It is probable, though not certain, that the strong appre-
hensions entertained in Bulgaria and at Constantinople, where they have just ordered Adrianople to be fortified, may be well founded. Everything depends upon the Czar's decision, and there is good reason to believe that his decision hangs upon the fate of the Emperor Frederick, upon whose health, as Lord Salisbury and the Prince of Wales both hinted at the Academy banquet, the question of peace or war will turn. If he is spared till August, there will not be time for a great enterprise to be finished before snow has fallen, and there will in all probability be no war this year. If he is not, the Russian Government will make another effort to settle the whole Balkan Question by a forward march upon Constantinople, for which the road is now nearly open, Roumania, Servia, and Bulgaria being all alike honey- combed with agitation. That is, we believe, the true situation, though it may, of course, be modified at any moment by events in France, or by a premature explosion in Macedonia. It is a strange fate bra man to be at once so powerful and so ill; but we believe that the Bourse speculators are for once fairly right, and that in responding to every rumour as to the Emperor's condition, they are obeying a sound instinct.
