NEWS OF THE WEEK.
MHE week has not been so dull. We have had a rumour of
war between two great Powers, an angry correspondence be- tween Lord Malmesbury and Mr. Gladstone, a decidedly interesting murder, an extraordinary reprieve, a history of the Matterhorn accident, a speech from Mr. Seymour Fitzgerald, and the superb opportunity for guessing by rule afforded by the non-arrival of the Great Eastern. The world has fulfilled the end for which clubs believe it to have been created, namely, to afford matter for talk, and it has been worth while, for the first time since the elections, to glance over a newspaper. If the Divorce Court were only sitting, and a war would break out somewhere within special- correspondent range, that great section of society to which news is as food would have quite a comfortable time. Even as it is French quidnuncs, always a little in advance of their rivals, are talking complacently of "eventualities," describing forthcoming changes in the map, and hinting that the Moniteur will some day contain something which will have some unknown result. Mean- while the harvest has been injured by a general down-pour, which has made farmers as touchy as militia majork and smoothed all the faces of Mark Lane speculators for a rise.
