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

CQUESPONDENOE FROM MIL

,
iFROM.OFR OWN CORRESPONDENT.)
PARIS, THURSDAY, Septeinber 24.
The interest in, the Spanish revolution hourly increalek
Du' with regard informadon we have still to
possess 6ur:soul.4 in patience. ; The latest item of intern-
kenai viz.t that General Paivon;was concentrating his
troops fOr a march on Seville is generally regarded as being
trur

itworthy. On all hands it is conceded that the ap-
pointment of Marshal Concha as President of the Council
was a clever piece of angling on the part of the Queen to
obtain the assistance of France. No doubt there is no
political man in Spain a greater favourite with the Emperor
than the marquis. He was Ambassador here in December
when the Spanish Chambers were deliberating upon the
conduct of Prim in Mexico. Concha resigned in order
to take part in the debates of the Senate, where he extolled
the wise regeneration of Mexico by French arms, and
applauded :the conduct of Prim. After the coup d'etat,
Concha became once more Minister of War, President of
the Senate, and was decorated, eulogised, and enriched by
an admiring people. At the period of the crisis he rose to
the highest rank in public estimation, having to encounter
as his adversaries all his old friends of the Liberal party.
La France confirms the statement of La Presse to the
effect that several French men-of-war have been ordered
to be in readiness to start for the coasts of Spain in the
event of their presence being required. They will be placed
under the orders of the different consuls, and will, it is
assumed, be sent exclusively with a view to the protection
of French subjects in Spain, and their interests.
Adelina Patti is expected here on Thursday. She is to
open the season at the Italiens with Fraschini in " Lucia
di Lammermoor." Her stay will be limited to six
weeks. Two other items of theatrical news may be
given. The Fantaisies Parisiennes will be opened by M.
Martinet with a new work by one of the authors of
" Crispino e Comare," under the title of " Monsieur de la
Palisse," a comic opera in four acts, the words by M. Wider.
The principal female part will be filled by Mdlle. Marimon.
Anovelty has been read to the artists of the Palais Royal in
one act, by Cham, the witty caricaturist of the Charivari,
and M. Lasalle. The title is "Un Malade au Mole."
Gil-Perez, Lheritier, Luguet, and Julie Reynold will fill
the principal parts.
Viscount de la Gueronnire takes his departure tor
Brussels this week. Owing to the illness of the youthful
prince, the King of the Belgians will receive the creden-
tials of the newly-appointed Minister without any cere-
monial.

The Gioia-Taranta Railway, connecting Taranto with
Bari, and the Gulf of Taranto and the lonian Sea with the
Adriatic, which has been successfully opened, will prove
of the utmost value to commerce. The country which the

hie traverses produces much oil, and navigation round

the heel of Italy is extremely dangerous.

A large

iron bridge near Castellaneta, one of the works
that distinguishes this line, measures 226 feet
in height, 682 in length, and cost £36,000. In
the opinion of the Naples correspondent of the Times,
the internal dangers threatening Italy have been some-
what exaggerated. Though there is much.combustible
matter in the peninsula, there is little apprehension of a
conflagration. The character of the people is against it.
Movements which, among people of cooler heads and
enjoying long-established political institutions, would
reasonably create alarm, are with the Italians nothing
more than the results of a sudden impulse, violent,
but short-lived. " One of the symptoms of the day,"
says the correspondent, "is that very foolish affair, the
contemplated Parlamentino ' in Naples. Yet nowhere
is so little known or heard of it as in Naples. No one
speaks of it, and the journals are almost silent on the
subject, so that doubts may be entertained whether it will
ever be held. But even should it be, it proposes to itself
none of those violent objects which have been attributed
to it, and, indeed, it seems to be so purposeless that it might
just as well, and much better, have been held in Signor
Crispi's, or the Commendatore Rattazzi's house in Flo-
rence."

A correspondent of the Daily ET ws 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 an 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 of
the city—between two and three thousand feet above the
sea—accounts for this. When the sun shines the atmo-
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."
Hay.ng 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 meetings have
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 to
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 7iines, 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 sins 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, but 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, lies the " Messiah " (lately the chief
feature of the festival in Gloucester Cathedral) been per-
formed at the Agricultural Hall, Islington. It may he
well that the inhabitants 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 Maj esty'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 hardlyt applauded the
artists all. They were glad to 4et baelc tolPiiafrey's
waltzes. There is a sad want of keill 0/61 Attriight

k
tinrtgriMlTAT.

HER. MAJESTY.

BALMORAL CASTLE, Sept. 23.

The Queen, accompanied by Princess Beatrice,
went out yesterday morning, and in the afternoon
with Princess Christian, Princess Louise, andY rince
Leopold, attended by Lady Churchill.
Their Royal Highnesses the Duke of Edinburgh
and Prince Christian went out deer-stalking.

NAVAL AND MILITARY INTELLIGENCE.

