The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1854-06-27 00:00:00

RUSSIAN CAMPAIGNS AGAINST TITREBY, 1828-29.

The campaigns of 1828 and 1829, though they termi-
nated to the disadvantage of Turkey, are yet eminently
calculated to modify the ideas generally entertained as to
the great power of Russia in aggressive warfare, as well
as to evince the means of defence, in a military point of
view, which the Ottoman dominions possess. The Turks
began the war under the greatest possible disadvantages.
Their land forces had been exhausted by seven bloody
campaigns with the Greeks; their'marine ruined in the
battle of Navarino ; their enemies had the command of
the Euxine and the .gean, the interior lines of commu-
nication in the empire ; the janizaries, the military
strength of the state, had been in part destroyed, in part
alienated; and only twenty thousand of the regular
troops, intended to replace them, were as yet clustered
round the standards of the Prophet. On the other hand,
the Russians had been making their preparations for six
years; they had enjoyed fourteen years of EurOpean
peace ; and a hundred and twenty thousand armed men,
awaited on the Pruth the signal to march to Constantino-
ple. Yet with all these disadvantages, the scales hung all
but even between the contending parties. Varna was
only taken in the first campaign in consequence of the
Russians having the 'command of the sea; the %limn
passed in the second, from the Grand Vizier having been
outgeneraled by the superior skill of Diebitch. Even as it
was, it'was owing to treachery and disaffection that the
daring march to Adrianople did not terminate in a dins-
toefrSset7ouslidan onlmen,yunited
t° the Moscowwirtetreat. Had the Pacha
come up three weeks earlier with his twenty-
fivewt
hh
where e e twentywould thousandDiebitch
who retired towards Constantinople,h
with his twenty thousand have been ? Had ten thousand
English
wouiauxiliariesi been by their side, the Muscovite
standards
never have crossed the Balkan ; had
twenty thousand French also been there, they would have
been hurled with
disgrace beyond
:startling results are
to be ascribed to any Weakness
the Danube. It is not
to be supposed, however, that
these
in military strength on the
part of Russia, or any extraordinary warlike resources
which the Turks possess, independent of th • eir geographi-
cal position. The strength which Russia put in the war
was immense. A hundred and sixty thousand men
crossed the Danube in the course of the first campaign; a
hundred and forty thousand were brought up to reinforce
them in the second. Yet, with all this, they could only
produce thirty-one thousand men at the decisive battle
of Kouleftscha ; and when their victorious march was
stopped, only fifteen thousand were assembled at Adrian.
ople ! At Wait a hundred and fifty
perished in the two campaigns ; and that, accordingly, is
the estimate formed by the ablest military historian of

the war. A very small part of this immense force
perished by the sword ; fatigue, sickness, desertion, pro-
duced the greatest part of the dreadful chasm. The long
march of twelve hundred miles from Moscow to Poland,
the pestilential plains of Wallachia, the hardships of two
campaigns in the inhospitable hills or valleys of Bulgaria,
did the rest. As Turkey is the portion of Europe most
exposed to the incursions of the Asiatics, so it is the one
to which Providence has given the most ample means of
defence ; for the plains of Wallachia. and Moldavia present
a perilous glacis, which must be passed before the body of
the fortress is reached ; the Danube is a vast wet ditch,
which covers the interior defences ; the Balkan a rampart
impassable, when defended by gallant and faithful defend-
ers. Sterility and desolation, the work of human tyranny,
add to the defences of nature. Of no country may it be
so truly said, in Henry IV.'s words, "If you make war
with a small army, you are beaten ; if with a large one,
starved." The strength of Russia in a defensive is owing
to the same cause as its weakness in offensive war. Its
prodigious distances are the cause of both; A third of
Napoleon's army disappeared before it reached Smolensko,
or had been engaged in any serious battle; three-fourths
had perished before a flake of snow fell. One-third of
the troops which invaded Turkey in 1828 and 1829 sank
under the fatigues of the march, another third under the
diseases and hardships of the campaign which followed.
It is the same with the English in India, and from the
same cause. With the resources of a hundred millions of
men at their command, they underwent a catastrophe,
which rivalled the fate of Vartis's legions, at the hands of
the mountaineers of Affghanistan ; they were soon after
outnumbered, and brought to the verge of ruin by the
Sikhs, who had only the resources of six millions to rely
on. One-third of the invaders of Russia perish before
they reach the country they are to assail; one-third of
the Russians perish before they get out of it to begin the
career of conquest, from the simple effect of the distances.
It is no exaggeration, but the simple truth, to affirm that
fifty thousand English and French troops disembarked at
Varna, and beginning their fatigues there, are equal to a
hundred and fifty thousand Russians, who have com-
menced their march from St. Petersburg, Moscow, and
Warsaw.

From the preceding sketch, and the quotations
given, some, though no doubt a very imperfect
idea may be formed of the great importance and
diversified interest of the volume, and also of the
work of which it forms a part. In conclusion, we
would briefly remark that its narrative is instinct
with life, and glows with animation—while it is
replete with beautifully elaborated pictures, and
enriched by the maxims and teachings of a sound
philosophy : these are so skilfully combined and so
happily applied, as to form a well-digested and
imposinc, whole. The work, like a well-con-
structed" edifice, abounds in elegant features, is
rich in graceful and harmonious details—grand and
majestic in general symmetry, and noble in its
simplicity and completeness.

EVENING CLASSES FOR ADULTS.
HOW FAR DESIRABLE, POSSIBLE, AND
SOUGHT FOR.
(Concludedfrom our last.)

(PROM A CORRESPONDENT.)

LET us now follow the poor man to his home, and see
how far he is encouraged or prepared to take advantage of
intellectual information. I have analysed 3,000 families
lying in the belt of narrow streets along the docks. They
were taken from four ecclesiastical districts, two in the
parish and two beyond it ; or one at the north end of the
town and three at the south.

