NEWS OF THE WEEK.

MR. LINCOLN was re-elected on the 8th November by a crushing majority, the returns to the Electoral College being 213 votes for him against 21 for his rival. Under the Constitution the candi- date must either lose or gain each State as a whole, the minority not counting beyond its limits, and Mr. Lincoln has a clear victory in all the States but three—New Jersey, Kentucky, and Delaware, carry- ing the true North so entirely that the votes of Tennessee, Missouri, Louisiana, West Virginia, and Nevada, againstwhich the Democrats hoped to protest, need not even be recorded. Nor is his triumph less decided when we leave the College to calculate the popular vote. His total majority in all States which voted was 419,000, and the total majority for General M'Clellan in his States only 30,500, leaving 378,500, twelve per cent, on the mass of voters, as the majority on the Republican side. This, moreover, is not all. Mr. Lincoln in 1800 was elected by a popular minority in the same States of 138,704, and his four years of Government have there- fore converted 517,204 persons, one-sixth of the whole constituency, to his own side. Assuming that the electoral votes represent, as they really do, though in a complex way, the voice of the nation,Mr. Lincoln has been re-appointed President by a full three-fourths vote. Three-fourths of the North have decided that, be the con- sequences what they may, slavery shall disappear.

Mr. Jefferson Davis had rallied his spirits before the meeting of the Southern Congress on the 7th November. His Message begins with reciting the discomfiture of General Banks in Louisiana and Texas, the temporary successes of the guerillas in Western Ten- nessee, and then goes on to make light of the capture of Mobile Bay and Atlanta, and much, as he well may, of the long and suc- cessful defence of Petersburg and Richmond. He goes on to argue that neutral Powers ought to set the example of recognizing the South—an event which has always preceded the recognition of a successful rebellion by the authority rebelled against ; but he forgets to state that no such recognition without intervention and positive interference has ever yet been made so long as the attempt to subdue the rebellion was still actively and effectively carried on. He refers in a spirit of praiseworthy endeavour to the financial exigencies of the Confederacy, which are indeed great,—the two principal difficulties being that the currency debt is so excessive as to cause vast depreciation, and that with regard to all the debt there is " want of confidence in ultimate redemption." On the slavery question Mr. Davis evidently speaks under constraint. He proposes a very small tentative measure,—to employ a few slaves in the army, and emancipate them, if they are not killed, as a reward for courageous conduct, but he evidently dares not propose any large measure involving emancipation. The Richmond papers remark by way of criticism that the slave should be asked to fight in the hope, not of freedom,—but of a far happier fate, continued slavery !

The military news from America is made up of rumours. For four days the papers had been alternately affirming and denying that General Sherman had abandoned and burned Atlanta and begun a great march to the sea coast. But even on the days on which it was asserted, there was utter discord as to whether he had marched for Mobile or for Charleston, and as far as it appears, the latest news leaves Atlanta still held by the North, and repelling an attack by the Georgian militia. It is therefore clearly doubtful whether Sherman has left Northern Georgia at all, and if he has left

it whither he has gone. Mobile and Charleston are about equally distant from Atlanta—say 350 miles, so that in either case it would be a three weeks or month's march, unless he could get assistance from the railways. Perhaps after all he is only gone into Tennessee against Hood, or Alabama against Beauregard's head- quart era.

A statement is current, which we partly believe, that the Cabinet has decided upon considerable retrenchments. Mr. Gladstoue appears convinced that a popular budget, including a perceptible reduction of taxes, is the programme with which to go to the country, and thinks he can manage another surplus of some three millions sterliug. With a million extracted out of the War Office, another saved by not purchasing timber we do not want, and the natural increase of the revenue, he may reduce the income-tax to fivepence, the insurance duty to sixpence, and knock the barrel duty off beer, and then let the Tories do their worst. Our only objection is that somehow or other retrenchment always does reduce the effective force, and that this is not the moment for reducing that below the working point.

