The Sun.
London, England, 1859-12-28 00:00:00

MART ;BOROUGH-STREET.

Tn E KNIFE.—JoI in Gilbert, of 6, King's-court, Berwick-
street, Soho, was charged with the following ill-usage of
his wife, Catherine Gilbert, and cutting her in the hand
with a knife.

Inspector Webb said the wife was not able to attend, but
a medical gentleman was present who had attended her.

Charles Godwin, 206 C, said he was called to the house,
6, Kemp's-court, at a quaff ter past seven the previous even-
ing. Ha found the prisoner, who was drunk, sitting on a
chair, sad his wife with a severe wound in her hand and
bleeding from her finger, and crying bitterly. She said the
prisoner had been beating her about the head, and had cut
her fing3r with a knife, threatening at the same time that
he woul I kill her. The wife went to the Marlborough-
mews station, and was attended by a surgeon.
Sergeant James Kay, 16 C, said he wont at a quarter
past tam) this morning to see the prisoner's wife. He
found her in bed with her head and finger bandaged up.
She was in an unfit state to attend the court to-day.
Dr. James Henderson, of 31, Great Marlborough-street.
said he attended the woman. She was suffering from an
incised wound of the finger, And a wound on her head,
which appeared to have been done by her head coming in
contact with a wall. There were also some marks on her
neck. The woman is still suffering from the effects of ill-
treatment, and scarcely fit to attend the court.
Mr. Beadon, upon this, said he should remand the pri-
soner for a week, to see the result of the injuries the
woman had received.

