The Sun.
London, England, 1868-09-25 00:00:00

rence."

A correspondent of the Daily Nom furnishes a descrip-
tion of the city of Madrid, which is of special interest in
connection with the revolutionary condition of affairs. The

writer speaks of it as a very disappointing city. " There
is nothing distinctively Spanish about it. It is like a
third-rate French town, and far inferior to Brussels,
Lyons, or Marseilles. There are some fine houses and

imposing palaces in the city : the Palace is magnificent,
and possesses a splendid site, but even this is marred
by a shabby brick wall close to it, and au unfinished

sort of colonnade. The Senate House and Chamber of
Deputies are mean buildings, inferior to the town
halls of many English towns. The public promenades
—the Prado, for example—are very fine, and well
laid out ; the fountains are very beautiful, and
the gardens well kept. The climate is detestable—

either very hot or very cold ; but the extreme elevation o
the city—between two and three thousand feet above the
sea—accounts for this. When the sun shines the atmc-
sphere is brilliantly clear and invigorating, the air fresh
and keen, the sky of a lovely blue. The shops are good
and handsome, quite in the French style, and some of the
cafés vie in their gilded splendours with those of Paris."
Having just returned to Athens from Crete by the
blockade-runner Enosis, Mr. J. C. Hilary Skinner writes
to the Times in answer to those correspondents who have
so fiercely attacked the cause of Crete. He holds it to be
a mistake to suppose that the war now waged between
the Turks and the Christian insurgents is a mere
contest of brigandage against regular authority. So
far is this from being the case, that in several provinces,
in St. Basil, Amari, and Mylopotamo, in more than half
of Sphakia, and in a portion of Melanese, there is not a
single Turk, civil or military, save only a few deserters,
who bear arms among the insurgents. These provinces
constitute about one-fourth of Crete, and are as free from
Turkish control as though they belonged to some independent
principality at war with the Sultan. Large meetingsha,ve
been held in Amari with the knowledge and consent of the
whole island, and it has not been thought worth while
discussing whether the Turks would interfere to prevent
them. Mr. Skinner points out that the insurgents are well
organised for defence ; every village and every province has
its regularly-appointed captain; and for the Turks to march
into Amari or Mylopotamo would be like invading a small
but intensely hostile foreign country. The same may he
said of St. Basil and of the greater part of Sphakia. The
other provinces east and west it is admitted are not so
completely free from the Turks. Some are merely cut off
from the insurrection by lines of blockhouses. To those
who profess to doubt the fact of there having been any
Cretan war, the writer says : " It has happened that I
have seen with my own eyes very many wounded fretans,
and have been as well assured of the existence of the war
in Crete as it is possible for a looker-on who does not get
shot himself."
A letter appears in the 7imes, signed by Mr. F. W.
Holland, appealing for funds to allow a survey to be made
of the Peninsula of Sinai. Of the need for such a survey
there can be no doubt. "It has been boldly stated that
`the physical character of the Peninsula of Sinai is such
as to render it physically impossible for the events described
to have occurred there.' The protest of an individual
traveller avails but little. Why should his account be
believed in preference to that of other travellers who
tell a different story? What we want is a careful
survey made by professional men, free from all bias,
and of whose accuracy there cannot be any suspicion."
It is therefore proposed that a survey shall be made, on
the scale of six inches to the mile, of the various moun-
t tins which different authorities have held to. be the true
" Mount Sinai ;" and a survey, on the scale of one inch
to the mile, of the country between the head of the Gulf of
Suez and those mountains—i.e., the country throughwhich
the Israelites must have marched as they passed through
the wilderness. This last scale is that of the ordnance
survey of England.
The President of the Reform League has issued an
address to the new working-class electors, which embraces
a somewhat comprehensive programme. The law is to be
reformed ; they are recommended to insist upon the Ballot,
the security of the funds of trades unions, the equalisation
of rates for the support of the poor and the amendment
of the poor law, a searching revision of the., educational
funds throughout the country, the adoption of
measures calculated to promote religious equality in
Ireland and an improved measure of tenant-right, the
reduction of the civil, naval, and military expenditure,
the substitution of direct for indirect taxation, and the
reduction of our naval and military forces. Mr. Beales
tells them that the Gospel was preached to the poor espe-
cially, and perhaps the poor may teach the great ones of
the earth to be true Christians, and may give to demo-
cracy its noblest triumph, in securing, not only the free-
dom, hut the peace of the world. This is a pretty heavy
task to set the new electors at first starting.
Amid flirting and promenading, with the eating of nuts
and confectionery, and accompanied by the popping of
beer-bottle corks, has the " (lately the chief
feature of the festival in Gloucester Cathedral) been per-
formed at the Agricultural Hall, Islington. It may be
well that the inhabitaut3 of Clerkenwell should have good
musical instruction, but there is a time and place for
everything, and the " Messiah " is the most sacred of all
oratorios. During one of Mellon's concerts at Her Majesty's
a few years ago, Weiss, in the middle of the programme,
came forward to sing " The trumpet shall sound, and the
dead shall be raised." Harper took the trumpet obbligato,
and the jubilant strains were, of course, rendered magni-
ficently. But the incongruity of the affair was too startling.
In the midst of all that frivolity and glitter, to hear one
of Handel's great sermons was so painful that the audience
gave a sigh of relief at the close, and hardly applauded the
artists all. They were glad to get back to, ,c'roArcy's
waltzes. There is a sad want a itoiiiiticadilim
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