Mr. Cobden made a great speech at Rochdale on Wednesday— a speech big with big ideas. He was disrespectful to Athens and the Ilissus, reverent to Chicago and the Mississippi, and recom- mended the Universities to devote less time to Greek and more to American geography. Mr. Cobden's idea was evidently the same, though not so vulgarly expressed, as one we remember to have seen recorded by an American in the guest-book of an inn on the lake of Lugano or Como :—" What pigmy puddles these are to the inland seas of tremendous and eternal America!" Mr. Cobden did not confine himself to panegyrics on the geographical mileage of America, but indulged in one on that product of the "pure reason," the social and political equality of the Americans. On the relative merits of the parties to the American struggle he spoke well, after explaining carefully, however, how wrong it is to express sympathies with other nations at all. Mr. Cobden's pro- logue in favour of absolute non-intervention, non-intervention to prevent intervention, no less than non-intervention between sub- jects and rulers, was exceedingly bitter and not very wise. He re- torted on Lord Ellenborough's invectives against the selfishness and meanness of our Danish policy, that he at least, with his large pension, had no right to complain of the meanness of the English people,—a sort of argument which an exasperated woman might catch at in a fit of temporary despondency. Ile ended better than he began, with a well-deserved tribute to Mr. Gladstone's finance, and with a remark on the excellent chance the negroei in the North have of obtaining votes before the working-class of England succeed in doing so. But on the whole the speech was not admirable,—much below Mr. Cobden's true level,—crotchetty, fretful, and perverse.

We regret to notice the death of Mr. Spooner, member for North Warwickshire, and one of the most upright Tories and gentle- manly bigots that ever lived. His colleague, Mr. Newdegate, made a speech to his constituents on Thursday, in which he stated that he was a " Pittite Tory," and said, "I fully admit that circum- stances have changed, that the policy of parties haa changed, but I have not changed," and appeared to think that immobility very creditable to himself. It might be if man were a mineral, but everything possessing life, from a polypus upwards, displays its higher organization by growth. He should vote for Lord Derby when his principles would let him, but his duty was to keep him • self free from party ties, and so resist the Roman Catholics, who swayed from side to side in the interest of their creed. It is rather sad all that, but nevertheless the speaker is a gallant man, the only member with courage enough to put the proposal to abandon Denmark formally to the vote, and fairly ascertain whether or no the Commons would prefer the national honour or the reduc-

tion of the income tax.

A controversy has been going on about the endowment of the Regius Professorship. of Greek at Oxford, which seems to open out an escape from the present injustice without convincing so flu- practicable a body of bigots as the majority:of the Oxford Convoca- tion. Christchurch, it seems, received lands from Henry VEIL to the amount of 2,000/. a year in 1516, the King affixing a "memorandum' that the Dean and Chapter must covenant for themselves and their successors "with the aforesaid revenues to fulfil and perform the several articles underwritten according to the proportion there annexed,"—and the proportion annexed is an endowment of 40/. to each of the readers in Divinity, Hebrew, and Greek, and 6/. 13s. 4d. to each of eight minor canons. It is asserted that this memorandum in fact creates a trust, and a trust to pay not 40/., but the same proportion of the present income as 40/. is of 2,0001., 1. e., a fiftieth part of the revenue of the lauds with which the Cathedral of Christchurch was then endowed. The minor canons no longer receive 61. 13s. 4d., but a much larger income, and it is maintained that the Greek Professor should fare likewise. If the case as set forth proves valid, Christchurch will probably endow the Professorship, and we shall hear no more of Professor Jowett's theological disqualifications for teaching Greek.

A false report has been circulated that Lord Lyons has resigned his post as Minister at Washington from ill-health. The ill-health unfortunately is true, and he is coming home for a six months' leave of absence, but we have not finally lost his invaluable services. If the two nations have got over their various mutual misunderstandings without actual war, it is due in no small degree to the tact, temper, and ability of Lord Lyons.

Messrs. Briggs and Son, of Normanton, Yorkshire, have com- menced a new movement, which may act as an example. They are turning their firm into a company, and one of their first pro- posals is to divide the half of all profit above 10 per cent, among their agents and workmen, the division to be effected by a pro rata bonus according to wages. They believe that under this scheme every man will work harder, and that strikes will be entirely prevented, an expectation we fear somewhat too sanguine. The idea is an excellent one, but it might be carried out in a way much simpler, and much fairer to the workmen. Why not treat them in their corporate capacity as a partner, making their fore- man or elected representative for the time being holder in trust of so many shares? They would then benefit when profits were low as well as when they were high, and they would, moreover, trust the accounts, and have besides an audible voice in the board parlour. Mere generosity will not settle the question between capital and labour, and if the workman is not to share from the beginning, good wages and just treatment will make him a great deal happier than bonuses.

