NEWS OF THE WEEK.

THE Second Elections in France came off on Sunday in perfect quiet. The result, according to the Minister of the Interior, was the return of 30 officials to 28 candidates of the Opposition ; but he omits the ballot for Finisterre, which has ended in the return of a Moderate, and the elections of men already returned, such as Picard's for the Herault and Ganabetta's for Marseilles. The total result, as stated by sanguine Liberals, is 207 for Government and 85 for the Opposition ; and as stated by the fervently devoted Pays, 213 for Government, and 79 for the Opposition. It was resolved by the Electoral Union Committee, after some negotiation, that MM. Thiers, Gamier Pages, and Jules Favre would injure the Empire more than their redder rivals ; and, accordingly, M. d'Alton-Shee, ex-peer, who stood rather as Atheist than as Socialist ; Rochefort, the satirist, supported only as personally hateful to Napoleon ; and Raspail, savan and fanatic opponent of " misery," who was already elected for Lyons, were 'all rejected by Paris. M. Jules Ferry is the only "deep Red" returned in the capital for the second ballot, but the representation of Paris is unanimous against personal government.

There have been riots in many parts of France during the week, the most serious occurring at Nantes. There the radicals, who had given their candidate a great majority, finding their votes swamped by those of the country, threatened the Prefect, attacked the police, and at last broke into the gunsmiths' shops, and either menaced or fired upon the soldiery. Something serious then took place, accounts of which have been suppressed, but reinforcements were despatched to the town. At Bordeaux, Besancon, and Arles riots have occurred, and in Paris itself there have been four, on the 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th. The usual routine was a cry of " Vive la Lanterns I" a charge of police, a fight with cafe chairs for weapons, and an alarm of the " Garde are coming !" when everybody disappeared. On the 9th, however, the crowd on the Boulevards des Italiens and Montmartre got iron railings, began uttering that groan with which a Paris mob expresses its hate, tried to form barricades of cafe tables, and had to be dispersed by a summons and a charge of the cavalry of the Garde de Paris. The people were about 20,000 strong. On the 10th the riots were renewed on the Boulevard Montmartre and the Place de la Bastille, and the troops appear to have been placed under arms, but up to Friday at 11. a.m. there had been no collision.

There are two points to be noticed about these riots. First, that the hope of the people is evidently not fighting. If it were, the Reds have too many good soldiers among them—though Colonel Charras, their man of genius, is dead—to riot in streets in which cavalry can act, and which could be cleared by artillery in five minutes. Secondly, that Government makes a merit of not using the troops. If, as reported, soldiers fired upon at Nantes did not reply, orders for moderftion must have been received. The proclamation of the 9th also, threatening severity, is as long as an electoral address. Ten years ago it would have been simply, " Disturbers of the public peace will be shot." In spite of this hesitation on both sides, an unlucky shot, a message from Lyons, a speech, anything, might fire the barrel, and all would be again at stake. How the Emperor must pray for rain! At the meeting of Conservative Peers at the Duke of Marlborough's this day week, Lord Cairns and Lord Derby both addressed the meeting with great vigour in favour of the policy of audacity,—total rejection of the Irish Church Bill ; but as no reporter was admitted, we know nothing of the arguments used. Rumour says that Mr. Gladstone's firm refusal to cripple the Bill by amendments was made a great argument for rejecting the Bill on its principle. Lord Denbigh (an Ultramontane Catholic) is said to have been the only Tory who pledged himself to vote for the Bill ; but a minority of 20 out of 140 Conservatives present is understood to have been hostile to the policy of internecine war,—aud the views of this party were expressed by Lord Salisbury, Lord Carnarvon, and Lord Stanhope. It was eventually determined that the Earl of Harrowby (whose father led the middle party at the time of the Reform Bill), and who, as having served under Lord Palmerston, is held to be a moderate, should move the rejection of the Bill next Monday. Lord Idarrowby has since been speaking against the Bill in Willis's Rooms, and to the Young Men's Christian Association at Radley's llotel,—not at great length, for he said he was " husbanding his voice till Monday," in which we hope that he succeeded as completely as he did in husbanding whatever ideas on the subject he may happen to have. Not one of them escaped him.

How little effect the desperate decision of the Conservative Lords had in dismaying the Commons was evinced on Monday night, when, during an explanation of Mr. Austin Brace's with relation to the Mold riots, the Primo Minister entered the House. He was received with a burst of cheering so long and heartily sustained, that the Speaker had at length to interfere to obtain silence. The Commons were at least determined to show that they were not "afraid with any amazement." But it hardly needed showing. The House of Lords have ceased to inspire awe.

