The Sun. — 1854-10-13 (London, England)

GAZETTE EXTRAORDINARY.  THE CRIMEA PAST AND PRESENT.  Before the Russian Government had cast an envious eye on the Crimea, and that fertile land had felt the withering influence of the protection of its northern neighbour, the population of the Tauric peninsula amounted to a million and a half. The wars between the Turks and Russians, which were caused by the unjust aggressions of the latter, decimated the inhabitants, and reduced them to a tithe of their former number. Nearly all the Turkish, and a great porthin of the Tartar, population emigrated after the annexation of the Crimea to Russia, so that the best authorities estimated its population at the end of the last century at less than one hundred and sixty thousand. But the natural advantages of the district—the fertility of its f 3 nil, and the emvenience of its situatile for commercial purposes—counterbalanced the effects of Russi.in misrule. Its population has been gradually increasing since the commencement of the present century, and is now more than three hundred thousand—double what it was fif y or sixty years ago, though far below the nuinbar that inhabited the peninsula in its more flourishing days. The Tartar element in the population is diminishing and dwindling away, whilst the Russians have been settling in great numbers since the country came into their possession. A few German settlers, Greek and Armenian merchants, and an ancient colony of Karaite Jews, snake up the rest of the population. Dr. Clarke, the celebrated traveller, visited the northern shores of the Black Sea at the close of the last century ; and whilst he speaks in high terms of the natural resources of the Crimea, he points out the treachery and cruelty which have characterised the policy of the Russian Government in their dealings with the Tartars and Turks. lle was the first to give a detailed account of the deceitful policy by which the annexation of the Crimea was the result of its protection by Russia. He showed how the excellent system of irrigation, established by the old Tartar population, was dstroyed by the neglect of the conquerors ; and he corroborated the testimony he had received from trustworthy witnesses of Russian tyranny by facts which happened before his eyes. " During the time we remained, ' he tells his readers in the account ' of his sojourn in the Tauric Chersonose, " soldiers were allowed to overthrow the beautiful mosques, or to con vert them into magazines, to pull down the minarets, tear up the public fountains, and to destroy all the public aqueducts, for the small quantity of lead they were thereby enabled to obtain. Such is the true nature of Russian protection—such the sort of alliance that Russians endeavour to form with every nation weak enough to submit to their power, or to become their dupes." The manner in which the Russians exercised their power is a perpetual subject of complaint to this celebrated traveller, who does not hesitate to express his opinion of  their conduct in language not the less true becaine it is strong :—" If it be now asked (he says in another place) how the Russians have conducted themselves with regard to the Crimea, after the depravity, the cruelty, and the murders whereby it was obtained, the answer may be given in a few words. They have laid waste the country, cut down the trees, pulled down the houses, overthrown the sacred edifices of the natives, with all their public buildings, destroyed the aqueducts, robbed the inhabitants, insulted the Tartars in their acts of public worship, torn up from tho tombs the bodies of their ancestors, casting their relics upon dunghills, and feeding swine out of their coffins ; they have annihilated all the monuments of antiquity, breaking up sepulchres of saints and pagans, and scattering alikeththier their ashes in the air. Auferre, trucidare, rapere, falsis nomtnibus imperium ; atquo übi solitudinem faciunt, pacem ad p el I ant. "