Paris has been the scene of several small catastrophes. There
has been a move in the Ministry. Admiral Mackau, whose con- tempt of the petition on the horrors of slavery in the French West Indian Colonies was only the crowning proof of his inca- pacity for public affairs, has resigned; and is replaced by the Duc de Montebello, Ambassador at Naples. Impracticable M. Lacave- Laplagne had refused to resign, and is superseded in the Depart- ment of Finance by M. Dumon. The latter is succeeded in his office of Public Works by M. Jayr, whom the eager inquiries of the curious have discovered to be a Peer of France. General St. Yon, resigned, is succeeded as Minister of War by General Tre- ed ; who, being an officer of ability, will probably prove an abler idinister, although a taunt of having once been defeated by Abd- el-Bader is thrown in his face. These accessions to the Ministry are not accounted to bring any political weight ; but probably they impart to it greater compactness and efficiency. M. Cremieux has surmounted the obstacles which the forms of the French Chambers oppose to every independent measure in its preliminary stages, and has succeeded in bringing before the Chamber of Deputies a proposition to render the tenure of office under Government incompatible with the holding of a railway directorship. The attempt to introduce the debate was the occasion for an extraordinary scene, in which the Ministerial party tried to drive the mover from his purpose by a storm of hideous and minacious noises.
General Cubieres is undergoing a prosecution before the Peers, for his avowed or pretended endeavour to negotiate the corrup- tion of former Ministers. Altogether' the Parliamentary drama of the week in Paris has not tended to display the honour and dignity of French statesmanship. Lisbon has been disturbed by an extraordinary conspiracy, which took effect so far as to release a great number of prisoners from the gaols: they rushed to the palace, on some revolutionary speculation; but the tumult was suppressed, with copious blood- shed, without having attained any substantial result. Athens has had its political commotion. Finding it impracti- cable to make way in the Chambers even with his newly "strengthened" Ministry, Coletti first resorted to the expedient of deliberately and openly making "no House," by withdrawing his supporters from the Chamber of Deputies, so as to leave less than a quorum, and then abruptly dissolving the Chambers. This desperate plan for evading his own resignation. of course involves a general election • which, in the anarchical state of Greece, in- volves an universal fighting, tantamount in sanguinary ferocity to civil war.
Further explanation from Mexico is not very favourable to the prospects of the Spanish Americans. They are inexorable in pursuing their own internal dissensions, with no end to mutual treachery and distrust. They can only find a show of unity in the presence of the illustrious cockfighter Santa Anna, the sole man among them who seems capable of carrying out or even of understanding large combinations. The Anglo-Americans con- tinue their triumphant progress, but without glory. It appears to be fairly inferred from the despatches of General Scott, that having before him the fortress of San Juan d'Ulloa with a gar- rison and the city of Vera Cruz with a redundancy of helpless population, he deliberately made his election to war upon women and children! Crimes like that can never be committed with impunity : the race that commits them bears within itself the curse of internal corruption. If this tale is true, the women and children of Vera Cruz will one day be avenged upon the Anglo- Americans by those same Anglo-Americans.
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