A most unexpected light has been thrown on the "History of the Guns" during the last week. It appears that Sir Emerson Tennent, who in November, 1863, published "as one of the pub- lic" his history, in which he deplores with an unction worthy of Mr. Pecksniff in his happiest mood the bias of the Secretary for War and the false position of Sir W. Armstrong, was actually one of the original promoters of the Whitworth Ordnance Company, registered as such for five shares (5,000/.) in the month of March, 1863. Unless some explanation can be given (and the sooner it is given the better) a more lamentable and discreditable occurrence has not of late years turned up in the higher branches of literature. We might perhaps have pardoned " Gigadibs, the literary man," had he been detected in the unsuitable characters of moral lecturer and shareholder, but in a permanent official and an assertor of the "dignity of literature" it is rather too strong.

The Austrian Government has informed the Reichsratli that it does not intend to introduce a bill for ministerial responsibility. The want of such a law was not prejudicial to constitutional government. Certainly not, when Parliament possesses, as in England, the power of stopping supplies instead, but in Austria, Ministers not being responsible to the lleichsrath are responsible to the Emperor, who may order them to abolish that worthy body with a perfect certainty of raising his taxes. These good Germans will not understand that the guarantee of liberty is an effective control of the purse. If the Reichsrath could stop the pay of the soldiers, responsibility would soon be quite real enough.

The delegates of the Six British American Colonies have pub- lished their " resolutions " as to the fitting basis for a new Federal Constitution. The arrangement suggested is analyzed in another place, but we may here say that it amounts to the British Constitu- tion plus Provincial Legislatures for Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and England, with power over all civil affairs, except commerce, and all municipal details. The new State is apparently to be called a Federation, but it is really a single Government as much as India is. The only defects we as yet perceive are the want of a fixed civil list voted for a term of years, of a clause making the Parlia- ment supreme in times of emergency, and of a clearer arrangement for the admission of new colonies as they grow up, and for inter- colonial squabbles. At present if the Acadians should attack the fur hunters of the Hudson's Bay Company, one does not see clearly who is to enforce redress.

It appears from the annual report on the health of the Navy, which is always two years behind hand, from the distance of stations from each other, that the average death-rate of the service is 15 per 1,000—not a high figure. The average rate of invaliding is, however, 38.2, and the Navy therefore requires 3,724 men annually to keep it 70,000 strong. The worst stations for death are the West Indies, where in 1861 the rate rose to 42.1 per 1,000, and the African Coast, 34.1 per 1,000; and the worst for invaliding is the "China and East India," which sends home 61.6 per 1,000.

The first sentence under the Foreign Enlistment Act was passed on the 23rd inst. by the Chief Justice. Two persons named Jones and Highatt had been convicted of enlisting men for the Confederates in Liverpool, and were bound over to appear and receive judgment. They had lodged notice of appeal, but on their appearance the Attorney-General signified the willingness of the Crown to waive furtherproceedings on their submitting to a fine of 50/. each. This fine was accordingly inflicted, the Chief Justice remarking that if it became necessary again to vindicate the law a heavier punishment would be imposed.

"A Berkshire Incumbent" wrote a very able letter to Wednes- day's Times against the proposed final Court of Ecclesiastical Appeal, for obtaining which an association is already founded. He asks whether the new Court is to be competent to declare the faith of the Church on points on which her formularies do not speak, or do not speak distinctly, or only to construe what its faith is on those points on which it does speak distinctly. If the former, would there be any hope whatever of getting from amongst the Bishops or ecclesiastics a Court that would either agree in itself or com- mand any respect in England ? If the latter, what is the advan- tage expected in a change from lay to spiritual judges, and would there be half as much reason to expect impartiality from clergymen warmly attached to their own views, and quite unused to the rigid strictness of legal constructions, as from laymen who cannot feel the same warm partizanship, and have long been accustomed to construe legal formulre with due consistency and a due inclination to give the accused the benefit of a doubt ? We suspect a clerical tribunal would also give the accused the benefit of a doubt, but then it would regard condemnation and punishment as the true mode of giving him that benefit.

31r. Seward made a speech at Auburn before the day of the Presidential election which at least shows that the war has at length driven into his dull mind the fact that slavery must be exterminated root and branch if the Union is to be preserved. But that is all. There is no improvement in the tone which he takes towards slavery at all in proportion to the improvement in the tone of the people. It is to him the spring of the rebellion, but it is not, and never will be we fear, to him the evil of evils, in com- parison with which disunion, nay, subdivision into ten or more little anions, would be a light evil. However, the speech is hopeful in one point of view. Mr. Seward betrays that he has at last learned that he is not the patron of Mr. Lincoln, but decidedly his inferior in both popularity and power of mind.

