has at
last been opened, and apparently with no irrepara-
ble damage to the older line, and in a few months
there is to be a second line to Dover also. In anti-
cipation of it the South-Eastern is setting its house
in order, and proposing to improve its access to
Folkestone harbour, in the hope of making that all
its own. The Andover and Redbridge again asks
leave to enter Southampton, and there are Bills also
for lines to that prosperous town from Petersfield
and from Fareham, and also for a line from South-
ampton to Netley. Several branches are proposed
to places at present without railways—Seaford,
Bognor, Marlborough, Sherborne, St. Ives, Fowey ;
and there are projects for filling up gaps in rail-
road communication, shortening routes, or supply-
ing local branches—Alton to Winchester, Uckfield
to Tunbridge Wells, Newport to Ryde, Salisbury
to Poole, Axminster to the coast, Wells to Bristol.
In the extreme west it is proposed to construct a
railway from the North Devon line to Okehampton
and Tavistock (with a branch to Launceston), com-
pleting an inland route between Plymouth and
Portsmouth. Passing over to Wales, which is gra-
dually filling up with railroads, we find schemes for
supplying links in the communication between.
Manchester and Milford and between the manufac-
turing districts and the South Welsh coalfield and
ports on the Bristol Channel: plans for access to
Aberystwith and the western coast, with lines in
that direction from Rhyl in the north and Haver-
fordwest in the south ; for lines from Shrewsbury
to the Carnarvonshire coast, from Oswestry to
Whitclaurch, and from Montgomery to Stretford
Bridge, on the Hereford—both the last two
uniting trunk lines, On the opposite side of the
kingdom, in the restless region of the eastern
counties, there is a multitude of schemes—lines for
now communications between Colchester and Cam-
bridge, between London and Bury St. Edmunds,
from this latter town to Thetford and Lynn and to
join the Spalding (and consequently the Great
Northern), and from Bishop's Stortford to Brain-
tree, uniting the Colchester and Cambridge lines;
from }folme to Ramsey, and from Lynn to Hun-
stanton ; lines to Saffron Walden, and to Bright-
ling-sea, en the coast, near Colchester.

ther north and counting the projects for Scotland,
there is one which deserves to be mentioned, for
filling up the gap between Perth and Inverness. It
is evident that many blank places in the railway
map will this year be occupied. But of course
several embryo schemes, after giving their Parlia-
mentary notices, will never come to the birth.
Those that do must finally, for life or for extinction,
abide the fiat of the least satisfactory tribunal that
modern reforms have left in authority in this king-
dom.

It is said that the projects for new lines now
to come before Parliament propose to raise nearly
£7,000,000 for their execution. But the existing
railways require a large sum every year (not paid
out of revenue) for additional rolling stock, larger
stations, heavier rails, and other improvements, and
upon the whole it may be taken twat the capital
invested in the railways of the United Kingdom
increases by £10,000,000 a year. To meet this,
and ears a return for it, the number of miles of
railway increases by about 400 a year. To pay 5
per cent. on the increased capital of £10,000,000
the gross receipts should increase by nearly
£1,000,000 a year, or about £19,000 a week. But
in 1860 the 12 chief companies alone have had an
increase of traffic of considerably more than
£1,000,000. There is little doubt that the gross
receipts of railways for the year have exceeded the
interest of the National Debt, but they have to be
winnowed of nearly half for working expenses
before anyprofits are divided on the £350,000,000
invested in the railroads of the United Kingdom.
But no one will ever grudge them a fair profit for
the vast service they render. Seven years ago,
when they were about three-fourths what they
now are, Robert Stephenson calculated that, adding
together the saving of time in every railwayjour-
ney taken in a single year,
as compared with the
time it would have oncupied by coach, the aggre-
gate amounted to no less than 38,000 years of eight
hours a day ; and, allowing 3s. a day a.s the value
of labour, the annual saving to the nation was even
then £2,000,000 a year. Above half a million of
persons—men with their wives and children—are
supported by the employment furnished by the
making and working of railroads. As for the pro-
duce of the traffic, peers, prelates, judges, private
families without number, are enabled to embark in
the great carrying business of the country and
share in its profits without any personal trouble,
risk of liability, or loss of caste—traders without
knowing it.

