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ber of separate money-payments involved in and so has ours. Our moral relates to the one year's trade of our busy country. These odd forgetfulness of the many-headed public new features do not relate simply to penny respecting stamps. There are moneys and receipt-stamps; commercial bills and promis- documents in the hands of the Stamp-office sory-notes have recently come under the oper- authorities, left there through the sheer negli ation of a law whereby the stamp-duty is les-gence of those to whom they belong. A wor sened; but the lessening of the duty is accom- thy man, but no lawyer, being told that a panied with an increase of strictness, and the stamp-duty is payable on a certain document, stamping achievements of Somerset House will become more and more busy.

straightway goes to Somerset House, pays the money, receives a kind of warrant or acknowlWith respect to the manufacture of the edgment, but does not have the document penny receipt-stamps, there is a peculiarity stamped after all; he either does not know or which is not at present permitted to meet the does not think about it, until, perhaps, some public eye. An eminent firm prepares them time afterwards he is astonished at finding his by a process of surface-printing, involving document wanting in validity. But worse many new and remarkable characteristics, of than this, scores of documents have been which we know little, and can say less. The left at the Stamp Office by solicitors, paid upprinted sheets reach Somerset House, where on, and stamped in proper form, and never Mr. Hill's invincible perforators stab them called for! Bonds for sums of money, deeds, right and left, and then they are ready for sale legal and equity instruments of various kinds, like a batch of hot-cross buns, united, yet have been thus lying for years unclaimed. easily separable. Every Queen's-head on an The Registrar of one of the departments has adhesive postage stamp has a square border of given himself a great deal of trouble, out of seventy little perforations; and those on a re- the daily routine of business, to endeavor to ceipt-stamp are equally close together. Many discover homes for these foundlings in most wholesale stationers provide books of blank cases he has succeeded; and in some instanreceipt-stamps, partially engraved or not; ces, the owners were truly astonished to find these books are sent to Somerset House to be that such documents were in existence. This stamped, and are then salable to the public is an example, analogous on a small scale, to in a very convenient form, and at a small ad- the astounding negligence often displayed by vance on the actual price of the stamps them- the public in respect to post-letters, with and selves. without money in them.

Every story has, or ought to have, a moral

From The Morning Chronicle.
LIFE AT BALAKLAVA.

most favorable to that contemplative state of mind which, in its still small way, gloats over the fatigues and privations of a campaign, exults in the clash of arms, and indulges in a comfortIT is fully understood out here that the atten-able grumble at the slowness of military operation of our friends at home is directed to the is- tions.

BALAKLAVA, Nov. 2.

sue of the combat rather than to its individual Newspapers, letters from friends at home, and features. The main chance is an object of inter- the occasional arrival of some freshly caught est rather than the means by, and the circum- officials or amateurs, have made us familiar with stances under, which it is brought about. Still this state of public opinion at home. The volthere are subjects, incidents, and features which untary correspondents of weekly papers, who claim and merit some attention; and I believe that life at Balaklava, in October and November, 1854, is interesting and curious enough to occupy even for an odd half hour or so the thoughts of the washed, brushed, and starched of those that sit in ease and comfort at home, rolled up in chairs with cushioned backs, their well-blacked boots resting on burnished steel fenders, the newspapers within easy reach, and the tea-urn simmering behind them. And dimly looming in the distant future are visions of soft mattresses, clean sheets, and a curtained bed, with hot shaving water, a cold bath, clean linen, and one of those divine repasts known to mortals by the name of "a good English breakfast in the morning." Those hours the easy hours of tea, music, conversation, and dozing after dinner, and that position, the being rolled up in an easy-chair-are

date their letters from Great Coram Street, Russell Square, or Ball's Pond, Islington, are fiery and impatient enough; and there is a fund of amusement to be gathered from home letters, full of anxious and somewhat petulant inquiries as to the exact time when the army out here thinks of capturing the Czar, and the ideas generally prevalent at head-quarters as to the mode, manner, and place of his detention. But most amusing are the fresh arrivals, who stamp the dust of the Crimea with the air of conquerors, sneer at the proximity of the Russians, who long ere this ought to have been swept off the face of the land; and most indignantly do they address themselves to every one desiring to be informed why Sebastopol still holds out. It is curious to trace these freshmen through the phases of their acclimatization to the campaign. I had the good

use.