It is not yet very easy to calculate the fortunes of the revolt which Lord Derby has organized against the power of the House of Commons, but it is quite certain that Lord Salisbury, Lord Carnarvon, and Lord Stanhope,—all leaders of different shades of Conservatism,—will not vote against the Irish Church Bill on its second reading, and by no means certain that some of them may not vote for it, rather than allow it to be rejected by the Peers. It is believed that the two English Archbishops and the Bishop of Oxford will all abstain from voting ; Earl Nelson half intimates an intention to vote for the Bill, rather than let it be thrown out by the Peers, and the Earl of Limerick and Lord Devon indicate the same policy. Viscount Powerscourt and Lord Wharncliffe, in letters to the Times, both indicate a similar bias. Lord Shaftesbury enhances the interest of his own case by asserting that he will not open his mouth on the subject of his vote till he comes to consider it in the Rouse of Lords ; and if the rumour (as yet uncontradicted) be true that the Duke of Richmond will vote for the Bill, rather than let the Peers throw it out, the chances of the Ulster fanatics are very bad indeed. On the other hand, the Duke of Richmond's supposed separation from his party is as yet mere conjecture ; it is quite probable that at least a few Liberal votes will go against the Bill; and 95 (the majority by which the Suspensory Bill was defeated) is a very great majority to melt entirely away. Comparatively very few Conservative Peers will vote for the Bill, so that the majority

will, in the main, be reducible only by the process of desertion. As it is by no means impossible that many will vote one way or

the other who were not numbered at all in the divisions on the

Suspensory Bill,—which contained only 289, both parties counted, while there are about 445 Peers living and of age,—it will be seen that the arithmetical problem is still highly indeterminate. We may safely presume, however, that if the Duke of Richmond follows in the steps of Lords Salisbury, Carnarvon, and Stanhope, the Conservative rank and file will be too much divided for success.

One considerable element in the majority of the Lords against the Suspensory Bill will be very much reduced indeed this session Twenty-one prelates voted against the Suspensory Bill last session. This session the four Irish Bishops, and, we believe, the Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol, are pledged to vote against it, but all the rumours point to :a general abetinenee on the part of the majority of English prelates. We doubt if there will he.hcqf the clerical votes this year against the Bill that there were last, and it is,etten said that the Bishop of St. David's and the Bishop of Chester will vote for it.

We heard the other day of an enthusiastic Protestant screaming in perfect good faith, " Gladstone is the Devil himself, and Bright's very outward appearance proclaims him one of the frogs in the Apocalypse ! " The three frogs in the Apocalypse, if we remember rightly, come respectively out of the dragon's mouth, out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet. Mr. Bright certainly did not come out of Mr. Gladstone's mouth, so he cannot be the one who came out of the mouth of the dAgon. Perhaps Mr. Cobden was the false prophet, and Mr. Bright is the frog that came out of his mouth ; but how his personal appearance identifies him with any one of these Apocalyptic frogs it is hard for ordinary men to apprehend.

Mr. T. Chambers, the Common Serjeant, has give notice of some amendments in Mr. Forster's Endowed Schools' Bill,—the Committee for which is fixed for Monday,—which betray a depth of obtuseness in that learned gentleman's mind such as we have before seen traces of, indeed, but never before adequately gauged. The first amendment he proposes, is to limit the power of the Commissioners to alter any existing educational scheme, by making such alteration provisional on " the consent of the governing body,"—just as if he had proposed to make the Disendowment of the Irish Church provisional on the consent of the Irish Bishops ! In addition to this very sagacious proposal, which in itself annihilates the measure, he proposes to exclude the metropolitan schools altogether from the scope of the Bill, except such as the Charity Commissioners shall report in writing, after investigation, to have been mismanaged,—a proposal which comes to this : that for all metropolitan schools the Charity Commissioners shall exercise the powers of the Endowed Schools' Commissioners, so far as to decide whether reform is needed or not. Mr. Chambers also proposes to compensate any members of any governing body who have now a right of patronage which the Commissioners might take from them, even though that right of patronage may have no marketable value, and be incapable of being sold by them ! We hope he will tell the House how he proposes to estimate the rate at which he will compensate these unmarketable and unsaleable rights of patronage. His other proposed amendments are all in the same enlightened spirit. He proposes to give, for instance, an absolute right of appeal to the Privy Council to every aggrieved governing body,—no matter what the ground on which they base their grievance! The Common Serjeant would evidently like to divert a good many of the educational endowments of the country into the pockets of counsel learned in the law !