.efIFAIRS.

HERTFORD LITERARY 41VD SCIEN-

2IFIC INSTITUTIOIY.

MONTHLY CONVERSAZIONE.

At the monthly conversazione of the Hertford
Literary and Scientific Institution, held on Thurs-
day se nnight, It. Dimsdale, Esq., read an interest-
ing and valuable paper on " Labourers' Catages."
Mr. DIMSDALE commenced by saying that no
thoughtful man would underrate the tlnportauce of s
the subject of cottage improvement. The clergy-
man could tell how often his efforts to guide
aright the poor of his flock were frustrated by
the malignant influence exercised over them
by the wretched dwellings they were com-
pelled to inhabit; and the schoolmaster could
testify how frequently the lessons of purity and
cleanliness learnt at school, were counteracted by
the too often unavoidable arrangements of the poor
child's home. Judges from the bench dwelt upon
the evil as one poisoning the springs of social and
domestic life ; and medical men traced to the same
origin much of that physical deterioration of our
race, which was, they said, a marked feature of the
present age. At nearly every agricultural meeting
held in the autumn of last year, the subject was
broached, and owners and occupiers of land vied
with each other in urging the necessity of an im-
mediate and sufficient remedy for the evil. In
discussing the subject it would be necessary,
in the first place, to state the moral and physical
evils traceable to the negligence of cottage proprie-
tors. It was an undoubted fact that close and ill-
ventilated dwellings were the cause of disease. As
ague fastened itself upon badly-drained districts,
being comparatively unknown elsewhere, so did

