NEWS OF TILE WEEK.
THE great news of the week,—news, however, on which the Times correspondent at New York has cast a shadow of apparently rather arbitrary doubt,—is the evacuation of Atlanta by the Confederates, and its occupation by a portion of General Sherman's army under General Slocum. The despatches which brought this news were published by the Government as official on the 3rd of September,—having been received on the 2nd,— and because no confirmation of them was received by the evening of the same day, when the Peruvian left, the Times New York correspondent threw doubt upon their authenticity. Hitherto all the official despatches of the Government have been thoroughly confirmed by subsequent reports, and there seems to be no reason- able doubt of this, which tallies with our previous news ; for it was added that a great battle had been fought by the body of General Sherman's army with the retreating army of General Hood at East Point, on the Macon road, in which the Confederate General Hardee was killed and both sides suffered heavily. Now, we know that General Sherman'had intervened between Atlanta and Macon, and that Hood would be forced to cut his way through the opposing army at all hazards in order to keep up his only re- maining line of supplies. Unofficial reports asserted that General Hood's retreating army was cut in two with fearful loss, but of this the Government despatches gave no confirmation.
Fort Morgan, the last Confederate defence of Mobile Bay, surrendered unconditionally to Admiral Farragut on the 23rd August, with 1,500 prisoners, 100 cannon, and provisions for six months. The long defence which General Page had boasted that he would make when he so heavily censured Colonel Anderson for the surrender of Fort Gaines came to nothing. " Fort Morgan," says Admiral Farragut, " never fired a gun after the commence- ment of the bombardment, and the advanced picket of our army was actually upon its glade."
The thrice repeated Confederate attack on the Weldon Railroad on the 25th of August ended unsuccessfully, for though it drove the Federals from their weaker position at Reams station, and so cleared about four miles of railroad out of the eight which they had occupied, it left the principal works of the Federals on the railroad nearer Petersburg entirely untouched,—and the solid occupation of four miles cuts off the line of supply with the South as effectually as if they were eight. 'The battle was an exceedingly bloody one, resulting, it is said, in the loss of some 3,000 men to the Federals and of at least 5,000 to their assailants. It is pro- bably due to this alarming occupation of the principal line of com- munication between Richmond and the South that the Confeder- ates have again retreated from the Potomac down the Shenandoah Valley, followed by Sheridan's army. At the last report Con- federate General Early's rear guard was between Winchester and Martinsburg.
Muller and his train—Inspector Tanner, the cabman, and Mr. Death—are at last in this country, having arrived by the Etna on
Thursday at Queenstown, %%hence Muller was to be conveyed to London. The preliminary examination in New York led to no new light, his counsel having nothing to do in fact ex !ept to taunt the British Lion, like the young Columbian in " Martin Chuzzlewit" :—" Freedom's hand once twisted in his mane he lies a corse before me, and the eagles of the great republic laugh ha ha! " a style of argument which appears, as we have explained elsewhere, to be only too popular in New York, but scarcely germane to the subject. Miiller, however, made a private state- ment to the correspondent of the Star to the effect that he bought the hat a year ago, and purchased the watch and chain on London Bridge just before his embarkation—a rash statement, we fear, not likely to conduce to a successful defence. The newspaper cor- respondents from Cork telegraph the most momentous parti- culars about Muller. He was sea-sick on the 4th inst. at 8.15 a.m. At 8.20 he tried hot brandy and water, which was ex- changed at 8.25 for cold brandy and water, which restored him completely, and his appetite was admirable afterwards. He read " Pickwick" on board with much enjoyment, taking particular interest in Bob Sawyer and 6' the Shepherd." He was not so well satisfied with " David Copperfield," but thought Littimeis character well drawn.
Owing to the great delay in the arrival of the Etna with Miller on board, the man who in a drunken fit foolishly accused himself of being Miiller's accomplice was again remanded on Wednesday for three days by Mr. Ellison and bail refused, though nothing had transpired tending to connect him with the murder. Nor is he the only or the greatest sufferer from the strangely vivid impres- sion which Muller appears to have made upon the popular imagina- tion. A lad named Job Bartlett, an apprentice to a printer, working in the office of Mr. Chiffereil, of Chancery Lane, has lost his life from the effect of a too minute pre-Raphaelite imagination actively engaged in working out Miiller's career to its final scene. It appears that the boys mind had engaged itself leas with M idler s guilt than his assumed destination to the gallows. He had en • deavoured to form for himself a vivid impression of the sensation of hanging, and though a lad of cheerful disposition, had even allowed his intellectual enthusiasm to carry him so far as to ex- press a wish to be hanged himself. He then instituted a series of experiments with a rope attached to a ventilator in the office, and, his foot slipping on some glass inlaid into the floor to light the room below, he inadvertently fulfilled last Monday night his own rash wish. The literary or dramatic wish to enter into the feelings of a favourite hero is becoming morbid, when it induces light- hearted children to desire a particular kind of death only in order to realize fully that hero's last earthly sensations.