Above the labouring class .. 50 in 3,000 1.6 per cent.
Labourers in regular employ 639 .. 21'3 „
in irregular „ 916 .. 30'5 „
676 ... 22'5 „

Paupers
Bad characters and persons
without visible means of
support . ..

Thus, in one word,- there are 689 families, or less than
one-fourth, who are at the same time moral and able
to obtain permanent means of support ; there are 2,311,
or more than three-fourths, who are either immoral,
or who cannot obtain a regular subsistence ! It is obvi-
ously the former, to whom the instructor of any kind will
address himself, with reasonable hope of success. I should
state, however, that the whole of these 3,000 families are
Irish; and that upon them the disasters of undue immi-
gration fall primarily and most heavily ; but secondarily,
the whole members of the unskilled labouring class, what-
ever their country, are affected by it, and the entire grade
of society is lowered by the operation of a constant force
in the downward direction.

One other point requires to be noticed before the gene-
rtg result can be stated : it is the shortness of life among
de'poor. lam convinced that few think of this at all ;
and fewer still know how the facts stand.
From a table given in the last Report of the General
Board of Health, just issued, it appears that the ave-
rage age of all who die in England is 31 years and 1 month
This fact should be carefully borne in mind. In 1847 it
was 29 years and 4 months.* But in the district of St.
German's and Liskeard, in Cornwall, the average rose to
42 years 11 months ; the highest to be found in any of our
counties. In Lancashire, the highest average was at
Ulverstone, where it reached 41 years 8 months; and the
lowest at Liverpool, where it was less than the half, being
20 years and 5 months. The lowest county in England
was Lancashire, and the lowest district in Lancashire was
Liverpool. The average for the whole county of Lancaster,
22 years 10 months, was far below that of St. Giles's in
London (28 years 4 months), and scarcely reached that of
the very lowest district in the metropolis [St. Luke's, 22
years 8 months]. Of about 320 districts in England and
Wales, there were only 7 that fell below Liverpool, and
these were all mining or manufacturing districts.t
Now, no one will pretend to say that Prince's Park is
an unhealthy district, or Abercromby-square, or Edge-
hill, or Everton, or Kirkdale ; there must, therefore, be
a fearful amount of mortality somewhere in the town, to
drag down our averages almost to the very bottom of the
scale. The conclusion a priori is verified by fact. Of all
the persons who died in the year 1853, after having
received medicine or medical relief, at the St. Anne's Dis-
pensary, the average was 14 years and 11 months. They
were of all ages ; but even if it could be shown that there
is some unfavourable fact in the calculation, it can be
equally shown that this is not the worst district of the
town, but lies above Scotland-road, which is generally
regarded as the upper limit of the destitute or perishing
poor. The subject is so deeply important, that I venture
to quote the whole passage—" Amongst the many patients
of public institutions, those who are relieved or cured, are
most frequently spoken of, while those who die are apt to
be forgotten ; this however, is not well, for if rightly
remembered, they leave behind them a tale which contains
an important lesson for the living, as the following state-
ment will show :—During the year 1853, 208 deaths have
occurred amongst the patients of this institution, and the
extremely short average of life which these poor people
have enjoyed, affords a striking picture of the approach to
that minimum in the duration of existence, which may be
arrived at amid the associations of poverty, and the un-
favourable conditions both physical and moral, which too
often attend it, even in populous and wealthy cities. The
average length of life here alluded to, is less than 16 years,
(14 years and 11 months,) which is nevertheless greater
than the average of previous years, for the improved
sanatory condition of the town has no doubt told upon the
length of life of the industrial classes of this neighbour-
hood, in a slow but gradual and favourable manner during
the last five years ;—it is, however, painful, as yet, to con-
template the narrow limits within which circumstances,
with the Divine permission, seem in this class to measure
the duration of life."—Report, pp. 7, 8.
Thus, then, there is a district of death in the town,
where the labours of the schoolmaster, philanthropist, and
clergyman are called for by the most imperious necessity,
and yet where they produce only very limited results.
The investigation respecting mortality may be made in
classes instead of geographically, and the result is the
same. For example, if we take the members of the
Society of Friends, the average age at death of all who
are born, is upwards of 52 years, or nearly double the
average for all England and Wales. In London, the
average age at death of the gentry is 44, of the respecta-
ble middle classes, 28 ; of tradesmen, 25 ; and of artisans,
22.§ But we have here been examining the case of
classes below all of these, "in the lowest deep a lower
deep," viz., in a less healthy district, the physical labourer
only ; and that same man with partial food, poisonous
atmosphere, and no comforts. To thousands of the strug-
gling members of our great community, the words of the
Psalmist have a fearful and literal application—" Like
sheep they are laid in their graves, death shall feed on
them."
" The improved sanatory condition of the town," alluded
to in the quotation from the report of St. Anne's Dispen-
sary, requires to be noticed. A great deal has been done
in the direction of improvement; but, with evils of such
magnitude to be overcome, many years must elapse before
they can be said to be more than mitigated. It is said
that at the present moment Liverpool is more healthy
than Manchester, but it is probably Salford that is
meant. In 1847 the average duration of human life in
Manchester was greater than that for the whole county ;
whereas Salford was at the bottom of the scale, Liverpool

* Tables of Vital Statistics,published by order the Commit-
tee of the Health of Towns Association, 1847.
- - -

--- -- --- --- - _.. .
t West Bromwich, Walsall, Wolverhampton, Stourbridge,
Dudley, Bradford, Merthyr Tydvil. The average at ate latil
of these places was 18 years 2 months.
§ Tables of Vital Statistics, &c.. 1847.