typhus—the special scourge of the poor—concen-
trate its attacks upon the courts and alleys of our
great towns, and upon the disgracefully-built cot-
tages—hastily thrown up by brick and mortar spe-
culaters;er by ignorant agents of indolent land-
lords—in Ourrural districts. Meanwhile the disease,
though it originated, did not end there. The
miasma generated in the wretched hovels of the
poor found its way through the well-fitting windows
of the rich man's mansion, and gathered its victims
from the rich man's fireside. Thus neglected duties
brought their own reward. Dr. Farr, the eminent
statist, calculated the natural rate of mortality at
17 in 1,000 of the population ; while the actual
mortality in the less healthy parts of the metropolis
was 33 in 1,000 and in one district, the potteries at
Kensington, no less than 46 in 1,000. According
to this calculation, nearly one-half of those who
died in the metropolis were the victims of the neg-
ligence or the cupidity of man. In London gene-
rally, the deaths from typhus fever were 12 per
cent., while —to show that this disease was per-
fectly preventible—he might state that in none
of the model lodging-houses, established by
different philanthropic societies, had a single
case as yet occurred. Dr. Southwood Smith
had said—" Typhus springs, not from want,
but from filth ; not from insufficiency of food,
but from impurity of air, and particularly
from such impurity as is produced by over-crowd-
ing, and from the emanations from that poison-pit
—the cesspool." But as, where the marshes of
Lincolnshire and Kent had been thoroughly drained,
ague had disappeared, so they might hope that
with well built, well drained, and well ventilated
cottages for the poor, typhus would disappear.
Then, with regard to scrofulous diseases. M. Ban-
delocque, a famous French physician, had given it
as his opinion, however ill chosen and unsubstan-
tial the food of an individual, however much per-
sonal cleanliness may be neglected, if the house in
which he dwelt were but airy, light, and large
enough for the number of its inmates, scrofulous
disease would never make its appearaace. Mr.
Dimsdale then proceeded to give details showing
the actual condition of the dwellings of the poor.
In four houses in an alley leading out of Oxford-
street, 461 persons were lodged; and in one room
in St. Giles', inspected by commissioners of public
health, from 40 to 60 human beings, besides
numerous dogs and cats, were found herded toge-
ther. In a provincial town in the west of Eng-
land, which he feared might serve as a sample of
many nearer home, in a ground floor room, 10 feet
by 8 feet, and 5 feet high, were lodged a man with
his wife and five children. Mr. Rawlinson, the
Government Inspector, asserted that there was
hardly a town in England in which scenes as bad,
or even worse, might not every day he found
by those who sought for them. The natural conse-
quence of such a state of things was the physical de-
terioration of the labouring classes. The moral
evils resulting from bad dwelling-places were more
startling. The crowded apartment, where wife and
husband, and children, were huddled together,
afforded no quiet resting-place, for the working man
when the labours of the day were over. The room,
dark as a cellar, with blackened ceiling and damp
uneven floor, contrasted unfavourably with the
cheerful tap-room of the village alehouse or the
gaudy chambers of the London gin-palace. By de-
grees the husband isolated himself from his family,
and too often—more from seeking elsewhere the com-
forts he failed to find at home, than from any innate
vicious propensity, the poor man became, through
evil associations, a reckless drunkard. The lessons
of the clergyman and the advice of the moralist,
given under such circumstances, fell dead upon the
ear ; and life was a vain struggle against influences
for which apathetic landlords and greedy specula-
tors were mainly accountable. Drunkenness in the
husband, thriftlessness in the wife, profligacy
among the sons and daughters, were consequent
upon habitations unfit for human beings to live in.
" Talk of morality," said the Bishop of Ripon,
"amongst people who herd men,women, and children
together, with no regard of age or sex, in one narrow
confined apartment! You might as well talk of
cleanliness in a sty, or of limited purity in the
Doubtlessii
the guilty
d i d
victimsw ellto
build gaols and ref
contents of a cesspool."
a'
tori es far t
but it would be better to nip the
oevfioluirnntleigelbec bull ; by purifying the springs of English
domestic life. And they might be purified. Since
lodging-houses had been placed under
Londonunderinslpoedegtiinogn
the health of the inmates of
houses and their moral character hapdlaimeepsrtohveeds.amAet
Birmingham, Carlisle, and other
1 results were observed. Mr, Dimsdale then reviewed
the means to be adopted for the improvement of
labourers' cottages, calling attention to the La-
bourers' Dwelling Act, passed in 1855, and under
which most of
.the cottage improvement societies,
including that established in Hertford, bad been
formed. A bill was also passed for Scotland, con-
taining the following provision, which he regretted
was not in the t nglish Bill ;7--." Owners of build-
ings, faulty in their original construction, or fallen
into a state of dilapidation, or being in a condition
likely to cause disease in the inhabitants or the
neighbourhood, may on neglecting to remedy their
defects, be• compelled to surrender them at a fair
valuationsocn, iatio to any duly constituted improvement as-
applying for them to the proper quarter."
After referring to the large expenditure of the Dukes
, of Bedford and Northumberland in the repair and
erection of cottages on their estates, and to the steps '
taken by Mr. Salt to accommodate his workmen
at Bradford; Mr. Dimsdale referred to the ope-
rations of the London Labourers' Friend So-
ciety, the Metropolitan Association for the Im-

