The Sun.
London, England, 1859-12-26 00:00:00

lIIGII WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE.
THIS DAY.—Morning, 3h. Bm.—Afternoon, Oh. 26m.
To-mounow.-Morning, 3h. 44m.—Afternoon, 4h. 2m.

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THE SUN.
LONDON, MONDAY, DEC. 26, 1859.

Despatches coming to us from China via Berlin
and St. Petersburg,—despatches dated from Berlin
the 24th December and from China the 17th of
October—announce that the Russian Embassy at
Pekin enjoys the most perfect liberty and the
greatest security : it being added even emphati•
tally by the quidnuncs of the Russian capital that
" all alarming reports which have been in circula-
tion on that subject are entirely false." Trust the
Muscovites for that ! We can readily conceive that
JOHN RUSSIAN and JOHN CHINAMAN are at this
juncture in the most perfect accord, now that the
latter is in open war with JOHN BULL and JOHNNY
CRAPAUD. We readily and instantly, with the most
complete confidence accept as perfectly authorita-
tivei and conclusive this distinct contradiction. We
believe that at Pekin the Russian Embassy does
enjoy the greatest liberty and security, and that
any alarming reports to the contrary are
as the St. Petersburgea.ns are now told en-
tirely false. But having accepted this contra-
diction of so many floating rumours of an opposite
kind, we may surely ask for some degree of cre-
dence also for the statements put forward at the
time of the Pieho disaster—that certain grey-coated
Muscovite artillerymen were seen here and there
very busily occupied upon those murderous and
treacherous fortifications. Not only are the two
things compatible, but they are in a mea-
sure almost essential to each other. They
help each other, they corroborate one another,
they render each other comprehensible. Besides
there is not any reasonable probability, we had
almost said possibility, that any Chinese could, by
the dim sighted Jack tars, be mistaken for a Muzco-
vite. Their flat pauper caps and long grey
Noah's ark-coats have not the slightest resemblance
to the roundabout Chinese in their light-coloured
tunics and pointed skull-caps, like the renowned
cap of the Great Rampanjander, .with the
little round button at top ! And there
upon those infernal fortifications of that
accursed ambuscade thor,e long grey Noah's ark
coats, and those flat pauper caps were recognised at
the time, o t' the Pieho disaster flitting hither and
thither—n rith the wearers of them pointing the
nuns and er,abling the unskilled Chinese bombardiers
to do deadl v e —cution upon our gunboats. Let us
hope that ezzplanations of all this may be required
betimes f torn the Government of St. Peters-
burg, and that the retributive war now about
to be corn nienced by the Anglo-French arma-
ments in C? aina may in no way be paralysed
or interfere d with in its action by the treachery
of the Russ ian, or, to say the very least of it,
the dubious i dplomacy of the American Government.
The closing words in this last sentence having re-

ference to the sinister rumour from Shanghai tt >the
effect that the Chinese Government has applif d for
an American mediation in the late differences ! An
American mediation,observe!—at the very time, when
the Russian Embassy at Pekin is in the enjoyment of
the most perfect liberty and the most entire secu-
rity ! In regard to the diplomacy both of St.
Petersburg and Washington again we say, let our
Ministry Beware !

