NEWS OF THE WEEK.

THE fury of the contest for the Presidency (which was in fact de- cided last Tuesday) is naturally even greater than that of the previous election, and while iu Philadelphia there had been rioting, the two great parties had been chiefly exerting themselves to detect the frauds and expose the treachery of their opponents. Two New York State agents appointed by Governor Seymour, and employed to collect the balloting-papers of the soldiers of the State of New York, Mr. Moses J. Ferry and Mr. Edward Donahue, have been arrested on a charge of forging soldiers' votes in great numbers for M'Clellan, as well as opening sealed envelopes and substituting General M'Clellan's name for Mr. Lincoln's. Mr. Moses Ferry confessed that he had done this, and his con- fession was confirmed by a solicitor of the name of Newcomb, implicated by the confession of Ferry in the crime. A military court was appointed to investigate this crime against the soldiers, which met at Baltimore under the presidency of General Doubleday. The pemocrats allege that the guilty parties were hired by the Re- publicans to join the Democrats to commit the crime, and then confess it in order to throw disgrace on the Democratic party,—but this is a complicated and improbable view of the matter. And con- sidering that the military commission have condemned both Ferry who confessed and Donahue who denied the crime to im- prisonment for life, they have been somewhat hardly treated by their employers, if they were really Republican spies, skilful enough to win the confidence of Governor Seymour. The latter appa- rently repudiates the right of the military court to judge the matter, and has sent commissioners to Washington to " vindicate the laws of the State." The Democratic Committee have issued an address on the fearful system of " violence and fraud countenanced by Mr. Lincoln's supporters," but as yet the comparison between the two parties in these discreditable qualities seems to be in their own favour.

On the 4th of October Mr. Jefferson Davis made a great speech at Columbia, in South Carolina, in a very different tone from that discomfited air with which he recently spoke at Macon, Georgia. His tone in South Carolina was adapted to the temper of that State which made a hero of the man (Mr. Brooks) who fell upon Mr. Sumner unawares in the Senate House at Washington and nearly murdered him with a heavy cane. " Does any one imagine," says Mr. Davis, " that we can conquer the Yankees by retreating before them, or do you not all know that the only way to make spaniels civil is to whip them ?" After this slameholder- like but far from statesmanlike piece of vulgar ferocity, Mr. Davis apparently announced that the extreme doctrine of State rights was not inconsistent with an absolute control over the States of the Confederacy, and then went on to prophesy that Hood would drive Sherman from Atlanta and across the Tennessee within thirty days. The date of the last telegram is the 1st of November, so that Mr. Davis had still three days' chance left, but the omens are far from favourable to his sanguine anticipations. Mr. Davis is losing in adversity that tone of statesmanlike strength and composure which even his worst enemies admired during the first three years of the war.

The Governors of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi held a meeting at Augusta on 17th October, and resolved among other things to recommend the Conkderate Government to call the blacks into the field. They

resolved, " That the course of the enemy in appropriating our slaves who happen to fall into their hands to purposes of war seeing to justify a change of policy on our part, and while ow nara of slaves, under the circumstances, should freely yield them to their country, we recommend to our authorities, under proper regu- lations, to appropriate such part of them to the public service as may be required." The words employed are a little vague, but as interpreted by the Richmond journals they mean that able-bodied slaves willing to fight for the South should be subjected to con- scription like whites, and rewarded with freedom. The Southerners believe that this measure will give them at least 200,000 efficient men, a result we have discussed in another place.

The Captain of the United States steamer Wachusetts appears from accounts which must be substantially true to have compro- mised his Government in a most inexcusable manner. The well- known Confederate vessel the Florida was on the 6th October lying in the harbour of Bahia, with two-thirds of her men ashore. Outside her the Wachusetts, United States war vessel, was lying, and it is said a challenge was sent from her to the Florida to go out and fight. That part of the story is a little obscure, and .at any rate has nothing to do with the international question, but it seems certain that before daylight on the morning of the 7th of Octo- ber the Wachusetts steamed on to the Florida, poured in a volley of musketry, compelled her remaining crew to surrender, and making her fast by a hawser towed her out to sea. A more astounding violation of the law of nations was never committed, and we can- not doubt that the act will be repudiated at once by Mr. Lincoln, and full reparation made to the Government of the Brazils. We warn our friends of the North that it is acts like this, not sharp criticisms from foreigners, which degrade a nation in the eyes of the world.

