NEWS BY THE MAIL.

Globe, Volume XXI, Issue 1669, 26 June 1879, Page 3

NEWS BY THE MAIL.

LONDON, May 9. Tho Emperor Alexander, Czar of all the Russias, and ostensible friend of all the oppressed, except the millions in his own extensive empire, must bo this month tho most unhappy man in Europe. His interesting Slavonic frionds, on whose nominal behalf he entered on tho last war with Turkey, have cut themselves adrift from him, every device to which he and his advisers could resort by what an Englishman calls downright lying has failed him. England has held him to the treaty into which Prince Gortschakoff was literally forced last summer, and his "victorious" (?) army ia now marching homo from the Turkish provinces only to find in the cold and barren regions of the North a despotism infinitely more crushing than anything that any Sultan ever practised on any Bulgarian, with insurrection undismayed flaunting itself openly in every street of tho capital. After the effusive outburst of feeling which followed the unsuccessful attempt of Solovieff to shoot him, the Emperor placed all the inhabited portions of hie country in a state of siege, and superseded the ordinary authorities by military rulers. But to what purpesa ? Let me take St. Petersburg alone for an example. The capital was placed in the hands of General Gourko, to whoso daring in taking his troops across the mountains of Thrace and pushing the Russian front very far south at the time negotiations for an armistice wore going on, eomo of tho bitterest distresses of the Turkish people towards the clofe of the war were owing. He thought the Nihilists could be put down in the same rough and ready way. He made every householder appoint a man to take charge of the outside of his house during every night, and made both master and man responsible for preventing the posting up of any insurrectionary proclamations on the walla. He was instantly foiled. One morning his order was promulgated, the next saw new revolutionary placards hung from the lamp posts by undiscovered hands. A few days later he left the capital —the Russian account says to arrange some family matters at home, but the moro frank newspapers of Berlin say it was because the Government feared that his indiscretion might bring about more trouble than he could prevent. Then the Emperor himself left the capital. Where was the loyalty of the people who had showered addresses of congratulation on him a few days before ? Hie Mujesty, dreading that assassination might approach even the portals of the Winter Palace itself, stepped from his chamber into a bullet proof carriage, which was driven with all speed, and surrounded by somo hundreds of horse soldiers, to the railway carriage, near which none but his most trusted people were allowed. From St. Petersburg all the way to Livadia, in the Crimea, the route was most jealously guarded by soldiers, and his Imperial (Majesty safely arrived at his summer residence. Yesterday I read a letter from Berlin which says he has expressed the Btrongoft desire for peace. So have others, and yet they have not found it. So did tho Mahomedans when they retreated many weary miles before the advancing Cossacks, who left behind them a broad trail of slaughter and fire. So, too, now m their turn do the thousands of homeless people in Orenburg, which was a fortnight ago one or the fairest towns in Russia, but is now a heap of mouldering ruins, and a monument of the vengeance of the revolutionary party in that empire. The very name of peace is a mockery when used by the man who above all others has done his best to destroy it in every other country, and is now a refugee to a place which, however beautiful, must alwaya be to him a memorial of his father's disasters.