fortune of meeting two of them the other day, | their long rest, whither no bugle-call reaches, and just as, covered with dust and perspiration after no alarm gun sends its booming sounds. Poor a long day's hard ride. I was galloping over the fellows, these two! their process of initiation road from Kadikoi to Balaklava. They stopped has begun; it is not over yet, and God only me, but if they had not done so I should cer- knows its end. The coming in of new men, and tainly have stopped them. They were worth the going out of those that are "secdy and dead looking at; it made me feel at home, and I had beat," forms an important feature of life in Baa great mind to ask them for the whereabouts of laklava. an omnibus, or the starting of the last Woolwich I gave you a description of the place in for train. They looked for all the world as if some- mer letters. With its rocky entrance, its narrow, body had packed them carefully in a box, with deep, natural dock of a harbor, which seems plenty of wadding and tissue paper, and sent hardly large enough to float one of our gunthem down to St. Katherine's wharf, with direc-boats, and yet has room and depth enough for tions of This side up," and "Fragile-not to some of our largest line-of-battle ships, with its be roughly handled;" and as if the directions quaint village town, and steep, ruin crowned having been scrupulously complied with, some hills, Balaklava is certainly one of the most cuequally careful person had unshipped and un-rious and interesting spots that it ever was my packed them at Balaklava, and placed them good fortune to see. Why the Russians did not steadily on their feet on a very clean spot on the fortify it, and why we were allowed to enter by beach. There they were with their dark blue sea and land, while they opposed our advance uniforms and velvet facings, without a suspicion with merely a handful of men and a few paltry of a speck of dust, the gold embroidery on their used-up cannon, is still a mystery; and, since excaps untarnished, and shining with a brightness perience has proved that this weak resistance which perforce made one think of the military does not hide a deep-laid scheme, there is no detailors' shops in Charing-cross and Pall-mall: nying that it discloses a deep-laid blunder. What and their buttons were small suns, and their the place was before we came it is easy to guess, boots were as shiny and their shirt-collars as white for the harbor and the houses tell their own story. as patent blacking, patent soap, and Glenfield's The inhabitants of Balaklava were fishermen, patent starch could make them. The metal and used to supply the mess-tables of the officers sheaths of their swords glistened in the sun; and officials in Sebastopol. Not a house withtheir hilts had a look of having never known the out its enormous extent of nets, carefully stowed hand of man, and the port d'épees of their maiden away under a shed in the yard. They were most swords were so crisp and prim it made me sigh of them Greeks, with a slight sprinkling of Tarto think such pretty things were ever destined for tar Turks; thus much is shown by the books The men had fancy whips, too, slight, found in the houses. They were ruled over, and whalebone affairs, whose ephemeral existence kept in proper order and trim by at least twenty half an hour's ride on a Cossack horse would Russian officials, large and small, who, besides most assuredly terminate. And their bright sil- the usual perquisites in the shape of small bribes, ver spurs had actually round rowels-good-na-eked out their scanty salaries, and contrived to tured, inoffensive rowels, that reminded one of keep up appearances by fishing in the sea quite park nags and a decent canter across Dulwich as zealously as those over whom they ruled, and Common. And the men's faces were round and sending the produce of their expeditions for sale jolly, red and white, and their chins as smooth as to Sebastopol. They, however, are all well built, a real young lady's on her first coming out. at least such was the impression they made upon While humbly replying to their stern questions, our minds, fresh as we were from Bulgaria. The I looked at these men with undisguised astonish-rooms are well boarded and whitewashed, and ment, while they, with a well-bred indifference, which it did my heart good to see, scanned and marked down my tarnished gold lace, rusty sword, and unblacked boots, and slightly smiled at the haversack which dangled at my side, and the rough Cossack pony which shook its long mane in their smooth faces. That was some days ago. I have seen the men since with half their shine taken out of them by a couple of nights under canvas and a few meals on (not at) our camp mess-table, the ground. Their blue and velvet bore traces of dust, their metal sheaths had suspicious spots about them, and their chins From the first, we saw little of the inhabitants were darkened with a beard of two days' growth. of Balaklava; so we could not give vent to our They rode rough Cossack ponies, and groaned feelings of gratitude and esteem. When we under the weight of heavy haversacks, and, what burst into the little place, the staff and cavalry is worse, their faces, somewhat pale and jaun- down the road from Chernaya, the light division diced, gave indications of that terrible seediness off the hills, and the ships of war through the which affects new-comers, and which, if neglect-narrow entrance into the harbor; and when those ed, sends them either home on sick leave, or to Tauridian rocks, which at one time may have some shunned spot outside the camp, where the turf is broken and the brown earth heaped in little hillocks, where the weary of the army take

