NEWS OF THE WEEK.
THE event of the week has been the open quarrel between Prussia and the Diet. That Government demanded as a member of the Confederation that the Diet should withdraw its troops from Duchies ceded by King Christian to itself and Austria, and as a great Power addressed a special demand to Hanover and Saxony. In the latter case it required an answer within five days under the threat of etnploying force„ a threat which the King evidently intended to meet with a simple defiance. He expected assist- ance from Austria., and on the 28th of November his official Gazette announced that the dispute was at an end, Prussia having given in. At the last moment, however, he discovered that his hopes were ill founded, and on the 30th of November the same journal admitted that Hanover was bound to retire from the Duchies, a terribly bitter pill. There remained Saxony, and it seems to have been believed in Vienna that Herr von Bismark would execute his threat, for the Government—which had all along refused to join Prussia —offered its "mediation," which, as the offer acknowledged defeat, was of course accepted. The audacity of the Prussian Pre- mier excites extreme indignation in Austria, the Viennese journals saying openly that it will drive the Princes to renew the Confedera- tion of the Rhine.
The New Free Press of Vienna, a paper often. well informed, asserts that Herr von Bismark has informed Count Karolyi of the extent of his master's claim. The Prussian King states that he will support an "independent" Schleswig-Holstein only upon the following terms :—A military convention, a "maritime union," the maritime inscription to be at Prussian disposal, the cession of Kiel, the sovereignty of the Eider Canal, and the foreign representation of the Duchies. In other words, Prussia claims sovereignty in all matters essential to the formation of a German fleet, and suze- rainty in all others, a statement which, repeated as it is from all manner of capitals, must have some foundation in truth. The Austrian Gazette adds that the Austrian Government was not even informed of the order commanding the Prussian troops to halt in Holstein, and that Herr von Bismark evidently waited till the white coats had been withdrawn.
We regret to be compelled to believe that the project for trans- ferring the jurisdiction of the Privy Council over the Church to a tribunal composed chiefly of Bishops finds favour with some leading statesmen. Mr. Gladstone, it is said, and Sir Bounden Palmer have both been betrayed into promises of support to a project which will, if persisted in, erase all party lines, and once more unite Whig and Tory in resistance to clerical usurpation. The project is distinctly intended to vest in the Bishops the power of deciding on the law of the Church, that is, to give them the authority which the General Assembly exercises in Scotland, and so at once abolish the Royal Supremacy and evade the authority of Parliament. The clergy are to be laid, gagged and bound, at the feet of the Bishops, the laity at those of the priests. Fortunately the temper in which Englishmen will receive such a proposal is not doubtful, but we warn freemen of both parties, Tories as well as Liberals, that if they do not want to be handed over helpless to the very men they now nominate to their livings they have one more question to ask at every electoral meeting.
too Ap Ir. Disraeli made a great speech at Oxford yesterday week, te for our last impression, in favour of a spiritual Court of in matters of heresy, and genarally against the new school
of criticism. The speech we have discussed elsewhere. We need only add here that he diversified it by attacks on the leaders of the more liberal theology, whom he depreciated on the odd ground that they were not as original as the English freethinkers of the last century and the Voltairians in France. The Dean of West- minster he described with the most respect—probably because he has most political influence—as a man of "fascinating eloquence, diversified learning, and picturesque sensibility." Of the Bishop of Natal he spoke as a prelate "who appears to have com- menced his theological studies after he had grasped his crozier, and who introduced to society his obsolete discoveries with the startling wonder and the frank ingenuousness of his own savages" —a sarcastic description no doubt, but one cutting both ways, and more keenly against those bishops who have never studied theology at all, either before they grasped their crozier or since, like the bishop who explained how he would confute Dr. Colenso if he only knew Hebrew, and those who have lost all the wonder and ingenuousness of savages without having gained wisdom, than against Dr. Colenso. In speaking of "the lucubrations of nebu- lous professors, who appear in their style to have revived chaos, and who if they could only succeed in obtaining a perpetual study of their writings would go far to realize that eternity of punishment they object to," Mr. Disraeli alluded, as we learn from the Record, to Mr. Maurice, and that pions journal is delighted at the wit of a remark which it only ventures to half quote, and which if it had been turned in the other direction it would have called the most shocking blasphemy. Lastly, he speaks of "the provincial arro- gance and precipitate self-complacency which flash and glare in an essay or review" without apparently any appropriate meaning at all. "Man is born to believe?' says Mr. Disraeli,—that is, to be. lieve in the Hebrew race, who have alone conquered the world's in- fidelity. Mr. Disraeli himself is, however, a great exception. Mau was certainly not born to believe him.
The war news from America is all speculative except that the Federals have certainly been worsted in a slight engagement at. Bull's Gap in Tennessee, and perhaps also slightly by General Forrest at Johnsonsville, on the Tennessee River. Both affairs were trifling. Nobody, either North or South, knows where Sherman with his 50,000 men are gone, an no one knows clearly as yet whether Atlanta has been abandoned Tand its manufactories blown up or not. This had been asserted and contradicted at least six times in the six days between the 14th.and 20th November. It seems certain, however, that Sherman has moved off somewhither with a moveable columnsOf 50,000 men ;—the Confederates think to Macon and Augusta, beceuse a despatch so affirming was sup- pressed in the Federal newspapers as "contraband," which might very well have been a ruse. He may have marched to Beauregard's rear, who was at Tuscumbia in Alabama., —or he may be off towards Mobile. No one seems to know, and it is equally uncertain whether General Early has been withdrawn from the Shenandoah Valley to defend Augusta with his army (there is a railway all the way), or whether he is entrenching himself at Staunton. Sher- man is certainly moving without a base,—or, as the soldiers say, "in the air ;" nay, for the present, all the movements appear to be not only in the air, but in the clouds.
