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

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 home.
Some of the proceedings seem to have been very
disgraceful. At the request of General PHILIP •
SON, 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 chosen 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 trawls in
the South. When he returns he 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 he not scoured the streets like a hunts-
man. IGNATIEFF and all the Generals seem,
however, to have been convincedthat it was no
case for military intervention at all, and Count
PUTIATIN 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 se, s 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 (if
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 th"
trenches at Sevastopol, as the Greeks held the posi-
tion of Thermopylze, and who, when dying of slow
torture in hospital, drew their blankets over their
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nToht atnokuGnodDerig"oshtheeeexe cellaoiwmsa,g
heads, and diet without a word, like the heroes of
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fence of their country. But I for one (and I speak
notwithstanding an ex •
penence of the horrors of
war which no man has had),
was not at all
sorry to see the spirit of war brought home to ,
our people's lives in the glerious risi • •
ng 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 eon-
ring patience, the good sense, the
rage, the enduring
strength to suffer in silence—' hat nation shows
more of this in war
than is shown by her com-
monest soldier . P " Has she not her own wonderful
experiences in this way to refer to ?, Nay—oh p, elm

refer to them, to some of them at least, and in this
wise. " I have seen men dying of dysentery," she
writes, " but scorning to report themselves sick lest
they should thereby throw more labour on their
comrades, go down to the trenches and make the
trenches their death-bed. There is nothing in his-
tory to compare with it. Other nations may do
it for glory, but we for duty, as the Duke of WEL-
LINGTON said. I say no one has seen the horrors
of war as I have, yet I was glad to see the spirit of
war arising in •ur Volunteers. The declaration will
possibly shock the sensibilities of Mr. BRIGHT and
his Peace-at-any-price sympathisers—more parti-
cularly seeing that it is a declaration falling from
the lips, or rather from the pen, of a woman ! But,
what, in truth, is the meaning of it ? Is it not
manifestly that Miss NIGHTINGALE exults in this
outbreak of warlike feeling in England purely and
simply, wholely and solely, because she has such a
mortal loathing of the horrors of war I And be-
cause, in a grand warlike rising like that of our
Rifle Volunteers, this gentle but dauntless woman
recognises the best security against it Gladly
would we pause awhile over FLORENCE NIGHT-
INGALE'S affecting tribute to the memory of her
" dear chief," as she calls him—the late SIDNEY
HERBERT! But we must hasten on to afford our-
selves one momentary glance at Mr. ROEBUCK'S no
less heart-stirring tribute to the Volunteers.
The member for Sheffield in his recent speech at
Newport has hardly uttered the name of the Rifle
Volunteers before he goes on at once directly to the
point in their regard. " Why," he asks, "do I
look with complacency upon the appearance of the
Volunteers of England !) It is this that makes
me look so. Some years ago I felt—l knew—that
there was a feeling abroad that England was
defenceless; that she could be assailed; and that
there 'were people ready to assail her. But, as
if from the teeth of CADMUS, there has arisen
this body of Volunteers, and that feeling that
said it would dare to invade England has
faded away, and gone to the shoes of those who
held it. They do not now talk of any invasion of
England. We are, as your honourable chairman
has said, England defending itself. The Volunteers
of this country have done that for us which no army
could do. And why ? Foreign armies are com-
pelled to appear, and an army is supposed to be
here what it is there. None of them have any
Volunteers, and they knew that when you rose up
it was England speaking, and you were confident
against the world in arms." That is really and
truly the whole secret. There is now an end of
the Alarmists. And so long as the Rifle Corps
throughout the land are kept up there will remain
an end of them. They can only be recalled to life
by the disbandment of our Volunteers.