The " demonstrations" against the Irish Church Bill have chiefly been made in the shape of dinners,—except one openair meeting in Liverpool, where the unpopular Irish colony makes it easy to get up fervour against an Irish measure. One demonstration was held at Willis's Rooms on Wednesday, the Duke of Rutland in the chair, and of many of the speeches at this dinner we have spoken elsewhere. We may notice, however, that the Deau of Ripon was exceedingly eloquent on a subject on which we heartily agree with him, that civil rule has more claim to the title of a divine ordinance than any form of ecclesiastical rule. But how that proves that there ought to be in all lands a State Church, the very reverend gentleman was not good enough to explain. He merely asserted that if we had still faith in the divine character of the State, we should not have had this Bill before us ; but is it not precisely because we have this faith that we are applying our notions of civil justice to Church matters, and being met by the cry that in doing so we are robbing God ?

Mr. Blake made another attempt on Wednesday to get Government loans for the poor Irish fishermen., as well as to reconstitute the Fisheries' Commission. In the latter part of his subject he succeeded, and in the former, we are happy to say, failed. The absolute cynicism with which Irish Members like Mr. Serjeant Dowse can dun for money grants for Ireland is something quite disreputable. Mr. H. Matthews, who represents the Fenians and Tories of Dungarvan, and whose appeal was made at the election expressly to Fenian feeling, made his debut on this occasion, crying, like the other Irish Members ' Give, give!' No conduct can be more undignified than these attempts to get a little money out of the Government on the *security of old boats and rusty fishing-tackle, and under pledges from Irish members that fishes which are apparently at present.absent fromthe Irish coast will swim thither in shoals, if swlysliheateby they can help the distressed fishermen to repay their Government 'loans. No help could be really more fatal to Ireland than these miserable doles to foster trades which will not prosper without them.

President Grant has had a narrow escape. On Thursday train in which he was a passenger ran into a cattle train near Baltimore, and went off the rails. One passenger was killed and twenty wounded, but the President was unhurt.

The new Constitution of Spain was solemnly promulgated in Madrid on the 6th inst., perfect order being maintained. That is most satisfactory, particularly as the Constitution proclaims a monarchy, and there is no monarch ; as the Captain-General of Cuba, General Dulce, has just been deposed, and sent home by the volunteers from Spain ; as the Finance Minister, with an empty Treasury, protests against reductions ; as nobody is paid except the soldiery, and as Spain seems unable to produce even a Caw. There is, it is said, to be a Regent,—who is to be Regent for nobody? —but Cortes is going to have debates even about him, and intends, it is said, to refuse him the veto, make him a figure-head in fact. At present, nobody seems to take any lead at all, or to have an idea beyond waiting to see what will turn up. Imagine Mieawber a Minister of State !

The Life Peerage Bill has been whittled away till one can hardly see it, and on Tuesday Lord Malmesbury threatened to put an end to it on the third reading. As there is not the smallest chance of the House of Commons creating a new caste in order that at the end of fourteen years there may be twenty-eight lay Bishops in the Lords, it does not much matter whether he does or not ; but the Lords have missed a fine opportunity for making themselves a real second House. The truth is, they cannot see why they cannot get on as they are. The Duke of Argyle, for example, has as clear a brain as any member of the House, yet he delivered, is propos of life peerages, a sort of dominie's lecture on the Constitution, arguing that the Peers were brought into harmonious relations with the Commons by sitting as eldest sons in that body, by the discretion .of their leaders in avoiding collisions, and by the Tory habit, when going into offioe, of letting Liberal Bills pass. Therefore, he argued, life peerages were unnecessary, except to bring in a few poor men of distinction. The meaning of this, we presume, was that the Lords should pass the Irish Bill; but suppose there were 200 Peers in the House near enough to the people to wish to pass it. Would not the harmony be a little more perfect ? At present the harmony is very much like that which exists between cabmen and pedestrians. " Get out of the way, stupid, and then I shan't drive over you !"