In the Midland counties there is a proposal to
extend the Wycombe branch to Oxford, with a view
to a new and shorter route thence to London ; and
there is a bold scheme for extending the West
Midland from Yarnton, near Oxford, to London.
Already the West Midland, by its recent amalga-
mations, stretches from Shrewsbury down to South
Wales on the one hand, and to Oxford on the other.
Leave is to be asked for a line from Ashchurch,
near Tewkesbury (whence a railroad to Malvern is
being constructed), to Evesham, uniting the Bristol
and Birmingham line with the West Midland. A
line is proposed from Worcester toLeominster ; one
from Dudley to Craven Arms, on the Shrewsbury
and Hereford line; from Wolverhampton to Bridg-
north ; a branch from Atherstone or Nuneaton, on
the Trent Valley, to Whitacre, on the Birmingham
and Derby, which, with lines in progress, will give
a direct communication between Leicester and
Birmingham; lines from Ellesmere to Wrexham
and Mold, and also to Oswestry, on the one side,
and to Whitehurch on the other; a line extending
the Stourbridge to Smethwick, near Birmingham ;
all these connect trunk lines with one another at
intermediate points, and that is a noticeable charac-
teristic of the projects for next session. Then there
are bills for lines to Market Drayton, Much
Wenlock, Alcester, and Henley-in-Arden. The
Cheshire Midland, it seems, is to be extended from
its Northwich terminus to Chester, giving a
second line thence to Manchester. A line is
proposed from the Midland at Mansfield, and
also from near Chesterfield, to Shireoaks, on the
Sheffield line, near Worksop. The Great Northern
again perseveres in asking to he extended from
Doncaster to Wakefield ; the South Yorkshire
seeks to •eross the Trent at Keadhy ; a line is pro-
po4ed for shortening the route from Hall to Don-
caster, an
other connecting the Sheffield line with
the Whaley-
bridge anatlannhes to Otley and Ilkley.
The Great Northern Sheffield companies
are, it is said, to have thnelthdees.ihred. liitnio from Gars-
ton into Liverpool, giving
the kingdom from a road across
Grimsbyeto theefflc Mersey. The
London and North-Western propose_ a line from
Eilgehill, Livetpool, across to
iPsooti e, on the other
a in
side of the town ; and
andprop4r)ssed on the
other hand from the Lancashire
rkhshiire atd
Walton, near Liverpool, to join the Edil
Garston line. Both the great companies justge named
ask n and
ask for several new branches in the manufacturing
districts ; the North-Western company propose a
lino from Eccles to Wigan, and a line crossing
the Mersey at Runcorn, and there is a bill for a
branch to Batley. An important link is being con-
structed, and must now be approaching completion,
joining the (Little) North-Western at a point near
Settle to the Lancaster and Carlisle near Tebay,
shortening the route to Glasgow. A scheme for a
line from Penrith to Cockerrnonth proposes to take
Keswick in ite route, making another inroad upon
the L'itre district. On the opposite side of the
country the Cleveland seeks extension to the Tees,
and various small local lines are proposed in the
Newcastle district, besides one of more importance
—the Newcastle, Derwent, and Weardale, a line
from the first-named town to join the South Dur-
ham and Lancashire, and thus give a new route
from Newcastle to Liverpool. Without going fur-

proving of Dwellings of the Industrious Poor, and
other similar associations successfully engaged in
erecting lodging-houses and model cottages for the
poor. "It was the success of these various associa-
tions, benefitting thus largely the districts in which
they are situated, which led to the establishment of
the Hertford Building Company. The subject was
only mooted at the commencement of the present
year, but it has already obtained considerable sup-
port,thought not nearlyto the amount which might
have been expected from a country so wealthy as
our own. Nearly 400 shares have been subscribed,
making a capital of £2,000, while some persons,
who have not thought well to take shares, have
shown their interest in the work in hand, by con-
tributing donations to the amount of £2OO. Thus
its present capital exceeds considerably that of the
Hastings Society when first established, as also
that of the Ramsgate Association, of which the
funds amount at the present time only to £1,650,
and starting with greater advantages than these,
we may look forward to its attaining even more
satisfactory results. Differing in one respect to the
scheme of the Metropolitan, its shares are limited to
the trifling amount of £5, so that few can be ex-
cluded, of necessity, from taking part in the good
work, and lending their aid towards diminishing
the evils attendant upon cottage neglect in this our
county of Hertford."
After the reading, the company took tea and coffee.
An interesting conversation followed, which was
closed by a vote of thanks to Mr. Dimadale and to
the chairman.—Hertford Mercury.

willy nilly, and no shilly shally, whether the 1
French fleet would draw off from its present waters I
and leave Gaeta to be showered upon with a cata-
ract of combustibles that would bring Francis to his
senses by blowing his brains out, and his head off,
but head nor tail could be made of him while the
Emperor was at his back. " You hear, gentlemen,
you hear," cried Thouvenel, affecting sudden illumi-
nation as to the darkness of the dilemma. " We do
hear, but heed not," rejoined the trio ;—" the Em-
peror's honour, the credit of Europe, the cause f
humanity require that brigandage masquerading
in monarchy should not be suffered to triumph."
" Fiddlesticks !" quoth Cowley, snapping his
fingers with a vivacity worthy of the cow that
jumped over the moon on hearing the tune of
" High Diddle Diddle," which was doubtless
originally played on a Herefordshire long-horn.
This hyper professional interjection of Fiddlesticks
(it sounds tremendous in French—Te ne me soucis
non plus
edi
who cel a
drewque
h de
himself
nelif) appeared to pique
Thouvenel, up, and said it was
impossible that the remonstrances of three allies of
his master could be disregarded, but that nothing
could be said definitively till the Emperor himself
had decided, and then the decision should be com-
municated simultaneously to all the ambassadors,
ordinary and extraordinary, of course including
Milor Kouloi. And so the curtain fell upon the
scene.