The Chicago Convention nominated General M'Clellan as its candidate for the next Presidency by a large majority, 202 for M'Clellan against only 23 for Governor Seymour, on a strong Union platform, one of the resolutions asserting that "it is the aim and object of the Democratic party to preserve the Federal Union and the rights of the States unimpaired," and again another " that in the future as in the past we will adhere with unswerving fidelity to the Union under the Constitution." The platform also includes an effort fur early cessation of hostilities, " with a view to an ultimate Convention of all the States, or other peace- able means, to the end that at the earliest practicable moment. peace may be restored on the basis of the Federal Union of the States;" but General M'Cllellan is certainly pledged not to give up the Union, and, as far as we can judge, the popular feeling adheres to this one point as firmly as ever. The Democrats will pay any price for Union, will guarantee slavery, will welcome subserviency, infamy, or anything else, but a very small proportion even of them will admit the thought of disunion.
Governor Seymour, the President of the Convention, addressed it at length on the text " the Democratic party will restore the Union because it longs for its restoration, will bring peace be- cause it loves peace, will bring back liberty because it loves liberty," —which is very nice feeling, but scarcely convincing. He tctok
great pains, too, to flatter the army. " It was a soldier," he said, " upon whom our Saviour bestowed His only commendation when He hung upon the Cross and the Pharisees mocked His sufferings. It was a soldier who alone discerned His divinity when he heard Him pour forth a prayer for mercy and forgiveness for the authors of His sufferings,"—from which queer mixture of mythical and his- torical matter the Democratic candidate means it to be inferred that the American soldiers are admirable persons and ought to be Democrats. We have heard of the latter incident, but not of the former. Can Governor Seymour be confusing a soldier with the cru- cified " thief ?" It is worthy of note that no other governor of a State except Governor Seymour of New York was present at the Chicago Convention, though there were some ex-governors.
The impression that appears to prevail in England that Presi- dent Lincoln's last draft is a mere brutum falmen, and that all things are preparing for peace in compliance with the hints of Governor Seymour and the Chicago Democrats, is, we believe, one of the most complete delusions which the wishes of the people of this country have ever conjured up. A Pennsylvanian paper, the Harrisburgh Telegraph of the 25th August, states that since the fall of Fort Sumter the recruiting has never gone on so earnestly or so rapidly in Pennsylvania,—that up to noon on Tuesday, 23rd August, " there were over thirty thousand soldiers returned to the Assistant-Provost-Marshal-Generals in the Eastern and Western Departments of the States by the different Provost-Marshals of the Commonwealth as having been mustered into the service of the United States,"—and it goes on to say that a very brief prolonga- tion of the time allowed by the original order for the draft would fill up the full quota of Pennsylvania without any draft at all. And this, remember, is considered to be nearly the most pacific and discontented State of the Northern Federation. If such things happen in Pennsylvania, where will the Peace Democrats find popular support?
The Federals have one very effective marine ally whom the laws of neutrality cannot reach—the barnacles. It appears that the torpedoes with which Mobile Bay and Charleston Harbour are thickly laid are canisters of powder provided with a percussion cap communicating with an external hammer, which is so contrived as to fall heavily on the canister and explode the cap whenever a passing ship drags along with it a string and float which are con- nected with the hammer. But the barnacles gather so rapidly on these contrivances as to hamper the action of the hammer. In fact they intervene and pad the torpedoes with themselves,—an immense advantage to " Uncle Sam's web feet," which are thereby protected from many a convulsive tingling, blistering, and sudden loss of toes.