the houses of the Czar's officers contained furniture, in the shape of large bedsteads, feather beds, valuable tables, chairs, and even writing tables, with curious china inkstands.

All these were luxuries to us after our peace campaign of Alladdyn, and great was the rejoic ing at headquarters, and unbounded our esteem for the Russians, whom, seated on their chairs, and our meals placed on their tables, we pronounced to be a more civilized, a more enlight ened, a more respectable nation than our poor, dirty, furnitureless allies, the Turks.

listened to the sad monologues of Iphigenia, reechoed the thunders of British guns-and what an awful row those guns did make in that narrow

gorge-then, there were, indeed, some women, at our hands! What had we to do with their children, and old men seen crawling up the hills husbands? Were we to be their protectors and to seck safety, and to shiver through the long guardians? Were the women mad? We were night in some distant dale or ravine, anxiously fairly beat on that point. At length it came out listening and looking out for the glad tidings that the husbands of these women were our pristhat the rebellious islanders had been swept back oners, and just then on the point of being shipped into the sea, that Russia was safe, and their own to Constantinople. The poor fellows had been town of Balaklava free. But besides these fugi- persuaded, or forced to take arms against us, tive old men, women, and children, we found not and having been captured with the rest of the a soul in Balaklava-the place was wholly at our Russian soldiers, were mistaken for Cossacks, mercy and discretion. And the Commander-in- and treated accordingly, that is to say, they Chief selected his quarters, and Sir John Bur-were housed, rationed, and destined to become goyne selected his, and all the army officers were admirers of the glories of Stambul. On the matestablished in Balaklava. The transports car- ter being explained, they were, of course, let rying the siege train, ammunition, and engineers' loose, and allowed to rejoin their families in the stores and the commissariat transports came in, houses which had not been selected as quarters ships lay close to ships, and ships lay close in for the various staffs. But their stay in Balashore, so close that you might almost leap on klava was not of long duration. They would deck. The heavy cavalry transports landed their meddle with politics, and rumor said that the horses, and as each regiment completed its land- Russian agents had persuaded them to put fire ing by sunset, they marched through the streets to the place, and burn our stores and shipping. up to camp under the shadow of those frowning The rumor, wherever it came from, must have hills and time-worn towers, with the large bright had some substance, for Lord Raglan, who is not moon shining full out upon them, while their generally a man of strong measures, ordered the brass helmets glistened in the light of the hun- whole of the male population to be expelled from dreds of camp-fires which burned in the streets the village. The women followed after the men, and on the ill-side. and sentinels have since been posted to prevent natives entering the town, unless such natives are attached to the army. Since then Balaklava has been ours in the fullest sense of the word, and a strange life we are leading in it.

Four fatigue parties of the line regiments and Highlanders remained at Balaklava, when the divisions moved up to take their position around Sebastopol; and there was unloading of guns and stores from early dawn till late at night, and Fancy a town-though but a small one-inall night long the watch-fires were blazing on the habited by staff and commissariat officers, and hill-side; and in the day the narrow main street the streets peopled with soldiers. Each house and the still narrower beach were crowded with that is worth having has been appropriated, and arabas, and artillery, and commissariat carts and bears the name of its proprietor, or body of promules, and dromedary wagons, and a whole host prietors, chalked or blackened up in large letters. of soldiers, officers on horseback, Maltese ser-Though the Commander-in-Chief and the varivants. Tartar Turks that came in to volunteer as ous military officers had removed to the rural arabadshis, French Zouaves that came in to see retirement of farm-yards near the camp, still what they could get, and a thousand strange they retain their offices in Balaklava; and the forms and sights, all jostling, and jolting, and Commander-in-Chief's quarters, the offices of the hurrying on, each one in somebody's way, and Quartermaster-General, the commissariat stores that somebody in the way of some one else. No tongue could speak, no pen can describe, indeed no eye could see, all the doings in the crowded streets of Balaklava.