What have the representatives in this proSaic
age of the Hugh of Vermandois, the Raymond of
Toulouse, the Godfrey of Bouillon, and the Stephen
of Blois of the eleventh century, to do, in com-
parison with the deeds of those energetic knights ?
They have not to march through hostile popula-
tions, trusting to miracles for subsistence on their
way. They go forth with all the comforts of
steam conveyance and an excellent Commissariat,
and with all the modern appliances of rifled guns
tied a fleet to protect their flank. They have
40,000, or, as oar correspondent now reckons them,
30,000 soldiers, who boast themselves the bravest
and best disciplined in the world. They land under
t heir own guns, and comfortably barrack themselves
in their own city or encamp under their own walls.
They have before them not a conquering race in
the full career of conquest, but a poor beaten herd
of. mingled races, who have lost all confidence in
their destiny, and whose very religion teaches them
to despair. The immediate feat proposed to them
is not to meet the hosts of Soleyman or Saladin,
to march a miserable seven leagues along the coast
and to take a wretched little town, the inhabitants
of which have already settled among themselves
by which particular path among the mountains
they shall take their flight. Ye Red Cross Knights
why do ye hesitate to do so small a matter ? It can-
not be that your courage fails you, for we know
you are brave men. But if your resolution holds,
surely it is time to begin. For weeks this great in-
vading host has been besieged in Ceuta by the con-
temptible enemy they went to invade. No one
ever believed that the Moors could in serious fight
meet the disciplined Spaniards. Far down in the.
Tell and towards the borders of the Sahara, where
there are sandy plains and wild mountain passes,
we dreaded for our Spanish friends some notable
reverses ; but here, on the seacoast, almost in sight,
of Cadiz, we cannot appreciate this terrible diffi-.
culty of a seven leagues' march and this hurried
call for reinforcements. With rifled cannon and
Toledo steel they cannot be afraid of those clumsy
matchlocks and doubtful muskets which England,
Belgium and France have exported to Africa at
different times, or even of those accurate long
barrels which the Portuguese smith made for a
former Moorish Emperor. The Spaniards are
equipped with the best European rifles, while, for
effective purposes, the Moors are not much better
armed than they were in the days of the Ramiros,
who thought nothing of slaying 70,000 Saracens is
a single fight. These Christian apostles of the
sword are surely not alarmed at the stories they
are told that 100,000 men may possibly attack
them on their march; 30,000 regular troops ought
to thrash 300,000 undisciplined and almost unarmed
militia. Their forefathers used to do something of
this sort, or the present race of Spaniards would
not now have to go over the Straits to meet a
Moorish enemy. 30,000 Europeans against 100,000
Orientals ! It would be foul shame to our Euro-
pean blood to doubt for a moment what the issue
of such a conflict must be, or to hesitate to pierce
suah an impediment. Let the Spaniards consider
what we English have done in India against
Such odds ; or let them remember what their own
Campeador, or Cortez, or Pizarro thought of them ;
or, if they want to have their confidence strength-
ened, let them remember how in this very Empire
of Morocco the French fought and gained the battle
of Isly at greater odds than these. It is not by
building redoubts and cutting down cork trees while
an Arab encampment is in sight that the Westerns
have been accustomed to beat the Oriental races It
is not in resisting fanatical charges that the Chris-
tian chivalry of old or modern times gained glory
among the nations of the West. But we are told
these 30,000 Spaniards aro all recruits. So much
the better. There is nothing like a recruit for a
dash. It was with raw recruits that the Saracens
came from their deserts and the Turks from their
wilds. It was with raw recruits that the Generals
of the French Republic overran Europe and that
we won Waterloo. No man fights like your recruit
if he has just learnt his drill and has a steady nerve.
He doesn't know the danger. The real old soldier
is much more chary of his life ; he has seen battle-
fields after the work was done, and has been struck '
by the inconvenient consequences of a general.
actim. He knows that something comes after the
fiery excitement of a charge, and the cries of
" Water !" ring in his ears. Depend upon it, for
this terrific march of 21 miles along the seacoast,
with a fleet to accompany them, 30,000 recruits
ought to be quite as good as 30,000 veterans.
These Spanish heroes must excuse our impa-
tience. We have come very unwillingly to look
upon this great spectacle. We have no taste in the
present age for a bull-fight, an auto da fo, or a re-
ligious war. Whenever the performance may com-
mence we know we have something disagreeable
to go through; we are, therefore, a little impatient
to have it over as soon as possible. Why, then, is
not the curtain pulled up ? Why do we still hear
little more than the tuning of the instruments?
By this time at least the first act ought to have
been got over. As to the taking of Tetuan, it was
expected to occupy only the first scene of the enter-
tainment. This boggling about, moving along a
little fringe of seacoast, and this hesitation to at-
tack the Mussulman herdsmen who are encamped
just out of the range of the Spanish rifled cannon,
is by no means what we were invited to admire.
When we found that this Holy War was deter-
mined upon, we,had hoped to see in it something as
little sanguinary, and, if not as comical, at least as
picturesque as possible. We had all proposed to
ourselves that the grave Spaniard with his solid
regiments would form on the Arican coast and march
steadiiy onwards from post to post and from city
to city; while the children of the Prophet would
scamper before him in every variety of grotesque
attitude of haste. We had expected to hear in de-
scription how " Paterfamilias" of Morocco found
himself encumbered by the multiplicity of his
domestic felicities and impeded in his flight by their
number and portliness. We had anticipated vivid
accounts of villages with all their inhabitants as-
sembled round the O'Donnell of the ninth Crusade,
their heads on the earth and their haunches in the
air, declaring themselves ready to listen to all the
General's arguments against the Prophet. But, in-
stead of all this, the ridicule really seems to glance
towards the other side. Unless the Spaniards soon
make up their minds to march these twenty-one
miles we shall begin to think that they are not,
with all their artificial advantages, so much better
than the Moors as we thought they were.—'Mmes.

11118 DAY'S MARKETS.

CORN EXCHANGE.

The quantity of English wheat received fresh up to-day
was only moderate, yet, on the whole, thorn was a fair show
of samples. Good and fine samples were in moderate re-
quest, at full quotations. Otherwise, the demand ruled
somewhat heavy at late currencies.

In foreign wheat—the show of which was tolerably good
—very little was passing. Prices, however, were supported.
Floating cargoes of grain commanded very little atten-
tion.

Wo had a fair demand for barley at full quotations.
So few transactions took place in malt that the currencies
were almost nominal.

The oat trade was firm, and good sound corn was the
turn dearer. _

Beans, peas, and flour commanded full prices, but the
business done was only moderate.

ARRIVALS THIS WEER'
Wheat. Barley Malt. Oats.
English :860 /
Iri 2,890 1 250 1,2.-,0 i
sh
Foreign 62o_, 12,450 I 4,870 ( 150 sks.
• I i 930 bls.

Flour.
630

BOROUGH HOP.
Although very little business is doing in our market,
prices generally are well supported.