LOUIS NAPOLEON.-EUROPEAN

(From the London Correspondent of the Liverpool Albion.)
Unless animal magnetism fail to draw out a
fellow-feeling in the long-eared tribe, hilarious
must have been the congenial hee-haw where-
with the tickling telegram touching Tuesday's
doings at the Tuileries was read on Wednesday
morning by the four Liverpool merchants who
once asked our august, unsophisticated ally over
the water where and when he meant to land, and
were informed by M. Mock-hard that his Majesty
hadn't quite made up his mind about coming, but
when he had, would acquaint the brayers of the
quadrupedal quartette. Heretofore New Year's
Day in France has been called jour de l'an ; but
unless Persigny's press privileges be a hoax, every
journal pour rire must henceforth call it jour de
Pane—or Donkey Day—or feast of all saints of
Assissi, because of the Imperial prank played off on
the assembled diplomatists, who standing round
the throne with pricked-up ears to hear heaven
knows what, were confidently informed that the
omnipobential potentate hadn't a word to say save
wishing them a remarkably fine afternoon ; and
thereupon turned upon his heel and departed. If
poor Eugenie have a laugh left, since she returned
from her Tam o'Shanter ride through the Arctic
snow-wraiths of Scotland, she must have smiled
at the thought of the thistles left behind. Appro-
priate New-year's gift, indeed, a handful of stimu-
lating flowers would be among the wiseacres, who
must have scratched their heads ender the impres-
sion that the metempsychosis of Bottom had been
wrought in their particular purses; and doubtless
the brain of each has since been wool-gathering,
like that of the translated Weaver, fearing to
recount the untranslatable mid-winter day's dream.
Unlucky are the playwrights just now, to be sure,
or what a hit in a pantomime would not this scene
at the Tuileries have made. Only Tom Taylor is
in the Civil Service, and it would therefore be
uncivil to make some fun of anything govern-
mental; he might dramatise the incident for a
screaming Adelphi farce, and a roaring one it
would be, showing each functionary going in full
fig, stiff as buckram in gold and twice as stiff in
brassy pomposity, having previously arranged for
instantaneous transmission of the thrilling tidings
to their respective courts, and mayhap to
their stockbrokers; and then all ending like the
Needy Knife Grinder's story—none to tell.
But the take in didn't terminate there. If the
Corsican conjuror gave his dumbfounded dupes
nothing to say, he furnished them and their mas-
ters with plenty to think about. Tokens of remem-
brance were circulated in the room, in the shape of
coins with the effigies of a Third Napoleon in coro-
nation tailory, including the Caesarian orb, Charle-
magnesque sceptre, and Bonapartean fees; but no
Empress on the obverse, or side by side, as in the
old Dnnmow flitch-of-bacon style of the original
Boney and his Josephine rib, spare-rib, though well
jointured, as she afterwards proved. Here, then,
is the first glimpse of the real beginning
of the real end. Having, as incessantly said
here for ten years, ever set his heart, he now
has set his head upon the crown, but not yet
the crown on his head. When will he ? Never.
Hugo has said it; and Victor, vates and poet, will
prove a triumphant prophet in this particular as in
the other prediction, namely, that in his early youth
the spurious and sinister Louis was a conspirator,
so has he lived conspiring, and would conspiring
die. Coronation—who is to crown him ? The
Patriarch of Moscow perhaps might do it for him
as one of the Romanoffized-Beauharnais satraps of
the Czardom ; but that would be letting Bruin Nes-
selrode's cat out of the bag rather too precipitately ;
and there are too many ambidexterous tricks for
the French monkey to play yet ere the livery of
him who secretly pulls Jocko's strings be bpenly
put on. At present the triple hat crushes both
the golden and iron diadems, unless, indeed, the
latter should be assumed in Milan, as in the
Uncle's case, and then the Father of the pro-
digal eldest son of the Church would whisk off
to the snowy-domed Duomo, and do it, crying
Finis coronat opus? by opus meaning the