A horrid story is told of the execution by the Federal Genera at St. Louis, Missouri, of six Confederate soldiers, in retaliation for the killing of Major White and six comrades by guerillas. The soldiers themselves were guilty of no unsoldierly crime, and for the guerillas they were probably in no way responsible. Whatever the military duty of retaliation may be, it seems clear that it becomes mere murder if the retaliation takes effect upon the men of an army whose commander has had absolutely no power to prevent the original crime, or any similar future crime. The object of military retaliation is simply protection for the future ;—no other excuse is capable even of being argued. But no protection is gained if the persons who have committed the crime were not, and are not likely to be, controllable by the commander on whom retaliation is made. These bonier guerillas on both sides are so far beyond control, that it would seem about as just to take and shoot six Englishmen in order to prevent the repetition of a cold-blooded murder, as it would be to shoot six regulars in the opposite army.

Mr. Stansfeld, M.P. for Halifax, made a very thoughtful speech at the Mechanics' Institute yesterday week, on the subject of mechanics institutes. He said the age of martyrdom for the friends of working-class education had passed, and with it that special glow and rapture of zeal in the cause of such institutions which social persecution and opposition always bring. Every one was now favourable to such enterprises, and consequently there was a certain languor and reaction amongst their supporters. He advised the ruling body of the institution not to put their ideal too high, or devote their efforts too exclusively to instruction proper. The provision of amusement and of light reading was a legitimate object for the institute, and there need be the less scruple about this, as the cheap literature of the day was anything but a cor- rupt literature. Indeed he regarded it as a law that whenever men are assembled together for any good purpose, the moving power is morally raised above the average level of those thus combined, just as in trying to reach with the voice a large number of people the key is naturally and inetinctively raised. The mere act of trying to move a multitude evinces the taking of a higher moral key, and it was to this principle it was due that the cheap lite- rature which appeals to the multitude was raising their moral standard instead of lowering it.

The " Codrington case" ended on Wednesday, greatly to the relief of all members of the Pure Literature Society. A dirtier case has seldom been before the Divorce Court, and an episode in it on which we have remarked elsewhere fixed on it unusual public attention. The respondent, daughter of an Englishman residing in Florence, and wife of Admiral Codriugton, was accused of adultery with Colonel Anderson and Lieutenant Mildtnay, and though the evidence was never of a very direct kind it was proved that she wrote to Colonel Anderson protesting against his marriage in the warmest language, that she talked about her own adulteries with Lieutenant Mildmay to Mrs. Watson, a friend of three weeks' standing, that her mother believed her guilty, and that her father utterly condemned her conduct. The defence set up, that the Admiral had no locus standi, he having assaulted Miss E Faithfull in his wife's bed-room, was disproved, and the Judge Ordinary sum- -.awl up unfavourably. The jury found a verdict against Mrs. Codrington on both counts and against Colonel Anderson, and the divorce was pronounced.

The Government of Vienna has published the compact under which the Archduke Maximilian, brother of the Emperor and nearest " agnate " of the Imperial House, surrenders nearly all claim to the reversion of the Austrian Throne. We say " nearly " all, for if all the other Archdukes—some six of them—should die son- less, then Maximilian's rights revive, lest there being no reigning Hapsburg the sun should cease to shine. The Archduke does not, however, give up his claim to the cash. Should "extraordinary circumstances lead to an important change in the newly-established relations of His Imperial Highness," i. e., should he be turned out of Mexico penniless, he is entitled to his share "in the family maintenance fund." There is mischief for the Hapsburgs under that order. They have never had a family fight yet, and if Arch- duke Maxmilian loses his throne, he may think that a popular vote will cancel the cool document in which half-a-dozen Archdukes shift the succession to a throne as if it were private property.

It seems almost certain that the French Government intends to establish a Caine des Travaux Publiques, or in other words open a loan for the prosecution of public works. The immense grants out of revenue embarrass the budgets, and the Government really wishes to press forward some schemes, particularly works of irriga- tion, much more rapidly. Then it would like to advance money to some of the cities, which though they can raise it cannot raise it quite fast enough, and desire, it is said, by commencing immense works at a distance to edge some of the workmen, masons particu- larly, out of Paris, where they are more numerous than the Prefect of the Seine quite approves. The sum to be raised must be large, say 30,000,0001., but the Government will probably wait till the monetary pressure has ceased.