Mr. Hale, the new Lord Mayor, was sworn in on the 0th inst., and a procession of the old sort wended its way as usual through the Strand. It was very badly got up. The silk banners were too heavy, the men in armour looked as if a good push would send them off their horses, the bands played lively tunes too slow for their meaning, and not one-third of the carriages were decently appointed. All that may be nobody's fault, but the condition of the State carriage is disreputable. Has nobody the courage or the power either to re-gild that ricketty tub, or sell it to some furniture-broker with a taste for manufacturing antiques? A new carriage surely would not ruin the City or the mayors, and if there is a lack of invention let them copy that of the High Sheriff of Westminster. That is glittering enough in all con- science, while it is not absurd.

The new Lord Mayor's dinner to Her Majesty's Ministers at the Mansion House on Wednesday was only remarkable for the age of the four most distinguished speakers, Lord Brougham, who is 85 ; Lord Palmerston, who is 80 ; Chief Baron Pollock, who is 81; and M. Berryer, who is comparatively young at the age of 74. There was no speaking of any importance. The Chief Baron was jocular, suggesting that Lord Macaulay's New Zealander might now find a broken arch of Blackfriars, though not of London Bridge, to sit upon, from which he might sketch not the ruing of St. Paul's, but the great devastation going on in the City of London in preparation for new buildings. It was not a bad promise of a joke, but the Chief Baron had not turned over his New Zealander quite often enough in his mind when meditating his speech in the night watches. He removed him somewhat abruptly from London Bridge to Blackfriars, had not quite sufficient " motive" for him even when he got him there, and parted with him too easily in the end. Our minds return to that New Zealander as if he had been forgotten, and a liberty had been taken with him. Lord Palmerston said of course what he always does say in the City, that the advan- tage to Her Majesty's Ministers of meeting die City magnates in " a convivial assembly " is beyond belief, but he did not, and never did, explain clearly in what the advantage consists. He then went on to eulogize Lord Brougham and M. Berryer, the former Mr. Gladstone, at the same dinner, took occasion to state that Lord Palmerston had no intention whatever of dissolving Parlia- ment yet. After tracing the rumour—which originated in Man- chester—with comical gravity to Lord Brougham, who sat opposite and had sung a sort of dirge over the expiring House, be remarked " And all I can say in regard to a dissolution is, fully admitting the great law of Parliamentary mortality, that if my noble friend at the head of the Government cherishes in the deep recesses of his mind any sinister designs against the life of the present Parliament he has kept those designs—and I greatly complain of it—a perfect secret." Members therefore who vote for Lord Palmerston, may sleep easily, undisturbed by visions of the hustings, until the autumn. If they are summoned to meet the political judgment-day it will be all the fault of the Tories, as indeed most things unpleasant are

French as applied to a strong Legitimist.

M. Drouyn De Lhuys, always unwisely jealous of Italy and reluctant to promote the Italian cause, which the Emperor has deliberately sanctioned, though still more reluctant to retire from office,—he was epigrammatically described by a comrade as un homme qui pour le malheur de sa patrie a fait de belles e'tudee,— hes had at last an opportunity, probably long desired, of snubbing the Italian statesman who negotiated the Convention. In a despatch dated the 30th of October, M. Drouyn De Lhuys gently insinuates that Signor Nigra had misrepresented the drift of the Convention, that he did not properly repudiate for the Italian Government the right of secretly stimulating revolution amongst the Pope's subjects,—and that in case of a successful popular revo- lution after the withdrawal of the French from Rome, the Govern- ment of the Emperor was not further pledged to any course, but had " reserved " its freedom to intervene or not, as it might think proper. This despatch caused immense excitement among the extreme party in Italy, and was considered as both an insult and a menace. General De La Marmora, however, replies to it in a most statesmanlike and dignified despatch, in which he of course repudiates indignantly the notion of secretly stimulating disaffection among the Pope's subjects, and states that Italy had been unwilling to contemplate at all the eventuality of the Pope's successful deposi- tion by his own subjects, having relied entirely on moral means to bring about a reconciliation between Italy and Rome, but as the French Minister has thought it necessary to call attention to that contingency, he can only say that both Governments, the Italian as well as the French, " reserve their freedom" to act in such a case as they may think proper. The answer is complete, and of course means that in such an event Italy would occupy Romb, and soput down the revolution before France could have time to intervene.

