NEWS OF THE WEEK.
THE week has been absolutely without political news. Ministers are scattered through the country, and Members of Parliament are still too flushed with the first enjoyment of partridge-shooting to think of lecturing their constituents. There has not been a speech of any kind, nobody has fired off a political letter, and the departments are rejoicing in the rare consciousness that the public has temporarily forgotten them. The scientific associations have had the swing they are always allowed when polities are quiescent; but with the ex- ception of their reports, the domestic intelligence of the week might be compressed into a very few lines. There has not been a railway acci- de* or a respectable murder to rouse that sensation of "creepiness" which stolid people mistake for pleasurable excitement.