Sir Charles Lyell's address to the British Association on Wed- nesday was less discursive and more strictly scientific than usual, but by no means too technical for general apprehension. It was perhaps the best the association has ever heard. Its most interest- ing portion was a discussion of the great effect produced on the temperature of different parts of the earth's surface by depressions or elevations of other parts. He told the association of the mani- fold proofs that the greater part of the African Sahara has at no very distinct geological period been beneath the ocean, and the high coast of Barbary so insulated from the body of the continent, and probably in unbroken connection with Spain, Sicily, and South Italy ; and he illustrated his theory by explaining the pro- bable effect on the climate of Europe of the elevation of this vast sandy plain. The hot sirocco, he said, which when it blows now melts so rapidly the snows on the Apennines and Alps as to cause the most dangerous floods, and to exhibit a visible rise in the snow line even in Switzerland from day to day, attains this great heat from the burning tropical sand of the Sahara over which it passes. At the time when this Sahara was still beneath the sea, this wind would have been charged with the ocean's moisture instead of with dry heat, and on striking the Alps would have been driven up by its comparative warmth and lightness to the higher regions of the atmosphere, where it would have deposited its moisture in the form of snow, and instead of melting the glaciers have greatly increased them. This plane Sir C. Lyell thought might have been sufficient to account for the Alps having been in the glacial period as much as 2,000, or 8,000 feet according to Charpentier, higher than they are now. Sir C. Lyell concluded his lecture with a very striking commentary on the growing imperfec- tion of our theories of the past ages of geology, every addition to our knowledge only serving to show that "it has never been a part of the plan of Nature to leave a complete record of all her works and operations" for the enlightenment of after ages. The Nation, in a very violent paper which does not answer our criticism of the League pamphlet, printed in the Opinion Nationale, accuses us 'of four " misrepresentations : "-1. We told our readers that one of the grievances of the League was that Ireland produced more corn, cattle, &c., than she consumed. We told our readers nothing so absurd. We said that the grievance of the League was that Ireland was poor, and then made use of two passages of the League pamphlet, of which that above alluded to was one, to show that the League's remedy for that poverty was a Protectionist policy. It is the Nation who " perverts in the most glaring manner the obvious and grammatical meaning " of our language. 2. We represented the general result of the books of Mr. Whiteside and Sir Jonah Barrington to be that the Irish Parlia- ment was "the most corrupt and factious body that ever existed," whereas Sir Jonah says the English Parliament was more corrupt. We think our statement is an accurate statement of the result of the two books, but freely admit that it would have been better if we had said not " the most corrupt body," but " one of the most corrupt bodies." 3. We said that Lord Palmerston was an Irish- man, and are quite willing to accept the Nation's denial of that statement. 4. We called the complaint that Ireland was overtaxed ludicrous. And we think so, for reasons which will be found below.
Mr. Lawson in an admirable letter to yeaterday's Times Com. pares the revenue which is paid by Ireland with the Government expenditure upon Ireland. The gross revenue from Ireland is 5,734,2311. (of which Customs and Excise make up 4,579,0000 The expenditure on account of Ireland, the most of which was voted by Parliament, amounted to 4,736,4991., besides which the interest on the Irish National Debt comes to 4,173,6611., together 8,910,1601., the whole of which is paid out of the English Ex- chequer, and this doei not include the Maynooth College and Galway packet votes. We therefore spend on Ireland 3,175,9291. more than we get from her. It is true that a large part of our Irish expenditure is on the military force (2,730,0001.) and the constabulary (727,5001.) ; but even if we deducted the cost of the military force (which is essential to civil order there), the Irish Government would still be a loss to us.
The French Government have prohibited M. Fazy from staying in those border departments which adjoin Geneva, and he has, it is said, retired to Paris. He refused a second time to appear before the Federal Commissioners and give his evidence as to the Genevese riot,—which looks either very cowardly or very guilty.
The recant reverse at Tauranga in New Zealand has been partly retrieved. On the 21st of June Colonel Greer, commanding the force left at Tauranga, attacked a new pah which the Maories were beginning in the neighbourhood, and after a sharp fight, in which the Maories stood a bayonet charge without flinching, carried their works and defeated them completely. One hundred and seven Maories were killed, twenty-seven wounded—all severely, and ten more taken prisoners.
Wi Take, a Ngatiawa, one of the chiefs of the Maori King party, has made his submission, and signed a declaration of fidelity to the British Government after a conversation with the Colonial Secretary, Mr. W. Fox, which does more credit to the latter's present candour than to his former prescience. He announced to Wi Tako that he had formerly seen no danger in the King move• ment till it ripened into rank rebellion, but that now he meant to put it down. His terms were death for the mere we-as:ins, pardon with a confiscation of land, but a return of quite enough to live on, to the rebels taken in arms, and perfect friendship for all other Maories who had not been engaged in rebellion. The mere sedi- tious Maories who had assisted but not taken arms would receive liberal terms, and in most cases a free pardon. Mr. Fox, the great adviser of conciliation and the bitter antagonist of Mr. Richmond's war policy, is now converted by bitter experience to the views of the Ministry he turned out.