General Early's order to his army on the defeat of the 19th of October in the Shenandoah Valley is at once a jeremiad and a philippic. He bewails bitterly the loss of a great success, and scolds his soldiers roundly for the reverse, telling them it is entirely due to their " disgraceful propensity for plunder " and to their needless panic." " Had any respectable number of you listened to the appeals made to you and made a stand, even at the last moment, the disaster would have been arrested, and the substantial fruits of victory gained ; but under the insane dread of being flanked and a panic-stricken terror of the enemy's cavalry, you would listen to no appeal, threat, or order, and allowed a small body of cavalry to penetrate to our train and capture a number of pieces and waggons which your disorder left unprotected." This is plain language, and confirms all the accounts we have received of the undisciplined, drunken, and plundering habits of the Confederate army in the Shenandoah Valley.

The news of Sherman's proceedings is scarcely to be called news. He had left General Slocum to garrison Atlanta, and was moving to counteract the designs of General Hood,—said to be against Ten- nessee, though how Hood can cross the Tennessee river .andnot lose his supplies it is not easy to conceive. General Grant and General Butler's movements on the 27th of October were not successes, but also were not defeats. They seem to have suffered checks just suffi- cient to show that General Lee is still strong enough to resist any general attack.

The new constitution in Maryland which abolishes slavery in that State, and was rejected by a small majority on the home vote, but carried by the majority of soldiers in its favour, was proclaimed extravagantly for omniscience and almost intellectual omnipotence, lby Governor Bradford on the 1st November. The Governor was the latter more moderately for dignity, virtue, and " patriotism,"— I said to be opposed to receiving the soldiers' votes and to think the last eulogiutn being hardly likely to please the Emperor of the them: unconstitutional, bat after putting the case before a court of law he has withdrawn his objection, and Maryland is now a free State.

The territory of Nevada has also been admitted into the Union as a new State.

The German Legal Aid Society has presented a memorial.to Sir George Grey, backed by numerous affidavits, praying a respite for Franz Muller. The ground of the memorial is fresh evidence, but it appears very weak, one woman testifying, for example, that a man unlike Muller offered to pawn a gold watch with her on the day of the murder a little before 11 p.m., and another witness that he knew a pedlar, but had not seen him for weeks ! The only coherent statement is that of the editor of the Hermann, Ernest Juck, who says that Miller told him he bought the watch in the docks of a pedlar, and that he described this man. Herr Juck went to the docks, and the police, from his description alone, recognized the pedlar, who after much trouble was discovered, and admitted having sold a watch and chain about the time specified, a really remarkable statement, which ought to have been made at the trial. It has, we presume, been sifted by the police, and is scarcely of itself sufficient to justify Sir George Grey in arresting the course of the law. A story very widely believed about a cab and a man covered with blood in it, who was seen by Mr. Poole of Edmonton, turns out, as we suspected last week, true enough, only the bloody man was a drunken cab-driver who had cut his arm in the window.

A curious list has been published of the results of competition for the Indian Civil Service. Of the 376 civilians who have set out for India since 1855 no less than 255 had been educated at Oxford, Cambridge, Dublin, or one of the Scotch Universities, besides others who stood the examination direct from public schools. Ont of 343 appointed since 1857 nearly a third were sons of clergymen, 70 of officers, barristers, or doctors, 50 of men with independent means, 31 of well-to-do tradesmen, and 36 of " persons in the lower branches of trade." It is the unfitness of these last which the opponents of the system denounce, but we fear the evil is aggravated by another cause. These sons of " persons in the lower branches of trade " beat the respectables in getting on, whrch in a country like this is of course a most subversive proceeding. We do not believe in examination much, except as a sieve which lets the inefficient fall through, but if its opponents have nothing better to allege than this they had better demand "quarterings" as a qualifi- cation for office, and so, if they must talk nonsense, talk it con- sistently.

Another horrible murder. The headless body of a man about thirty was on Tuesday found among the reeds of Plaistow Marshes, under circumstances which seemed to indicate murder by a large clasp knife, and next day the head was found carefully buried in a hole about twelve inches deep, also dug with a knife. The head was recognized as that of a German called usually " John," but said to be named Furhhof, who had resided for some time with Ferdinand Karl Kohl, a Dutch sugar-baker, and his wife. This man and his wife were arrested, but as there was not a particle of evidence to criminate the woman, a well-conducted English girl of eighteen, she was released, but the man was detained. As yet the principal evidence against him is that he was seen in company with the deceased in the marshes, and it is believed in the neigh- bourhood that he committed the murder from jealousy. Murder as an art does not improve at all. Miiller left damning evidence behind him, and the idea of burying a man's head and leaving his body unburied, so that it might suggest search, is inexcusably inartistic.