and chest, the Adjutant-General's and the postoffice, together with the quarters of the medical staff, at once strike the eyes of every one who takes his first stroll through our streets. SentiNever since that grey donjon and castle first nels pace to and fro at every corner; camp-fires frowned down upon the sea did the streets of burn day and night in the rear of the houses; Balaklava witness an assemblage of such num- and amidst the tile and shingle roofs may be bers and varieties of armed men. Never since seen rising the red tops of tents. There is no the houses were built did their stairs groan under town-clock, that I know of; but we know the such heavy footsteps, or their walls re-echo the time by the bugle-calls and the bells from the jingling of spurs and clanking of steel scab-ships, which we hear in the houses, exactly as if bards, when heavy dragoons, tramping up, bowed their helmeted and plumed heads as they stooped on entering through the low doors. And the marines came on shore, still ruled by the rules and regulations of her Majesty's service, as understood in peace quarters; and sailors, armed with cutlasses, pistols, and short muskets, dragged their heavy ship guns up to camp, cheering violently all the while, and looking forward with great glee to the wonders and adventures of a run on shore.

we were on board. And the steamers, too, coming in and going, or getting their steam up, hiss and splutter away, so as to make one believe that the officers next door have put on an enormous tea-pot, and are making it boil with an immense waste of wood and water. And besides the stores of every description that go out to camp, and the empty arabas that come in from camp to take up stores, there is all day long an incessant whirling up of the dust on the road into Balaklava, and its streets are resounding By slow degrees part of the village population with the clatter of horses' hoofs, as officers and came back.-all of them women. But who can officers' servants dash into town to go to market. describe our astonishment when those women, In the first weeks, the market was but ill-supthrough an interpreter, demanded their husbands | plied, and the would-be buyers had to go on

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board of the transports, hold out their money, witching hours of night, when all Balaklava is and beg for the sale of a ham, or canister of up and in arms. At home, I have no doubt, it preserved meat, or pound of salt. Merchant is generally thought that the front against Sebascaptains made money, stewards were high and topol is the post of danger, and that we Balaklaimperious in their ways; and those who failed to vians, in the rear of the army, are removed from move their hearts, had to go away with heavy war and war's alarms. They have strange purses and empty haversacks. But if the stew-notions at home. They forget that an army of ard was caught in a fit of good humor, the purse was emptied and the haversack was filled.

have received orders to be ready to quit at a moment's notice.

Russians has compelled us "to make front in our rear," and that our depot of Balaklava is the Next came a period when the transports in apple of discord between the two armies. Also, port had sold all the stores they could spare, and that whenever the Russians in the field wish to stewards became ironical, and captains inexora-assist their brethren in Sebastopol, they make a ble to the entreaties of lords and honorables in diversion against Balaklava. The consequence soiled red coats and dingy gold lace, who re- is, that ever since the battle of the 25th of Octoturned to camp in no very pleasurable mood. ber, when the ships were ordered out of the harThen, when fresh steamers arrived, the news bor, and the commissariat-chest placed on board spread like wild-fire, and its decks and cabins a steamer, the military officers at Balaklava were filled with hungry applicants, carrying empty linen bags, and reminding one of the throng of paupers at the door of a soup-kitchen. Home enterprise slept over the harvest-time, and the Levantines of Pera were too much afraid to come up. Some Maltese came at last, selling goods of the worst description at fabulous prices; and then came a canteen-man from Pera, with a general cargo of very indifferent goods, which he sold in four days, netting thereby profits to the tune of 36,000 piastres. He went back to fetch up a fresh cargo, but could not conceal his good fortune. Since then, every day has brought fresh arrivals of dirty, black-bearded men, who prowl about the office of Col. Daveney, the commandant of the town, until they obtain permission to open shops in the main street and in houses which are allotted to them. Since then, the main street has become a bazaar; and from morning till sunset, each shop is crowded with officers and men from the camp.