The latest news we hare received from the Cape is more satisfactory. Some extraordinary accounts are published about the relief of Ekowe, and the lifo of Colonel Pearson's troops while they were confined in that fert. It is even said that Cetewayo sent a message of peace to Colonel Pearson, who detained the Zulus, but I think we must wait to hear more about this before trusting such a report, which is altogether discredited at tho War Office. Things are still very unsettled in the Transvaal and very far from quiet in the Basuto country, where the stronghold of the Chief Moiroei has been invested, as our native allies have failed to repress his insurgent troops. The House of Lords has given us two remarkable surprises this week on questions of great social interest, and the result in each case shows that though those matters have been fought out with great animosity and persistency for many years, yet they are slowly but surely approaching the end which their promoters havo earnestly striven to attain. The first of these questions is that of the opening of museums and other kindred places during some portion of each Sunday, a result which has already been achieved in some of the larger provincial towns, where such places are under the control of the municipalities. In London, however, all our museums and galleries are paid for out of the public purse, and are subject to the control of Parliament, and hence Lord Thurlow moved on Monday night a resolution in favour of theirb?ingopenod,»nd declared that the general opinion of those beet qualified to form an opinion, was that such a step would diminish tho scandal of drunkenness on Sundays. Of course many Peers resisted tho proposal, but it must havo astonished many people to find the Marqui3 of Ripon speaking in its favor. The Premier made a strong speech against the motion, and urged that the great body ef the working classes were opposed to it. He pointed to the fact that in recent years artisans had come to have a half holiday every Saturday, but to my mind this only increases the difficulty of what we are to do with them on Sundays. We see something, and hear a great deal more, 'about church building and chapel extensions, but both together do not keep pace with the increase of population, | and unfortunately neither church nor dissent is able to gather within i ts fold any considerable proportion of the young men whom busing draws to the metropolis, where they have no relatives. In the end Lord Thurlow's resolution was only defeated by the narrow majority of eight—a result which cannot be at all satisfactory to people who have strong religious views. The other question is the vastly more important one of whether a man may marry his deceased wife's sister, although this happily affects a very much smaller mimber of persons. I am almost afraid to think how many years this question has been agitated by Lord Houghton, who first brought it forward when, as Mr Monckton Milnes, he was a member of the House of Commons —a body which has several times passed the Bill by large majorities. The Lordß have always shown themselves strongly opposed to it, but even their antagonism is now melting away, and there is every prospect that in another Parliament the measure may be carried. It may, however, be questionable whether the Lords will ever consent to allow tho measure to be retrospective, and thus grant a pardon to all those who have in the past taken upon themselves to set the law at defiance. But, on' this occasion, the debate in the Lords on Tuesday night offered several features of extraordinary interest. The first surprise was afforded by the Prince of Wales, who, though he frequently takes the Princess to tho House for an hour before dinner when there is any debate worth hearing, had never been known to taka any open part in its affairs. But, this evening, no sooner had the clerk at the table read the order of the day, than tho Prince rose from his customary seat in the middle of the House, and going round to the

Opposition side of the table, presented a petition in favour of the Bill, signed by nearly four thousand farmers of Norfolk, a county in which he has been increasingly popular since he acquired the Sandringham estate, his family's favourite country home. Noble lords looked at one another with something like amazement when his Eoyal Highness added that he should give the measure his hearty support, for a vote of any kind by tho heir to the Throne is one of the very rarest events in the annals of that Assembly. Next came the Premier with a petition from thirteen hundred of his old constituents, the farmers of Buckinghamshire, also in favor of the measure, but Lord Beaconsfleld added no expression of his own views on the subject. He remained silent throughout the brief debate, and entrusted the opposition to the Bill to Lord Cranbrook, who made a very sentimentally silly speech. All tho Bishops but one voted straight against the measuro, but into the other lobby went not only the Prince of Wales but also his brother the Duke of Edinburgh, and this remarkable expression of opinion, which neither of their Royal Highnesses would have made except by permission of the Q,ueen, must havo a great effect in hastening on the solution of this question.