The Medical School Committee of St. George's Hospital have inquired into the matter of George King, said to have been dis- charged from the hospital as only drunk when he was dying of fractures in the skull. They state distinctly that King's head was carefully examined by Mr. Freeman, house-surgeon, and Mr. Jones three distinct times, that he had no fractures, and that he was very drunk. The man was removed by the policeman from the hospital, contrary to express injunctions, and thence taken to the police-station in King Street., Westminster, whence it will be remembered he was bailed out next morning in a dying condition, with fourteen separate wounds on his head. We do trast some member of Parliament is keeping the published evidence of this remarkable case, with a resolve if nothing is done to " ask" what the police are about, and why there is so little appearance rd eager- ness to find out the cause of those wounds.

If it were only possible to persuade Continental finance ministers, special correspondents, editors, and other people whose business it is to give information that a budget to be intelligible should be complete I Signor Sella produced that of Italy on 4th November, and for want of this conviction it might, so far as England is con- cerned, as well have remained in his desk. All that seems clear is that Italy has a deficit of 8,000,0001. for the year, but how much of this is temporary and how much is permanent nobody knows. Signor Sella proposes to fill up the vacuum by reducing the navy greatly and the army a little, by increasing the monopoly price of tobacco and salt, by raising the duty on colonial produce, grain, letters, and official salaries, by selling Crown lands and railways, and by compelling landowners to pay up their land-tax in advance. This is Turkish finance, not that of a civilized State, and almost deserves to fail.

Some further details have been published of the success at .Simonosaki. It appears that the Japanese batteries were not silenced till the marines had carried them with the bayonet, and that the Prince of Nagato, besides dismantling his forts, has agreed to build no more, to assist vessels wrecked in the Straits, and to ,pay a ransom to be fixed by the European representatives at Yeddo as ransom for Simonosaki. Will that ransom be considered prize- money ? If it is we shall probably hear no more of bombardments, though the new usage is not a pleasant one to introduce. The Times correspondent reports that the Prince of Negate has defeated the Mikado's troops, that there is evidence of complicity between him and the Tycoon, and that " unless satisfactory arrangements" can be made the fleet is ".to proceed to Yeddo," evidently to try a little gentle persuasion there. You see it is so unreasonable of Japanese to believe that in admitting the foreigners they are paving the way for political subjection !

The English Bar entertained M. Berryer at dinner on Tuesday in the hall of the Middle Temple. The attendance to do honour to the illustrious French lawyer was considerable, Lord Kingsdown, Lord Brougham, Sir A. Cockburn, Mr. Gladstone, and several judges, but the speeches were hardly equal to the occasion. Sir Roundell Palmer praised the guest of the evening in a just but not very original speech, Lord Brougham compared him to Erskine, Sir A. Cockburn declared that throughout his career his honour had been untarnished, and Mr. Gladstone mentioned that even in Naples the " audacity of tyranny had not dared to interfere with the freedom '' of the Bar, and in courts bristling with bayonets he bad heard lawyers defending the accused with freedom and fear- lessness. 111. Berryer replied most gracefully, alluding with high approbation to the English practice of selecting " procureurs generaus " from the Bar, and the cordial relation between the Bar and the Bench. His point was the value of that free interchange of ideas between the Bars of civilized nations which was foreshadowed in the reception granted to himself. The just respect with which M. Berryer has everywhere been received is said to have deeply gratified the Bar of France.

Mr. Gladstone on Thursday made a speech to the Volunteers of the St. Martin's division at their annual dinner at the Freemasons' Tavern. He spoke in strong commendation of the Volunteer force, which he hoped would become a permanent part of our national strength, and made on a subject apparently exhausted a new and most effective point. It is this :—" Until the Volunteer force came into existence there was one special gap and one special defect in the military institutions of the country." We have an incompar- able Army and Navy, but the officers were taken from the upper, the men from the lower ranks of society, and until the Volunteer force came into existence an Englishman of the middle class, "pos- sessed of political power, and wanting in none of the gifts and qualities which belonged to the other classes, had no opportunity of exhibiting his desire for and contributing his fair share to the defences of his country." Cromwell found out that secret once be- fore, and acted on the discovery. Mr. Gladstone recognized, he said, to the full the necessity of maintaining the " just influence " of this country " with a high and strong hand, at all times and under all circumstances," a conviction which he will have to prove as well as express before England obeys his lead.