The commandant protects these people; and in return, they must submit to the wholesome discipline of the Provost-marshal and his men, who shut their shops at five in the afternoon, and compel them to put their lights out and go to bed at eight. After that hour, the streets of Balaklava are as silent as dark. We who are up and doing all day, are glad to turn in the moment dinner has been despatched and the horses looked after; and even those who are fond of a stroll after dark, are soon driven in by the frequent challenges of the sentinels. It is rather wearisome to be continually asked, "Who comes there?" and thereupon to say, "Friend." Nor is it any relief to the feelings of a pensive subaltern, to be told by private Gubbins, of the 21st, "Advance, friend; all's well." And as for non-residents. their going or coming is not to be thought of; for at night, every one is confined to his camp or quarters, and the road and streets, so crowded and noisy in the day, are at night more deserted even than the place in front of the Royal Exchange at 1 o'clock, A. M., or Exeter Arcade at midday.

But certainly there are hours, among the

Whenever the Russians advance upon our position by night, or when a raw recruit placed as sentinel in front of a picket, thinks he hears a Russian in the tumbling of a leaf, and discharges his firelock,-and whenever, as is always the case, his fire is supported by volleys from his picket and all the neighboring outlying parties, then do the guns open fire from the batteries, and the bugle sounds the alarm in Balaklava streets. And we, who sleep coated, booted, and spurred, have to get up and join the assembly at the second bugle call, and be prepared, if not for death, at least for a foot-tour to Kiew, with our hands tied to the mane of Cossack horses, and our movements accelerated by half-a-dozen sons of the wilderness riding howling behind us, and with their lances poking at our rear. We, who are free from danger, consider them out of danger who are allowed to go out to camp; and that this opinion is well founded, is proved by the Commissary-General, justly commiserating the loss the service might sustain if he were lost, having removed his own person and private goods and chattels to Kadikoi, a village at some distance from Balaklava, and more towards the centre of our position.

Still, if ours be the greater danger, there is no denying it that ours, too, is the greater comfort; for we are indulged with all the luxuries of Rus sian furniture, eat the Queen's rations, with any additions that can be made, at tables, while we sit in chairs, and at this intensely cold season, we have the comfort of a roof over our heads and a wooden flooring to lie on,—while the men in camps, their luggage and camp equipage knocking about on board the transports, lie on the bare ground, with nothing on and about them but what they took with them on landing at Kalamita Bay. And awfully cold, they tell us, do they find it, especially in the morning.

How long we may be allowed to enjoy the sweets of Balaklava, who can know? But while they last, this rough sketch will give your readers some idea of what they are.

From The Spectator, 18 Nov. "DELENDA EST CARTHAGO." How little the iteration of wise maxims and even the forcknowledge of probabilities can fore

stall experience-how partial the truth contained in the proverb that to be forewarned is to be forearmed-we have a fresh and striking instance in the gloom that overcasts the public mind at the

nations and the law by which nations live in peace and independence-that it could not have come upon us under circumstances more favora ble, more likely to crown our cause with victory, and to place the peace of Europe upon a sound foundation.