The debate on the transfer of the Italian capital to Florence terminated on the 19th inst. in a vote passed by 317 to 70, an unusual total as well as a great majority. The financial Bill has also passed, and the municipalities all over the country are offering to pay up the land-tax in advance, an offer which suggests two thoughts—that the Italians really love unity, and that they had bitter show it by submitting to civilized taxation. Great States cannot be maintained like hospitals, by subscription. It seems to be understood that the transfer of the railways to the Rothschilds will speedily be completed, to the great annoyance of the Italians, who believe that great firm too completely under Austrian in- fluence.

M. Afatthieu (de Is Drone), the French weather prophet, whose guesses have so frequently been verified, predicts that Europe will be visited between the 23th of November and the 3rd of December by the most severe tempest of the century. In the Almanack which contains this prediction he had affirmed that from the be- ginning of November to the 20th of December "disastrous rain" would fall in Southern Europe, which so far has proved correct. In Tuscany the rivers have risen till the low lands have been drowned, part of the junction railway swept away, and Florence seriously injured. In Spain the inundations have been even worse, particularly in Valencia, "where the earth is water and the men women." In that province Alcira is "a heap of ruins in a great lake," Tores has lost 100 louses, and nine other towns are named as needing immediate assistance, while in no less than twenty-three villages the masonry which supports the irrigation works 1.18.5 been swept away, causing an amount of loss not to be estimated in money.

The Builder reports a remarkable discovery, nothing less than A hill of iron, 600 feet in height and "several miles" in length. It is on the Canadian shore of Lake Superior, and is mainly composed of ore yielding 60 per cent. of iron.

The meteorologists of Scotland announce that the number of hours of sunshine in 1857 was 1,665; in 1858, 1825; in 1859, 1817; in 1860, 1620; in 1861, 1474; in 1862, 1568; in 1863, 1711. In the worst summer, that of 1861, the hours of sunshine in the summer half of the year, from April to September, were on an average 1,052, say six hours a day; and in the best summer that of 1858, were 1,302, say seven hours and a half,—not such a bad allowance for that bleak climate. In the worst year, taken as a whole, Scotland had an allowance of more than four hours of sunshine a day on an average. It cannot be such a very dismal country after all.

The Imperial Mercantile Credit Association announces that it is authorized to receive applications for 2,800,000/. in debentures of the Atlantic and Great Western Railway. The certificates are issued at 90/. for 1001., to be redeemed in three years at par, with interest at 81. per annum, guaranteed by the Consolidated Bank. The directors announce that their gross earnings at ordinary ex- change are equal to 1,100,000/. a year, which "even at the present exchange would leave a large surplus after payment of the interest in gold GB the bonded debt," now amounting to 3,600,1101., and that their receipts have increased during the past year 100 per cent.

The stock of bullion in the Bank of England having increased to 14,131,0941., and the reserve of notes and coin to 9,216,2391., the Directors have reduced their minimum rate of discount to seven per cent. At Paris the lowest official price for accommodation is six per cent., being a reduction of one per cent. from last week. The amount of bullion held by the Bank of France is 12,322,860/.

Consols, which left off on Saturday last at 91 to 91i for delivery, and 893 3 for account, closed yesterday at 91 to 913 for money, and 893 3 for time.

Yesterday and on Friday week the leading Foreign Securities left off at the following prices :—

Friday, Nov. 18. Friday, Nov. 2,

Greek •

23 231 Do. Coupons ..

91

Mexican

29 L91 Spanish Passive ••

eel

31 Do. Certilic,ates

Turkish 0 per Cents,, 1898..

1.11 71

1802:.

" ConsolYd1-1..

••

71,

so • 71

475

The leading British Railways closed officially at the annexed quotations yesterday and on Friday week :—

Caledonian ..

Great Eastern .. Great Northern Great Western..

Friday, Nor, AS.

1311 4.31 •• 197 78

Friday, Nor. 2 1311 481 136 751 West Midland, Orford —

.d•

GO

19 Lancashire and Yorkshire

1161

1151 London and Brighton ..

••

1061 •• 1061 London and North-Western

••

1201 •• 1121 London and South-Western

.4. • •

••l

981

OH Loudon, Chatham, and Dover

••

391

49 kfidland .. • •

• •

••

1382

1371 •• North-Eastern, Berwick ..

•• •• ••

1141

1141 Do. York ..

••I ••

1041 • -• 114