A complete and correct catalogue of the Civil
List pensions for the current twelvemonth enables
us at last to judge of the manner in which the sum
of £1,200 per annum, placed in this way at the
yearly:disposal of the Prime Minister, has been ap-
portioned by Lord PALMERSTON. Upon two of
the awards we have already commented—those
two awards, however, only referring to £225
out of the total of £1,200 ; leaving consequently a
whole thousand, minus £25, still to be accounted
for. £125 has been, as we have taken
occasion to intimate the amount bestowed upon the
bereaved sisters of that late learned popularizer of
scientific knowledge—Dr. DIONYSTUS LARDNER,
author of the History of the Steam Engine, and
editor of that far-famed literary microcosm, " Lard-
ner's Encyclopedia." Even this item of £125,
however, small enough, if profferred by the nation
to two sisters merely of the dead
philosopher, shrinks into an insignificance
that is almost painful to contemplate, when it is
found that the recipients are actually no less in
number than the " six" sisters of Dr. LARDNER !
Again we cannot help reiterating our regret (already
expressed by us in these columns upon the first
announcement) that nothing more than the
wretched little tribute of £5O a-year should
have been awarded by this wealthy commercial
country to each of the two sisters of that HENRY
CORT, whose inventions in regard to the manufac-
ture of iron have enriched England during the last
two or three generations to an extent almost incal-
culable. We cannot, we repeat, but reiterate our
regret that the two sisters of this remarkable
benefactor and enricher of his country should
have been insulted by the award of so
paltry an amount as a wretched £5O each,
a miserable total of £lOO in the aggregate !
£100,000,000 but poorly represents the extent (in
moneyvalue)towhichE n gland is indebted to this noble
benefactor, and in consideration of this magnificent
gift of £100,000,000 (to say nothing of the amount
of increased employment it represents) England
we repeat, insults HENRY CoßT's sisters with two
little doles of £5O! Thus outraging the memory of
the inventor in the very attempt (we presume) to
evidence the national recognition of his good ser-
vices. As for the rest of these new pensions on
the Civil List, to the extent of £975 additional
making up, with the before-mentioned £225
the annual sum of £1,200 placed at the disposal of
the Premier—we find among the late awards some
rather curious, one or two rather painful, in the
manner of their distribution. For example, there
is one of £lOO per annum to Dr. BIGSBY, for his
services to literature, and his gift (when
in better circumstances) of the Astrolabe of
DRAKE to Greenwich Hospital; For the
gift of an astrolabe, the nation is to pay
£lOO a year. The next is a very excel-
lent award, though here, again, we cannot but
wish the amount had been larger—.£loo to Dr.
BLAKEY, in consideration of his philosophical
works, and his present straitened circumstances.
The same amount, we observe, is given to Mrs.
GALWAY,daughter of Hopner, the painter,on account
of the long services of her late husband in the con-
sular service; and to Mrs. LE BLANC for the benefits
conferred upon naval science by her father, the
late Sir SAMUEL BENTHAM. Another £lOO being
accorded to Dr. LOGAN in consideration of his con-
tributions to mathematical literature and the loss of
his eyesight. £lOO, moreover, is given to Miss
Pardoe, for her contributions to literature and her
support of a number of helpless relations—an award
gratifying in regard to the pension, painful in refe-
rence to the circumstances necessitating it. What
shall be said, however, in allusion to the next item
—the grant of £l5O to Mrs. REGIAD in considera-
tion of the labours of her husband, late Bishop of
Antigua, and of her being left with seven
children unprovided for ? What but that the
widow and orphans of the Bishop might surely
have been more appropriately cared for by the
enormously rich Church Establishment, instead of
being pensioned out of the poor little £1,200 set
apart nominally for the encouragement of the
promoters, or for the support of the relicts of the
promoters of art, of science, and of literature ! There
is a little pension, we observe, of £5O to Mrs. Row-
CROFT, in consideration of her husband's services
in South America and the United States, and his
being poisoned on his return home. And another
little pension of £5O to Mrs. JANET TAYLOR,
for her benevolent labours among ;the seafaring
population of London, and for her learning and
skill in the construction of treatise on navigation,
nautical tables, and nautical instruments. While
a third sum of £5O has been bestowed on
Mrs. BEECROFT, in consideration of the services of
her late husband, Captain BEECROFT, for 25 years'
service in the slave trade, on the coast of
Africa, where he at last fell a victim
to the climate. These, with £25 to Dr.
ATIIERSTON, is addition to a former sum of £75
per annum, for his services to literature and his ad-
vanced age complete the catalogue, and make
up the full total of £1,200 a-year in the annual
gift of the First Lord of the Treasury. Our two-
fold regret, once more in regard to
these Civil List Pensions, must be again
and yet again specified. It consists, in the first
place, of a regret that any others should be cared
for other than those directly or indirectly connected
with art, with science, or with literature—recipi-
ents such as the surviving relatives of naval or
military officers, or of church dignitaries—and in
the next place of a profound and earnest regret
that the total of £1,200 a-year should be cut up
and subdivided into such wretched little
driblets. Surely it were better that less
should be cared for annually, that there
should be numerically fewer recipients, and
] that these few should be given pensions really in
some way worthy of acceptance. Pensions of
£l5O, or of £2OO, or of £250, or even -of
£3OO per annum, instead of ,trumpery
doles of £75, of £5O, or even of £25 a year
—scarcely enough to pay for the salt of one's
porridge. In regard to this double regret, we
would say, in fine, that our twofold wish is—First,
that England should be JUST ; and, secondly, that
i she should be GENymors!

The unfortunate " victims" of the_Princess Royal
are to-morrow to be released from prison—by way
of a New Year's Gift. The " impartial?' trial to
which they were subjected has found sympathy in
every heart throughout the land, but in the breasts
—sonic of them possibly covered with " stars"
of these by whom they were precondemned and
sentenced to an ignominious settlement of what
might have been considered more as an exhi-
bition of ill-humour, for having the promised cup of
enjoyment dashed from their Tips at the verymo-
ment of expectant hope. Of course, sailors have