The Guardians of Clerkenwell and St. Pancras are public benefactors. They have compelled the Poor-Law Board to introduce a Bill taking power to dissolve and reconstitute asylum districts in London, irrespective of the consent of the Guardians. This will enable Mr. Goschen to utilize all buildings in existence for the benefit of the sick poor, and, moreover, to secure that when new ones are built, they shall be of use to the largest possible number of persons, in fact, to distribute his resources according to science, instead of according to accident. The House accepted the Bill on its second reading by 115 to 15, less than the metropolitan members. Ten years ago the Guardians would have smashed the Board. Five years hence, perhaps, at the present pace, the House will have the nerve to suspend the Guardians, replacing them by single stipendiary Wardens of the Poor, men of administrative aptitude, and so bring the rates down about 50 per cent.

Ulster is very angry indeed at the progress of the Irish Church Bill, and has been holding great meetings all the week, where Orangemen tell everybody they are ready to fight the Battle of the Boyne over again ; threaten, if the Bill passes, to dissolve the Union, and to die for their Protestant Bible, their Protestant Constitution, and their Protestant Queen, and prophesy that Mr. Gladstone will be hanged. They are all, by descent, either Englishmen or Scotchmen, and seem bent on showing, what we should have expected, that while establishments in England and Scotland, where they are just, help to secure moderation, in Ireland, where they are unjust, they only develop unreason. They say they are loyal, and threaten to resist the law ; declare that they love the

Bible, and disobey the first precepts of the Gospel ; adore the protestant Constitution, and aver that but for the sea they would march on the House of Commons which they help to elect. They have a perfect right to agitate against the Bill, but how much does anybody ever get out of Parliament by threats P

Another remarkable confession of murder has been made. Thomas Rosser last Saturday told the police:of Hereford that on 15th June, 1867, he was on tramp in Usk, and moneyless, when be fell in with a girl named Jane Edwards. This girl seems to have taken a sudden fancy to him, asked him to stay the night with her, and offered to pay his railway fare to Monmouth, to save him the long walk. He agreed, took a bar from an old fire-grate, asked the girl to walk with him, beat in her brains, took 15s. from her pocket, and threw the body into the river. He took also a piece of riband, which he carried about with him for the two years, and which the police by his direction secured as corroboration of the confession. The body of the girl, which was found at the time, is to be exhumed, in order to ascertain that the head has really been broken. A baser piece of ruffianism has seldom been recorded ; yet this man, who so murdered the poor girl who had just promised to help him, seems to have borne agonies of remorse for two years, and finally surrendered himself to justice as a kind of expiation.

There is to be an inquiry into the cost of the war in Abyssinia. Mr. Candlish moved for it on Tuesday, in a speech contrasting the Tory estimates with the ultimate bill,—estimates being £5,000,000, and bill £8,500,000,—Mr. Mundella supported him in another full of illustrations of waste, Sir Stafford Northcote did not oppose, and Government readily acceded. We doubt if the Commission will effect much beyond proving that Sir Stafford Northcote is a more sanguine man than he is generally believed to be. As we have tried to show elsewhere, Sir R. Napier was compelled by his own sound judgment to take a bigger army and provide for a longer stay than turned out to be necessary, and the Government of Bombay had to meet our everlasting difficulty, how to get ships for transport and beasts for baggage, when the State wants them in a hurry and refuses itself power to take them at a fair price. It will take land for a railway, but not a steamer for a war, and consequently pays about four times proper prices.

Lord Elcho made a speech on Thursday on the Army of Reserve, important chiefly,—though it was bold and not unskilful, —because it brought up Mr. Cardwell. He made a long speech too, but he appears really to have some sort of a plan in his head. This is to divide Britain into districts, with a General and competent staff controlling all soldiers, Militia and Volunteers, in that district, the last named to have more pay in consideration of more obedience. Very good, so far ; but is he also going to provide commissariat and means of locomotion, because if not, his army, however numerous, will be like an army of wooden-legged heroes ? And is he going to give the Militia trained .officers? He says no ; that he will not deprive country gentlemen of their patronage,—actually in so many words. Just reflect on that. The speaker is Minister of War, he is promising to make the defences of Great Britain efficient, half their efficiency is destroyed because officers are appointed by squires who never saw a shot fired, and one of his main anxieties is to assure the House that squires shall keep their patronage ! When will the Radicals produce a real General who can make a speech ? He would be worth a Marshal's baton.