MALTA, Sept. 18.—Her Majesty's steam frigate
Endyinion, which arrived yesterday from Augusta
Bay, in the island of Sicily, with despatches from
the Naval Commander-in-Chief, and mails from the
ships cruising with him, left at the same anchorage
on the 10th the Caledonia (flagship), Lord Warden,
Prince Consort, Arethusa, and Rapid, which, with
the Psyche, had left Corfu GU the 9th. The Enter-
prise on the 10th remained at Corfu, whence she
will probably be despatched to Malta (communi-
cating en route with the Admiral), in order to be
newly masted, after which it is expected she will be
ordered to I3eyrout for the winter. The squadron,
after remaining ten days in Augusta; will look into
Syracuse, and proceed thence to Messina, Naples,
and Palmero, without any prospect of repairing to
Malta for winter quarters before thelo th of Novem-
ber. Lieut. Lockhart, R.N., of the Enterprise, has
been invalided, A. marine of the Arethusa has been
condemned by sentence of a court-martial to five
years' imprisonment for striking the sergeant of a
picket when at Trieste, and is now in the Royal
naval prison at Malta, awaiting a conveyance by
ship of war to England. The Admiral Superinten-
dent of Malta dockyard has been giving a series of
dinners to the officials of the naval establishments
and their families, which the absence on excursions
to Corfu, Venice, Sicily, and other places of Mrs.
and Miss Fanshawe has prevented his doing earlier.
Lord C. E. Paget is said to have intimated to his
Anglesey constituents that he has made up his mind
to serve out his Mediterranean command, and given
up all idea of a seat in Parliament until he returns
to England.

Alafor-Gen. Sir C. Staveley, K.C.8., Lieut.-Col.
Edward Bray, 4th King's Own Royal Regiment,
Lieut.-Col. George Bray, 96th Regiment, Captain
Marsh, 82d Regiment, and Lieut. Carnac, 19th
Hussars, visited Berlin recently, for the purpose of
seeing the Prussian army and being present at the
reviews and manoeuvres of the Prussian troops in

the neighbourhood of the capital, which began on
the 25th of August and concluded on the 16th of
September. These officers were received With
marked attention by the King, the Crown Prince,
and the Generals and officers of the Prussian Guard,
and the greatest attention and kindness was shown
to the English officers during their visit. They were
entertained by the King and the Crown Princess,
and the Crown Prince took them with him to see his
division near Stettin in Pomerania, where they re-
mained three days, during which time the troops
bivouacked without tents in the open country, and
manoeuvred against each other as two opposing
armies over several miles every day. This division
consisted of about 13,000. At Landesburg, near
Berlin, the troops, about 16,000 in number, con-
sisting entirely of cavalry, artillery, and infantry of
the guard, were also manoeuvred for three days
across country, without tents, in a similar manner.
The English officers were most favourably impressed
with the soldierlike bearing, the excellent drill and
organisation of the Prussian army. According to
their report, the troops move rapidly, and are tho-
roughly, well, and skilfully commanded. The men
—the Line regiments as well as those of the Guard
—are fine, stout, broad-shouldered soldiers, and
although all young soldiers (under four years' ser-
vice) they move remarkably well. The cavalry is
particularly good, well mounted, and well com-
manded, and move about the field with great cele-
rity. The outpost and vedette duties of the cavalry
were admirably executed.
Yesterday Major-General Freeman Murray, in
command of the infantry and other troops in the
Chatham district, commenced his autumnal inspec-
tion of the corps attached to the 2d battalion of
garrison infantry, under the command of Col. W•
Rickman, comprising the depot companies of the Ist
battalion of the 2d (Queen's Royals) Regiment; Ist
battalion of the Bth (the King's) Regiment, 29t11
Regiment, 30th Regiment, 82d (Prince of Wales's
Volunteers) Regiment, and the 106th (Bombay
Light Infantry) Regiment. The troops assembled
in front of their quarters on the general parade-
ground, at 10 a.m., in review order, and well
marched to Chatham lines, where they receive',
Major-Gen. F. Murray, attended by the divisional
staff, in line, with the customary salute. The b
talion was then inspected by companies, after wine;
Major-Gen. Murray saw the officers and men .14
through a few manoeuvres, and the customary In-
vitation was given to any non-commissioned office.
;
or man who had any complaint to make. At the
close of the inspection on Chatham lines Major-Gee'
Murray inspected the officers and non-commissioned
officers in sword drill in the square at Chathalli,
barracks, after which he went through the men s
quarters, and inspected the barrack rooms and other
departments. In the afternoon the officers and troop:
were again formed on Chatham lines, each Ina
being furnished with ten rounds of blank Solder
_
ammunition, when they were put through an x
tended course of manoeuvres to enable Major-Gen
•
Murray to test their efficiency in light infancy'
battalion, and company movements. Notvil 01,,„
standing that there were a large number of Yee?
young soldiers in the ranks, the movements gene_
rally were executed with great steadiness and Pr.
cision, the marching past being well and steacilif
performed. The further inspection of the battarioll
will be proceeded with to-day.