The great Croquet question has passed from before Vice-Chan- cellor Kindersley into the columns of the Timer. That journal contained on Tuesday a letter from Lord Essex in defence of his conduct in the matter. He states that at first he refused re- paration to Captain Mayne Reid, as he was " impressed with the utter groundlessness of the complaint," although he admits that he did not at the time take the trouble to refer to Captain Reid's volume. On finding that the alleged plagiarisms had really been committed by the lady compiler of the Cassiobury rules, in her ignorance of copyright law, he says that he offered full apology, the withdrawal of the book, and 1001. compensation, and own- plain' s of Captain Reid's want of generosity in refusing this. In Thursday's Times Captain Reid denies that the offer was ever made, and expresses his not unnatural wonder that a lady, however unversed in the law of copyright, could transcribe whole pages from his work to be published without his consent. On Friday 4' Another Old Hand" joins in the fray, and denies the claim of Captain Reid's work to be considered as a standard code because it contains no instruction on the "strategic combinations" of the game. The charge is hardly fair, as instruction on the practice of the game is a very different thing from laying down its laws.
A decree issued last month gave new names to nearly 200 streets in Paris, and the process still goes on, not without exciting much -discontent. The animating principle seems to be the disruption of all old associations and the substitution of the names of modern celebrities for those of earlier days. The system on which the new names are selected does not seem quite clear, but there is room for a good deal of judgment. Instead of granting the right of con- ferring one's name on a street or place as a reward for general dis- tinction, the privilege might be reserved for editors of journals which had successfully passed through a fixed probation without -avertissements, or for successful "patronized " candidates at elec- tions, and thus the renaming might be made conducive to the stability of the Empire. In London any radical change of the kind would be a vast benefit, as there are in several instances twenty, thirty, or even more streets of the same name.
A strange case was brought before Mr. Norton on Thursday. Mr.1-1Ammond, living at Laurel House, Peckham Rye, was charged with locking up and illtreatiug his wife, who was found confined in a dirty room, with insufficient clothing and in a state of great squalor and destitution, and stated that she had been so confined for a considerable time. She brought her husband 6001. a year, but the influence of some women, with one of whom, according to his wife's evidence, he has formed a liaison, appears to have induced Lim to treat her in this way. On Christmas Eve, 1862, her hus- band when intoxicated had, she asserted, also assaulted her violently. Mr. Hammond was ordered to put in bail, himself in 200/. and two sureties in 50/. each for his appearance.
Dr. Pusey returned -to the attack on the Privy Council judgment in yesterday's Time,. His grievance, he says, lie's not in the acquittal of Dr. Williams and Mr. Wilson, but in the grounds assigned for it. ".Everlasting," says Dr. Pusey, " was taken in a non-natural sense." This is untrue. The judgment simply affirmed that the word being in fact a translation, the English ,clergymen need4iot be bound by the translation, but might accept any meaning for the original ("everlasting" of course among them) which it would fairly bear. Again, says Dr. Pusey, the construc- tion of words is violated when the Articles call the Bible "God's -word written" and the judgment says it only contains " God's word written." The judgment simply interpreted rather vague words in the way which the fourth Article shows to be the most reasonable. Dr. Pusey wishes to have only one admissible interpre- tation of all dogmas, and that one, one which would include just those who agree with him ; and he tells us he speaks in the name not of the clergy but of the poor. "I know how religious mothers among the poor dread for their sons that they should be taught that there is no hell." That is a teaching men will very quickly unlearn for themselves if they have any hearts and consciences ; but there is one even more dangerous which Dr. Pusey and "reli- gions mothers" apparently fear very little,—namely, lest their sons .should be taught that hell gapes beneath every inaccurate defini- tion -which honest hearts and sincere minds fall into, in the search for truth.
Mr. Phillips, principal of the laboratory of the Inland Revenue Department, reports that out of twenty-six samples of beer analyzed last year twenty were adulterated, the illicit materials used being as usual chiefly grains of paradise, but in two instances including cocculus indices in deleterious quantities, and recommends that in cases where noxious drugs were used the names of the guilty parties should be made public. In reference to this "Barley Bree" writes to the Times from Queen Square, Bloomsbury, and -complains that there is not a single public-house out of the many within his reach where the beer is not drugged till it becomes undrinkable. He calls upon Mr. Phillips to make more thorough- going investigations, and suggests the establishment of co-opera- tive liquor stores. We wish Mr. Phillips would push his researches a little further, especially in secluded country districts. We regret to believe that the number of illicit samples detected might be multiplied a hundredfold, and that not in London, where most of the "doctoring " is only to increase bulk without losing flavour, but in rural districts, where noxiousdrugs arc added with the de- liberate intention of exciting thir-t and producing intoxication.