The Opposition, combining their forceß of Whigß, Radicals, Irish Home Rulers, and all the general disaffection of the House of Commons, have delivered their first assault on tho Government in preparation for meeting their constituents, whenever that time Bhall arrive They chose to attack the financial policy of the Government, and through that its general conduct of foreign affairs, but the result was a defeat for the assailants more decisive than could have been expected. For two long nights the debate lasted. The first night'B talk was dull beyond description. The attack was led by Mr Rylands, one of the most wearisome of Liberal speakers, and he moved a series of resolutions which, as the Chancellor of the Exchequer remarked amidst a storm of laughter and cheers, might have been drawn up by Mr Adam, the very astute " whip " of the Opposition, who only in the preceding week had advised his followers to pledgo themselves to nothing. The whole cf the first night was occupied by speakers, if possible, more dreary still. But the second night's debate was something worth hearing. Begun by Mr Goschen, who is not so blinded by party spirit but that he can make a generous admission even when he intends to be most severe on his opponent?, and had the candour to say that he should have been obliged to consent to tho preoent large expenditure if he had been a member of a Ministry that had so managed foreign affairs as the Beaconsfield cabinet had done, the tale was taken up by Mr Gladstone, whoße. volubility on every conceivable subject has, strange to say, never found an occasion to criticise our budgets since he was ejected from office after attempting to cajole the constituencies by a still unexplained scheme for abolishing the income-tax. Mr Gladstone was in his best form, and spoke with great skill for an hour and a half. It had happened that on one of the evenings that had intervened between the adjournment and resumption of tho debate, both the Chancellor of the Exchequer and Mr Rylands had been the guests of the Chairman of the Metropolitan Board of Works at one of those splendid banquets which he gives every year, in rivalry, it almost seems, of the civic festival in the city. Of course in the after dinner proceedings there was some humorous reference to the pending division in the Commons. Sir Stafford Northcote compared Mr Rylands to an executioner, and said the Government were to be condemned to death for not having put on any additional taxes this year. This gave Mr Gladstone aopportunity for a very effective retort. He insisted that the'charge which the Government had to meet would not be confined to the proposals made in this year's budget, but extended over the whole period of their administration. ' This year's budget, indeed, he called their death-bed repentance, though it cannot be said that the Ministry is yet on its death bed, nor even, judging by the result of the division, in a serious state. It is now more doubtful 1 than ever whether we shall have a general election this year, and my latest information is that the opinion of the constituencies will not be sought before the autumn of next year, unless some disaster to the Government should unexpectedly happen before that time. But Mr Gladstone will have it that there ought to be a dissolution this year; hence this speech, in which, besides boldly challenging the conduct of Ministers, he entered with minuteness into the mode of keeping the national accounts, a subject of which he knows the smallest detail. However in the end Mr Gladstone himself was bound to admit that it was questionable whether even a general election would bring about a different state of things, and put the Opposition once more into office, though he took occasion to warn the Government, very much in the style of a Judge sentencing a hardened criminal, that the longer they pursued their present career the severer would be their punishment in the end. Tho House, nevertheless, by a majority of seventy-three, found them not guilty on Mr Rylands* indictment, and the largeness of this number, after five years of office, only shows how firm a hold they have on the political feelings of the nation. Thus, though finance was the key note of the Opposition, foreign affairs was really their theme in this debate, and although the Ministerialists kept themselves mainly to the direct issue which had been raised by Mr Rylands, an opportunity soon presented itself outside the House of Commons for a vigorous defence of Lord Beaconsfield's foreign policy by his principal Minister, the Marquis of Salisbury, who was present the night after the division at the banquet of the Middlesex Conservative Registration Association, and delivered before an appreciative audience a remarkable speech in his very best style. But for the just finished debate, the Marquis need scarcely have said so much, for there is every sign that events are coming round slowly but surely to that position on which the English signatories of tho Berlin Treaty have all along insisted. Only that very morning the English public had learned of the accomplishment of one important part of the reforms effected by that instrument, viz., the election of a Prince of Bulgaria, which has been effected in tho quietest possible way, and apparently much to the satisfaction of the people of that troublesome district. I may remind you that the Russian Prince Dondoukoff has really romained in possession of that territory ever since the Turks consented to the San Stefauo Treaty, and although I cannot approve of the conduct of tho Russian Government in their general dealing with Bulgaria, I must acknowledge that, its people owe much to Prince Dondoukoff for the firm and placid way in which he has brought their constitution and Parliament into existence. It was for a long time thought that he would be elected their first price;, a dignity which is to be hereditary in the family of the first elected man, but his chances, though bright until after tho oleventh hour, were utterly spoiled by the appearance on the scene of General Ignatieff, whose conduct before the war, and throughout its earlior stages, has not been forgotten by the approving but turbulent people of that region. He was found to be so formidable a rival that a change had to be made in the opinions of the Cabinet of St. Petersburg, and the Czar was induced to issue an order, which Prince Dondoukoff conveyed to tho Bulgarian Assembly, forbidding any Russian to bo a candidate for their Throne. But ore who is half Russian, though German by nationality, has been chosen—l mean Prince Alexander of Battenberg, rephew of the Empress of Russia, a young man who has everything to recommend him, and under whom Bulgaria has a chance of rising in dignity, independence, and prosperity, even superior to that which fell to the lot of the Moldo-Wallachian provinces after the war of a quarter of a century ago. The exhibition of the Royal Academy, which is open this week (and has been more crowded than ever with visitors, the gentlemen in their heaviest Uhters, and the ladies wearing heaps of fur in May) proves how fortunate the academicians were.in the election of their new president, Sir F. Leighton, who has shown himsolf not only a first rate painter in several different schools of art, but also a sculptor of unexpected power. Indeed it is not alone as an artist that Sir Frederick has achieved eminence. He presided last Saturday evening for the first time at the superb banquet which the academicians annually give on the eve of the their exhibition. The post is a very arduous one, for the president has to go through the whole routine of proposing toasts, and making appropriate speeches in the presence of men, the most distinguished in arts, science, and the various professions, in fact of such a concourse as is never brought together on any other evening of tho year at a public festivity. Yet amidst the orators Sir Frederick Leighton proved that he could hold his own, and he obtained a warm compliment from