undoing of the Solferino business. But what
of Victor Emmanuel ? Nothing that is, nihilo
nzhil fit ; and it is very fit, and proper too, that the
impostor regality should return to the nothing his
worthless and therefore worthy papa left him, for
all the trash about his being Re Galantuomo is
over long ago, with divers other dogn ate quackeries.
To that it must come at last, as it was intended
from the beginning ; and th. sooner the better the
pretence to the contrary is dew. with ; and then we
shall begin to know who's who and what's what in
IMI. Mazzini has unmasked to day a battery of
annihilating facts against the fictions of the last
six months about the popularity of the huxtering
Savoyard ;—making known to all, what many well
knew before, that the treatment of Garibaldi is of
a piece with the conduct in 1848, and must have the
same issue, though in a different interest, the in-
terest of the regime of the Second of December—
for the present.
Of the perplexity of that present, up to the
pa,sing minutes, take this sample. A short time
ago the beleaguered Bombalino received from Bona-
parte an autograph letter complimenting him on
the defence of Gaeta, but adding that, as enough
had been for kingly and for knightly honour, it
was time to knock under without another blow.
Francis wrote back that praise of soldiership from
Napoleon was praise indeed, and that a wish from
one who had so befriended him should and would
be law, but for this—the devotion of his troops for-
bid the obedience gratitude imposed. He was
therefore resolved to hold out to the uppermost,
and at least to die as became almost the last owner
of a name conspicuous for centuries in the first of
virtues, valour—importuning his Majesty, at the
same time, by all his hopes of an hereafter of
chivalrous repute, not to desert a fellow sovereign
in extremity, but at all events to continue the
enforcement of that neutrality at sea which should
allow the handful of Neapolitans to cope, as they
were well able, with the myriad foe in. front,
whose wiles and money had been more formidable
than their arms, but were innocuous now. To this
the Imperial taciturnity answered never a word ;
but he took care that the missive should find its
way in a twinkling to the corps diplomatique.
Thereupon there hurried hotfoot to Thouvenel, the
Cerberi of Catholicity, namely—Bavaria, Austria,
and Spain—opening their triple brazen jp,ws in iron-
tongued clamour against the sea dogs-of-war
being let slip upon the stricken Bourbon deers,
and entreating that France would remember its
antecedents, and not suffer an unfortunate Prince
of long descended dynasty to be done to death
by a perfidious kinsman, scandalising Europe
with the spectacle of a Sovereign playing ban-
dit with a crown on his head and the maxims of
a freebooter on- his lips. Thouvenel hummed
and hawed, and hawed and hummed ; but evi-
dently with the " coy, reluctant, amorous de-
lay" of one wanting to be pressed, and had
already consented, while protesting, like Donna
Julia, that he couldn't think of such a thing.
Just as his virtue had virtually given way, there
came a rat-tat at the portal, and in stalked the
veritable British lion ;—a very ratty sort of animal
for the last dozen years in Paris' looking precisely
the kind of creature that would be delighted to bolt
down a sewer, or other subterranean exit from day-
light into oblivion, so as to escape observation, and
consequently the cost of keeping, up appearances,
especially as regards the alimentary canal. On this
occasion, however, there was an astounding change
observable. The whitom crawling Cowley was now
arampant
port, and defiance
and '—d"pride in his
altogether a stupendous person-
age, i
atre Ya' lance
' ra.
i
is airs
showed Thouvenel what was in the
wind
trans-
pired with the trio, adding an interrogatory supposi-
tion that perhaps hid Excellency her Britannic
Majesty's Minister did not take precisely the same
view of the situation ? No, his Excellency did nothing
of the sort, nor her Britannic Majesty either, and
didn't intend. Fee-few-turn, he was instructed to
demand instanter and as much sooner as convenient,

THE SUN, LONDON, TUESDAY EVENING, JANUARY 8, 1861.