The Sun.
London, England, 1868-12-25 00:00:00

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On the subject of Christmas th tftitittWi-disconr6es :
Christmas is the feast of all people it:nd
Nature, indeed, in this hemisphere is sokkewhaitkeluttpit,
and has to make forced contributions. This year, indeed,
she is hardly herself, for she wears no wreath of snow,
she comes in smiles and tears, and is even making
up for her unfinished summer's work. But the feast
is still the parting benediction of the old year,
and the incoming of a new one. It is, as always,
a mustering of families and tribes and acquaintances.
Sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, and many a
stranger 4l'vithin our gates, gather together, as they did
long ago, or, at least, think of one another with kindlier
feelings from distant lands or over walls of separation.

If the present cannot always be realised, its place is taken
by the well-remembered past. The decree is that all the
world be now numbered and named, each one to his own
home, the stray ones again brought to the fold, the weak-
liggs restored, and the forgotten recalled to memory
and affection. It is the stock-taking of our human gear.
We are all invited to turn over a new leaf, and to start,
new born and with a fresh supply of healthy affection,
for the unknown trials of another year. Curiously enough,
the Times then goes on to discourse on the recent constitu-
tional changes effected by the Reform Bill, and points out
that the fears expressed at the time of the measure
being discussed of the great body of the people
themsebres being changed towards the higher
classes and their well-to-do fellow citizens was
utterly groundless. Our security consisted in the fact
that, whatever we might do and whatever laws we
might pass, we could not possibly change the nature of
the Englishman, or, indeed, the prevailing characteristics
of this mixed population of ours. Politicians may parade
or manoeuvre the people just for a day for some
showy tactics of theirs, but the people will be found
next day as they were. Of the work to be done
in London in the way of finding employment for the
huge mass of strugglers, it is remarked that no discourage-
ment by abortive schemes shall prevent us from
pointing out yea; by year, as Christmas returns,
how much there is: to be done in this huge
wilderness of a city. It is a case for organisation. All
these people we certainly believe are ready to fall in at the
word of command, for employment or service. They are
our own countrymen, sharers of our nature. They will
work if they have the work to do, and the very circum-
stance that they have been accustomed to special places in
large industrial organisations contributes to their help.
lessness when cast on their own invention and their own
resources.
The Star, speaking of the season and the recent commu-
nications printed in its columns on the subject of misery
in the metropolis, has the following remarks : The
great law of charity is recognised as of paramount
authority by all, of whatever distinctive sect or commu-
nion, who really believe in the precepts of Christianity ;
and it is singularly felicitous that the anniversary
of our Saviour's birth should annually recur
at a time when we are forcibly reminded of
His words, " The poor ye have always amongst
you." Far many days past our columns have borne testi-
mony to the significance of this fact; to the appalling
condition of the destitute parts of the metropolis ; and, at
the same `time, to the existence of the most disinterested
and extensive agencies for the relief of the suffering classes.
Our correspondents have told their own story, and although
the details have been necessarily brief, they disclose a
state of things which may well shock humane and sensi-
tive men and women. We must first express the admira-
tion we feel for the generous, unpaid, self-sacrificing
labours of those who have undertaken the colossal task
of providing for the partial sustenance of so many thou-
sands of poverty-stricken human beings ; who dis-
cover them in their wretched homes ; educate their
children, or, at all events, save myriads of little one
from a miserable life in the streets ; supply the sick with
medicine, the naked with clothing, the famishing with
bread. Such beneficence is all-embracing in • its aepira-
tion—would that it were sufficiently sustained by help
from the affluent to embrace all who are in need. If
those who have wealth and to spare would only
give of their superfluity the ministering work of charity
would be made comparatively easy, and in the end
absolutely effectual.
Of the home feeling that the return of Christmas brings,
the Telegraph observes that up and down the Continent
of Europe are scattered men and women whose lives
have been a failure, whose fortunes are utterly ship-
wrecked, who are themselves battered and broken,

weary and worn. There are few more pathetic
passages in fiction than that where Smollett—
who himself, like Fielding, died abroad—paints the
Scottish Jacobites at Boulogne, who sought the seaside
on clear clays that they might enjoy a glance at the white
cliffs of the land to which they were forbidden to return;
and, to-day, one can hardly think without pity of those
.who are condemned to'a, life-long exile by the consequences,
of their own faults or folly—who, lurking in some quiet
little French or German town where the travelling
tourist is still unfamiliar, think bitterly of the life that
might have been theirs—most bitterly of all, at this season
when the whole world rejoices. There are other little
"English colonies" which will not lack loving remem-
brance at home; those little settlements of invalids
at Madeira or along the Genoese Riviera, which
are deserted in the summer, but recruited with
terrible certainty by fresh arrivals every winter.
The graveyards of Funchal, Nice, and Mentone
bear witness to this sad emigration of the English.
Christmas, in the South, may indeed be bright and
sunny ; but in the heart of everyone who may sit to-day,
perhaps at an open window, and look southwards over
olive woods and terraced gardens to the purple sea, the
thought and the yearning for home will arise—the craving
to live again in the old land, and, if death be indeed near,
to die among their own people and rest in an English
grave. Thus tenderly do the English out of England
remember the home of their birth, and we may therefore
fitly plead that they should not be forgotten in our happy
and kindly thought this day.