protraction of our operations before Sebastopol. | Alma, and stand well to their guns at Sebastopol, Urged forward by an unanimous demand of the any more than why Turks can repel ten times British nation-encouraged by the unequivocal their number from an open redoubt at Silistria, desire of army and navy for the enterprise- and turn tail in the valley of Balaklava when deeply feeling the importance of striking a deci- supported by the finest troops in the world. sive blow at the earliest opportunity-our Gov- Such things are, and we must take them as facts, ernment ordered an attack upon what all Europe not explainable without more knowledge of debelieved and proclaimed to be one of the strongest tails than we at present possess. The practical fortresses in the world, on which the resources of result is, that Russia is not "crumpled up" at a mighty military monarchy have been lavished present, and that the French and English nations with unexampled profusion, and which the mas- have undertaken a task in every way worthy of ter of that monarchy with truth regards as the their power and renown. The moral we draw keystone of his Southern empire, the first arch from our Sebastopol experience is not to be disof the bridge across which his dynasty is to march heartened, not for one moment to falter or regret to universal dominion. Unless the Emperor that we have taken upon ourselves to face a Nicholas had been mad-unless all Europe had power that will cost us untold treasures in prebeen under the strangest of delusions-the enter- cious lives, in strength and skill, in the money prise we undertook was one of the most difficult that represents them, to bring it down to its and hazardous conceivable. In landing an army proper level; but rather to thank God that a of from fifty to sixty thousand first-rate soldiers work that must have been done one day is at last in the Crimea-in gaining a brilliant victory with-in hand-that we have not wilfully sought it, but in a few days of landing-in establishing our- have accepted it in vindication of the rights of selves within a week in a position of impregnable strength, resting on our fleet-in maintaining that position against obstinate and incessant attacks from a garrison probably equal in number to the besieging force, and an army in the field whose movements there is no observing force to check-we have performed a series of military It is certain that at Sebastopol we have met exploits which will bear comparison with any with difficulties of the most formidable nature; recorded triumphs of the British arms. No one certain that, overwhelming as our force seemed circumstance has turned on the side of the Allies to those unaccustomed to judge of military reless favorably than the most sanguine enthusiast sources, it is not, on ordinary military principles, could have anticipated. But the enemy has de-equal to the task assigned it; and therefore that veloped powers of resistance for which the more it is quite within the range of possibility that we recent conduct of Russian troops had scarcely prepared that portion of the public who forget all history but what is passing before their eyes in the daily papers. We should all have been better pleased if the power of Russia had been a simple bugbear, that only needed to be approached to reveal itself as something quite harmless or ridiculous; we should have been delighted to find that we had alarmed ourselves about nothingthat this great Emperor, who was going to seize the throne of the Caesars, and impose leaden fetters on the intellect, speech, and action of Europe, was a mere military humorist playing at fortifications like my uncle Toby. We should have laughed at our long-nourished delusions, and added another chapter to the full catalogue of popular follies. But the laugh which dispels a nightmare that is choking the dreamer, is pleasanter than the sensation with which the dream transforms itself into the terrible reality of midnight strangulation. It would have been far more pleasant, far less costly, thus to have waked from our delusion than to find that we have not been dreaming at all; that our sense of Europe's danger has been well-founded; that Russia has great military resources, and knows how to use them; that in founding Sebastopol she has planted a firm foot in her path to Constantinople; and that if we intend to hurl her back from that path, we must concentrate into that blow that is to do it our hearts, our manhood, and our skill. We are not able to assign the reason why Russian soldiers who fight badly on the Danube become no despicable foes on the

may have to suspend our operations. That, certainly, would be a vicissitude of war which would severely try the sense and temper of the nation! Yet, unless we are a people of more despicable humbugs, more empty windbags, more unstable, and more gasconading, than anything in our history would excuse even our enemies for suspecting us to be, sense and temper would not only stand the test, but courage and determination rise at once to heroic fervor, and a shout of "Forward to the rescue!" burst forth from a united nation, with a thunder to whose echo the walls of the Kremlin would tremble as at predestined doom. We have no taste for prophetic victories, no disposition to imagine handfuls of French and British soldiers sweeping legions of Russian serfs before them as chaff before the tempest, no doubt whatever that the race which nearly won Borodino can fight like men. But we believe in the victory of that side on which are found the permanent elements of power; and in that belief we find abundant cause for confidence in the pending struggle, whether Sebastopol fall before Christmas, or be reserved for another and a greater effort. The elements of power on which our confidence is rooted are both moral and ma terial. The nation is convinced that the war is not only just according to the technical law of nations-is not only waged for the general inter ests of humanity-but through all the mazes of diplomatic foolishness which led to the final ap peal to arms, it perceives the broad truth that it is a war of self-defence. This source of strength we owe to our freedom; to that unchecked liber

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