A case has been tried this week before the Master of the Rolls which reads as if it had been invented by a third-rate sensation novelist. The only child of Mr. and Mrs. Gedney, of Candleaby Hall, Lincolnshire, claimed a considerable property under her mother's settlement. Mrs. Gedney's family resist, alleging that the claimant was not Mrs. Gedney's child, but one she had pur- -chased in London. The evidence showed that Mrs. Gedney, a woman who lived unhappily with her husband, and had been infected by him, came up to London in 1854, alleging that she was pregnant ; that she employed an advertising accoucheur named Goss to attend her ; that Goss obtained from a hospital the illegitimate child of one Lydia Fletcher ; that Mr. and Mrs. Goss made their appearance in Mrs. Gedney's lodgings with a bundle, that everybody was shut out, and that the child appeared to a nurse afterwards admitted not to be new-born. It was also proved that the local physician did not believe Mrs. Gedney had ever had a child, and that the unfortunate lady her- self had twice confessed the deception, once to a clergyman. On the other hand, it was shown or alleged that the husband believed the child his, and that Dr. Farre, who attended Mrs. Gedney, believed that she had been confined. The claimants did not call Mr. Goss, and the jury returned a verdict for the defendant, thus declaring the child supposititious. It is curious that this crime, which is neither more nor less than an elaborate swindle, is popularly believed in England to be exceedingly common, while it is according to police records perhaps the rarest of frauds—the propertied class, who alone have an interest in committing it, being indisposed at once to incur the risk and to place themselves in the power of the agents they must employ.

Faraday has sent a very good reply to an invitation to a spirit sauce. He has been too much disappointed, he says, in the manifestations he has witnessed to waste any more time on them voluntarily. But "if spirit communications not utterly worthless should happen to start into activity, I will trust the spirits to find out for themselves how they can move my attention. I am tired of them." And no wonder. A spirit able to interest Faraday ought to care for light and science, and all the spirits hitherto manifested confessedly prefer darkness and encourage nescience.

There has been a bad murder at Boulogne. A man of the name of Leducq, who has a mistress in London and a wife in Boulogne, has murdered his two illegitimate children of the ages of four and nine, apparently either from vindictiveness towards their mother or simply to get rid of the necessity of supporting them. He brought them from Folkestone to Boulogne by packet on Sunday, and then after it became dark drowned them in the Arriere Port, he himself going into the water, it is supposed, for the purpose, as his trousers were wet when he was next seen by his wife at her house in Boulogne. The man appears to have made very feeble efforts to conceal the murder. He received five francs from his wife, and with it went to his native place, Mont Camel, near Montreuil, where-he was arrested on Monday, and at once con- fessed the murder.

The early and bitter winter which seems to have set in will fall with sad weight upon Lancashire, where the distress is increasing but too rapidly. The minimum of pauperism was reached on the fourth week of August, when the number of paupers was entered at 78,730. Now it is 106,490.

The return of the Bank of England is very favourable. The stock of bullion has increased to the extent of 333,8291., the amount held being 13,647,2701., and the reserve is 7,907,1751., or an augmentation of 987,654/. as compared with the figures in the preceding statement. The minimum rate of discount at the Bank is reduced to eight per cent. On Saturday last Consols for transfer left off at 89#, # ; and for account at 90 to 90#. Yesterday the closing prices were :—For money, 91 to 911 ; for time, 891, 3, ex. div. The highest prices of the week were realized yesterday when Consols for account touched 901 ex. div.

Subjoined is a statement showing the closing prices of the lead- ing Foreign Securities yesterday and on Friday week:—

Greek Do. Coupons .. Mexican Spaniel' Passive • • ..

Do. Certificates Turkish 6 por Cents.,1858..

1882..

Consol'idis.„

• • • • • • • •

••

• • • • . • • • • • • • • •

Friday, Nov. 4.

.. 221 271 .. 30 .. 13 721 601 Friday, Nov. 11.

.. 231 ••■•• .. 281 .. 31 .. 14j 721 61

The leading British Railways left off at the following prices yesterday and on Friday week :—

Caledonian .. .. ..

Great Eastern .. ..

Great Northern .. .. ..

..

.. Friday, Nov. 4.

12491

61

•• 186

Friday, Nov. 11 1291 48 330

Great Western.. ..

..

• •

77

West Midland. Oxford - •

• -

• •

45

GO Lancashire and Yorkshire London and Brighton .. ..

..

• •

761

103 116

1151 106 London and North-Western .•

• •

117

112

London and South-Western —

07 071 London, Chatham, and Dover ..

40

Midland .. .. .. —

•••

1241 185 North-Eastern, Berwick .. ..

• •

111 llt 1001 Do. York .. ..

291