The Sun. — 1870-10-08 (London, England)

LONDON, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 8, 1870.  SOMETHING surely ought to be done for the lettercarriers. They have for a long while past been overworked and underpaid. The card postage and the halfpenny stamp are the stacks of straw by the descent of which upon their hands they have w ithin these last few days, been simply overwhelmed. Something at last, we repeat, ought really to be done towards the bettering of their condition. As a class they are as indispensable as the newsboys. Like the newsboys, they are at their work, in our service, at all hours and in all weathers. A, strike on the part of either would at any time be little less than a calamity. They are part and parcel of one of the great institutions that are " to the fore "—in the very front rank—of modern civilisation. A striking illustration of the importance of their share in the postal arrangements of the age is at this time being afforded by the beleaguered city of Paris. There, the ordinary means of communication being done away with, recourse is being had to the old world agency of carrier pigeons, and to the new world agency of balloons. Intelligence is mutually sought for by the Parisians and the outer world, and the deadly. cordon of war having girdled Paris, now, more completely than even the Chenzin de Fer de Ceinture, nothing remains for it but to employ the wings of the dove and the science of aerostatics. If only the ordinary means of intercommunication were available, with what eager welcome the letter carriers of Paris going their rounds would be received by the inhabitants of that noble, ill-fated city! What talary would be too high, what treatment too good for such messengers of tidings so breathlessly awaited ! Yet these are the very men whom we are systematically grinding down in their pay, and fagging out in their labours, for years and years past, in the midst of our own vast capital and its far spreading environs. Roused at last into remonstrances by their over-burthening now with the card post and the half-penny stamp, the letter carriers, let us hope, will find that the day, long coming, has arrived at last when they are to be fairly dbalt with by the authorities.  THE latest news from China shows that the recent outbreak in that country was of even more serious import than it originally appeared. The massacre at Tien-tsin was a deplorable outrage, but at first reason presented itself for the hope that it might be an isolated case, that the murders had been provoked by some special grievance, real or imaginary. The murdered persons were almost all of the French nation, and all engaged in religious duties. The French Sisterhood; which became the prime object of attack, was a society of a peculiar kind, not represented by any other nation in China; and, in fact, it was believed at the beginning that the massacre was prompted by the Chinese hatred— often before manifested—of proselytism. But it is  now more than doubtful whether the attack was not owing to a more wide-spread feeling. There is some evidence in support of the conclusion that it represented the intention of the Chinese to make another stand against the encroachments of the foreigners, whether religious or of any other kind. The foreign residents in the Empire and those persons who trade with it have recently claimed further privileges, and the Chinese may very likely have been shrewd enough to perceive that they cannot stand still, that they must either recover some of the lost ground or lose more. But this is a question which a little more information will