The Post says : According to the latest intelligence we
have received, it appears that the Russian Ambassador
at Constantinople has proposed to the Porte that a Con-
ference should be held on the subject of the existing
" difficulty" between Turkey and Greece, and it is
said that the Ottoman Government have declined the
proposal. We should not be surprised if such should
prove to be the case, and we may go further, and say that
in our opinion such a course on the part of the Porte
would be prudent and dignified. The Government of the
Czar can hardly see in the present position of affairs
a suitable opportunity for reopening the Eastern ques-
tion. The Porte, however, is justified in regarding the
matter in a different light. The castes belli between Turkey
and Greece has no more to do with the Eastern ques-
tion than the depredations of the Alabama during the
American civil war, or the arrest of the Commissioners of
the Southern Confederacy by Commodore Wilkes when
on their way to Europe on board the Trent. The cause
of complaint advanced by the Porte is specific, and relates
solely to disregard by Greece of the obligations imposed
on her by the law of nations. In conclusion, it is
added that Greece is transparently in the wrong,
and she must, like more powerful States under
the same circumstances, either make reparation or tight
her own battles. The true policy for the Protecting
Powers in the present juncture is one of non-intervention.
If, however—which seems highly improbable—any Power
should think proper to endorse the Hellenic pretensions,
it will be for the Western Powers to consider the changed
position of affairs, and to fulfil the public obligations which
it imposes upon them.

The Standard thus takes Captain Vivian to task. It is
seldom that a member of her Majesty's Government
indulges in such an alliterative and sensational sentence
as that with which the new War Lord of the Treasury
has been startling the inhabitants of the remote borough
of Truro. Indeed, when we read of "bloated armaments
battening on the blood of the people," it was hard
to believe that the mild and gentlemanly Captain Vivian
was speaking. But it really is true that the honourable
captain worked himself up to this point, and sketched
to his astonished audience a vision of a Liberal milleniuni,
when Mr. Bright's "free breakfast table" would be
brought about by the abolition of war throughout the
world. It was to be the happy lot of Mr. Gladstone's
Government to substitute for the arbitrament of war
" an understanding that, while they should not interfere
in the domestic affairs of other nations, all differences
which might arise between nation and nation should be
referred to the arbitrament of a peace congress." Captain
Vivian expressed his belief that that day would come, and
added, somewhat inconsequently, that we might then
bring down our expenditure on military _armaments from
twenty-six millions to ten millions. We say somewhat
inconsequently, because it seems difficult to comprehend
why, with such a charming understanding in existence,
we should spend ten millions, or even one million, on.
armaments.

By the Herald we are told that Lord Mayo has declared
his intention to substitute action for correspondence in
carrying out improvements in India ;
.and the impending
famine in that country will give immediate occasion for all
the energy his lordship can command. It is fortunate, for
the sake of the end in view, that the new Viceroy is not an
old Indian. We all remember how old Indians in high places
allowed Bengal to drift into destitution, and a large propor-
tion of its people to perish from absolute want of food, and
were prevented from giving a wider range to disaster only
by the peremptory commands of Lord Cranborne, con-
veyed through the telegraph, to take special measures to
meet the emergency. Lord Cranborne had no experience
of India, but he knew that it was better to break through
official precedents, and even make a little free with
politico-economical principles, than to allow the popula-
tion of a province to die of starvation. Lord Mayo, we
may be sure, will be actuated by the same instincts; and
the knowledge which he has gained of famines through his
Irish experience is not likely to make lum,regard such
calamities as matters of course. _ _ ___ •

In regard to the reductions prOmised by Ministers, the
Times tells us that if we choose to maintain an army
always on an active footing, and on terms of service neces-
sarily expensive, we must of course be prepared to pay the
cost. Neither Mr. Cardwell nor any other War Minister
could pretend to give us exactly what we have now
got in return for considerably less money. If the con-
ditions of administration and organisation are to remain
the same, the result must needs be, as Sir Cornewall Lewis
once calculated, a certain charge per head for every man of
the foree. But it is clear that these conditions may be
modified, and so modified as to produce a most material
and permanent result.