Lord Chief Justice Oockburn, who is a remarkable instance of purity of diction, coupled with copiousness of language. I must not dwell on the speeches, for I should write a few lines about the general aspect of the exhibition, which all are agreed is an immense improvement on anything we havo seen in recent years. The president has contributsd, as he has the right to do, eight pictures, one of which, the Angel Ministering to Elijah in the Wilderness, will I think be unanimously voted one of the most remarkable pictures of modern times. Next to this I was most struck by two pictures which Mr Long, an academioian, has painted of Esther and Vaskti, on subjects taken from the Book of Esther. Pehaps the names of MrMillais and Mr Frith are better known. Amongst the contributions of the former is a magnificont portrait of Mr Gladstone as he now appears, and not as he is too widely known by his too youthful photograph. The painter of " The Derby Day" has not done anything this year that will compare with " The Road to Ruin" series that he exhibited last summer.

THE BEIGN OF TEBSOB IN EUSSIA. The Eussian papers announce that the state of eiego has been proclaimed throughout Russia. The Imperial ukase issued to that effect further decrees tho following measures : —Firstly, civilians are expressly forbidden to carry arms; secondly, all suspicious persons will be arrested and tried by court-martial ; thirdly, if the delinquent is found guilty of any felonious intentions he will be punished with the utmost severity—if ho should be found guilty he will pay a fine of 300 roubles, or be exiled; fourthly, porsonß whoso positions require that they should wear arms will immediately give notice to that effect to the Chief of tho Government where they reside.

A recent plot to assassinate General Drenteln at St. Petersburg was frustrated by the presence of mind of that officer himself. It appears that among the applicants who waited upon the General at one of his usual morning receptions was a man in the full uniform of a Russian colonel, who, when his turn came, was invited to state his business. He began to fumble in one of his pockets, as if for papers, when the General, suspecting treachery, promptly seized his hand and with it the pocket, until the atranger was secured. In nis pocket was found a loaded revolver, and he proved to bo no officer at all, but a Nihilist in disguise.

A telegram from St. Petersburg states that a terrible fire has occurred at Orenburg. Two churches, the Military Staff Office, the Control and Engineering Offices, tho Artillery Barracks, the Town Hall, the Bazaar, the telegraph station, the public school, and the beßt part of the town have been destroyed. Half of,the inhabitants are without shelter or bread. The losses sustained are enormous. Threo deaths are known to havo occurred. Committees were formed for the relief of £the sufferers. The Minister of the Interior sent 10,000 roubles. A letter from Berlin on this subjecteays : " When the resentment created by reaction after a'spell of liberty reached an irrepressible degree, St. Petersburg and other Russian towns were set on fire, in May, 1862. The practice of making flames the spokesmen of discontent is so old in Russia and so deeply rooted in the sullen disposition of the oppressed race that these conflagrations took no one by surprise. But for the Polish rebellion diverting tho nation from domestic politics, and Government soon after setting the Slav movement going, the Liberals would have then raieed the demands now put forward in low yet eloquent mutterings. As it was, the changes going on in Europe, and the hope that a PanSlavonic war was coming on which, bringing liberty to the Rayah, would emancipate" Russian humanity, likewise acted as a sedative upon the national mind. If beaten it was thought that the Czar would havo to make constitutional concessions to recover domestic strength; if triumphant, victory would either not be accomplished without an effort —in which case concessions must be made at home—or if easily accomplished would result in the Russians being accorded at least the same degree of liberty they had secured for others. It is well known that these anticipations were disappointed. The Liberals, who for their own party reasons, no less than from a wish for national glory, had been clamorous for war, were doomed to see the Bulgarians presented with a Constitutional Assembly stoutly denied to themselves, while the Government, elated by the partial success of their plans, thought themselves in a position to be Liberal at Tirnova and Conservative at St. Petersburg. The dissatisfaction excited by this contradictory policy among the cultivated classes produced repression, which, in turn, encouraged the Revolutionists to put in an appearance and resume operations where they left off in 1862. To day the destruction by fire of Orenburg, an important military and commercial town of thirty thousand inhabitants is announced. Orenburg is a place whither political offenders are frequently banished. Its destruction disorganises the defences against the Kirghese."