A curious charge of conspiracy was brought before Mr. Alder- man Waterlow on Wednesday. Gustave Steven, a commission agent, was recently charged with perjury in having made an affidavit to the effect that Ferdinand Frankenheim, a diamond merchant, was about to quit England to avoid arrest, this affi- davit being put in as evidence in an action for recovery of a debt against Frankenheim. In consequence of an intimation from the Bench, the charge against Stoven was withdrawn, and summonsos issued against Mr. C. E. Bailey, broker, and Mr. C. Bradlaugh, solicitor, the plaintiffs in the original action, charging them with having suborned Steven to make the affidavit in question. Steven's statement was that he was asked to sign the affidavit, but declined through fear of getting into trouble. He ultimately con- sented, made a statement at the prompting of Bradlaugh, signed the affidavit in his office, and received the money, 31., through a man named Crouchy. The remainder of the 10t given for the affidavit was retained, he says, by the two go-between, Crouchy a bankrupt hotel-keeper, and a man named Daffner, who first introduced Steven as a likely instrument for the purposes of the present defendants.
A correspondent who signs himself " An Old Abolitionist " asks us " if there be any work or 'report published containing the par- ticulars down to the present time of those cotton plantations seized by the Federal Government and cultivated by the Federal Com- missioners." Down to the present time we believe not. About two years ago Mr. Pearson, the Federal Commissioner in Port Royal, published a report on sea-island cotton estates which we reviewed in these columns, but we do nut think there has been any official report since.
There is a spirited rector at Claybrook, in Leicestershire, who is determined to show that the persecution of Dr. Colenso for adopt- ing heterodox and perhaps rather hasty views of the authenticity of the Pentateuch-shall not prevent him'from expressing the Christian respect and sympathy he feels for the Bishop of Natal. The rector, the Rev. R. H. Johnson, an old man of eighty-four years of age, had invited the 'Bishop of Natal-'to preach in his chnrch last Sunday ; but the Bishop of Peterborough served. him with a notice commanding him not to allow the Bishop of Natal to -preach, so Mr. Johnson gave public notice that the Bishop would by his 're- quest publish the sermon he had intended-to preach, and 'would also addreas a congregation in the schoel-room in the evening. The agent of the Bishop of Peterborough followed Dr. Colenso into church, addressed him, it is said, while he was kneeling in private prayer, and finally flung a notice at his feet which was afterwards picked up. In the afternoon the curate, the Rev. Lewis Wood, made a s'atement to the people on the subject of Dr. Colenso and -the l .oition. He spoke of him warmly, and compared the persecution brought against him to that of Wicliffe, of St. Paul, and even of our Lord, which was a little unfortunate as introducing a false comparison between a protest for liberty of thought and spiritual liberty of a larger and deeper kind ; but he spoke generously and well. The rector is safe enough, but we fear the curate will suffer for his boldness. The Bishop of Peter- borough has done more to help Dr. Colenso's cause than Dr. Colenso's own books will ever do.
On Saturday last Consols for money left off at 87# #, and for account at 881 4. Yesterday the closing prices were :—For transfer, S74, 88, for time, 88} 4. The stook of bullion in the Bank of England is -12,905,5111.
The following table shows the closing prices of the leading Foreign Securities yesterday and on Friday week :-
Friday, Sept. 9. Friday, Sept. 10.
Greek Do. Coupons .. .. — — •• — .. —
Mexican .. .. .. .. .. .. 274 .. 274 bpauish Passive .. .. .. .. .. 304 .. 62 Do. Certificates .. .. .. •• — .. 14} Turkish 0 per Cents., 1866.. .. .. .. 6 .. CO
1602.. .. .. .. 69 .. 691 Consol'ides.. .. .. .. .. 60.. 60
The leading British Railways yesterday and on Friday week left off at the following prices :—
Friday, Sept. 9. Friday, Sept. 13. Caledonian .. .. .. .. • • 123} .. 124 Great Eastern .. .. .. 4.3} .. 40} Great Northern.„. .. 197 .. 123 Great We.tern.. .. .. .. 674 .. 071 Lancashire and Yorkshire .. 114/ .. 114} London and Brighton .. .. 102 .. 102} Landon and North•Western .. .. 111} .. 111 London and Sonth-Western .. • • 04 • • 93 London, .. Chatham, and Dover .. .. 304 40 Midland .. .. .. .. .• IVO .. 126 Nortn•Eastern, Berwick .. .. .. 196 .. 106}
Do. York .. .. .. 9414
.
West iiidhticd, Orford .. .. • ' .. 474