The regular average of persons killed in London by horses, or rather their drivers, is four a week, two companies of infantry, say, a year. This is exclusive of wounds, many of them most serious. Mr. Justice Mellor, trying a case of the kind on Wednesday, said one main cause of the slaughter was an idea among drivers that the pavement belonged to pedestrians and the roadway to them, a division of property which turns the crossings into Rammed shambles. Had the man been convicted, he should have Passed a severe sentence. We fear the drivers will chance that, just as the Russian coachmen used to chance Siberia, and that the only protection will be a material one. We have already "refuges," or " islands," or whatever they are, in most crossings. Elongate them in dangerous places, till carriages and carts must go through the straits in single file. They cannot drive fast then without endangering their own necks, and, unless paid extra, they respect them.

Lord Clarendon made a very sensible and clear speech in the the House of Lords yesterday week about the Alabama claims, in answer to a question of Lord Stratford de Redcliffe's. Lord Clarendon intimated that both the late and the present Government had felt so earnest a desire to bring the controversy on this subject to a close, that they had made concessions which the House of Lords might well think had been carried beyond a legitimate limit. He did not, therefore, feel any surprise that so little regret had been expressed in this country at the failure of the negotiations. Lord Clarendon mentioned Mr. Reverdy Johnson's calm application to have a new article introduced into the treaty at the last moment, and after it had been signed by Lord Clarendon, giving either Government a separate right of claim, as a gorernment, before the arbitrator,—an application which, of course, he declined. Of Mr. Sumner's speech Lord Clarendon spoke very temperately. It was, he said, very extravagant ; but there was no evidence that the majority of the Senate supported either the claims put forward by Mr. Sumner or his statement. Mr. Sumner had done good, said Lord Clarendon, even by his extravagance, in eliciting so clearly from this country that "however highly we value our relations with the United States, there is one thing we value more, and which we never can submit to sacrifice—our national honour." Lord Clarendon would say nothing as to the future, except that there should be, on our parts, an undiminished friendliness towards the United States, and an undiminished wish to bring the controversy to a close. Lord Clarendon paid a high, but well-deserved compliment to the new American Minister, Mr. Motley ; but ho had not yet seen him officially, and did not know what might be his instructions.

The Stafford election went against the Liberals,—the constituency returning two Tories, instead of, as at the last election, one Liberal and one Tory. The Liberals were scarcely quick enough in uniting,—having taken their ballot only yesterday week, when it appeared that the working-men candidates are as little in favour in Stafford as elsewhere. Mr. Whitworth and Mr. Evans were at the head of the Liberal ballot,—Mr. Odger obtaining barely more than half Mr. Whitworth's votes, and Mr. Jenkins much less than half Mr. Odger's. Mr. Odger acted very well in the matter, and gave a hearty support to the chosen candidates, though if Mr Whitworth be, as we believe, the same Mr. Whitworth unseated at Drogheda for the intimidation exercised by his agents, we could not feel sure that Mr. Odger was right in promising him any support even conditional on his own defeat, and we should feel sure that the Liberals showed no real desire to extinguish the tyranny of intimidation in so readily accepting him. As it happens, we can hardly regret his defeat as we should that of an uncompromised Liberal. So long as one constituency is willing at any time to take from any other the candidates whom the latter is forbidden to re-elect, it is impossible that intimidation and bribery, when committed by agents, shoald be regarded as inflicting a serious blow on any man's ambition. It may be that some of those candidates whose agents have bribed or intimidated without their knowledge are really personally innocent. But if the law so far assumes their guilt as not merely to void their election, but to forbid them to stand again for the same constituency, it is clear that the prima' facie assumption ought to be against them elsewhere. The Tories elected in this insignificant and not immaculate borough were Mr. T. Salt and the Hon. R. Talbot.

A very curious suicide, or attempt at suicide,—for the final issue is not yet known,—occurred at the Farringdon Road Station on Wednesday. A Mr. George Stevens, who, in a letter to his mother found in his pocket, intimates that pecuniary troubles were the cause of his distress, shot himself with a revolver under cover of the noise caused by the arrival of the 10.80 evening train. After shooting himself, he appears to have got out of the train and attempted to ascend the staircase, when he paused, fell, and became insensible, and was lying at the stationmaster's office at the last advices. What suggests itself as remarkable in this case is, that the suicide, having shot himself in the left breast, did not wait for the resalt where he was, but moved on like a spent ball, in the direction in which he would have moved had he made no such attempt on his life, till life failed him. Was the power of habit too strong for him, when the porter opened the door of 'the carriage and evidently expected him to get out ? Or did he think the ball had inflicted but a trifling wound, after all, which he hoped to conceal till he could be again alone ? There is something very strange in this continuation of a mechanical procedure by a man who had killed himself, or had believed that he had killed himself,—in the middle of it.