The county of Radnor has erected a monument in the shape of an Eleanor Cross to the memory of the greatest man it ever produced, Sir George Cornewall Lewis. ' The "inaugural ceremony" was performed on Wednesday, and Lord Clarendon made a graceful speech, declaring Sir Come- wall Lewis a man who in private or public life never made an enemy or lost a friend. His calm judgment and unim- passioned reason created a confidence which was never mistaken, and a man who might have been Greek Professor in any University of Europe rose so high as a statesman that he "would have suc- ceeded, had he lived, to the highest dignity iii the State," by which we suppose Lord Clarendon meant the highest in the State service. The determination of all moderath Liberals to raise Sir C. Lewis to the Premiership on the resignation of Lord Palmerston, was we believe, well known, but this is the first time it has been pub- licly stated. Lord Clarendon further declared that during twenty years of the closest possible intimacy he never saw his temper ruffled, never heard him utter an unkind word, never knew him miss an opportunity of doing a kind act." That temper of grave sweetness is very rare anywhere, and most especially rare among English public men, who always labour under a sense of a necessity for bearing down opposition.
The great speech of the evening was, however, the Bishop of St. David's, who sketched Sir George Lewis's character as a statesman as founded upon and growing out of his character as a scholar. It was the inexhaustible love of truth which led him to engage in inquiries so recondite as his Early Roman History and the com- mentary on Baron Bunsen's Egyptology in his Astronomy of the Ancients, simply to remove grave and wide-spreasling principles of error, which also developed in his political career into so anxious and scrupulous a love of justice. His was "an active love of truth, as impatience amounting to intolerance of all forms of error, of everything that was mere show and glitter, of all mock science which usurps the name of true science, of all mere conjectures and hypotheses which usurp the name of history." And no doubt this animosity against plausible error (not against those who held it) extended into politics, where ha could never refrain from exposing, sometimes with scorn, the sham arguments, whether on one side or the other, which were meant to catch the careless, not to convince the thinker. " Justissimus unus qui fait in Teucris et servantissimus aqui " might indeed, as the Bishop well said, accurately describe him. His scholarship was judicial, —a series of acts of judgment on doubtful evidence,—not of mere taste or memory ;—and there is probably no better school for moral and political judgment than a training of this kind.
The reply of the Austrian Reichsrath to the speech from the throne was delivered on November 26. It expresses a strong desire for the convocation of the local Diets in order to "bring the fruits of constitutional life to speedy ripeness ;" declares the Duchies " liberated ;" asserts their right to independence ; recognizes the value of the Prussian alliance, but hopes that Austria will "oppose all separatist tendencies contravening Federal right,"—an object which must be of high interest to Poles, Croats, and Bohemians. The House does not approve the exceptional measures in Galicia, declares that the financial situation must ultimately produce a disastrous crisis; demands a return to the strict regulation of the ex- penses of the State, and a reduction in the army and navy; hints that it does not intend to discuss the budgets for 1865 and 1866 at once, and begs to inform his Majesty "clearly and decidedly" that the law of ministerial responsibility is urgent. It is in its way a sensi- ble and independent address, so sensible and independent that one regrets it is all mere talk. Any member of the Kaiser's "military family" has more actual power than the Reichsrath.
Two more heavy blows have been struck at Rome. The Czar has decreed that all monasteries with less than eight monks or nuns, and all which have taken part in the revolt, shall be sup- pressed, and that all others shall cease to correspond with the pro- vincials or general of their order. The Italian Government also has brought in a Bill for making the State sole owner of all Church property, the State in return to pay the priests, and the Bill, though opposed by Baron Ricasoli, is so only because he considers that the Church property should be transferred to the communes. He is wise, for the State would waste it, and his proposal interests every commune in maintaining the war with Rome. Russia, Spain, France, Italy, and Prince C01174 have now seized the monastic property, and when the Papacy ceases from its struggle to keep Rome it will find most of its limbs paralyzed and all its sinews cut through. When Bourbon and Bonaparte, Romanoff and Ricasoli all strike at the Church at once, little is left except to become once more what it has not been for ages,—a purely spiritual power. If the deficits last in Austria, the Hapsburgs, whose motto is, like that of the Hays, "Thou shalt want ere I want," will have to follow suit. There are good pickings in the Church property of Austria.
On the 14th November Major-General Butler, who had been in New York to prevent an election riot, replied to a complimentary ad- dress from the New Yorkers in terms which led to some vague hope of peace. He said that the time had fairly come to offer a complete amnesty to the rebels, including all their leaders. He would give them a stated time from the Presidential election, say till the 8th of January next, and if they would not return, then he would hold out to the invading soldiers the prize of conquered lands, and so make sharp work of the war. This was juster, he said, than to tax themselves anew for the crime of the Southerners. This is savage policy, and not likely to be adopted except as a threat. It is stated that General Butler proposed to give the South back all their old rights as before the war, as the price of obedience. He did not say so, and Mr. Lincoln is pledged to refuse this. General Butler said, "Come back and you shall find the laws the same, save and except as they are altered by the legislative wisdom of the land." There is little doubt that Mr. Lincoln's triumph ensures a sufficient majority in the next Congress to submit a clause abolishing slavery in the constitution of the United States to the legislatures of the several States, and that enough of them would accept it to carry the Northern part of the Union. The South would of course be expected to accept all the acts passed while they were in rebellion.
The Confederate States issued a manifesto explaining rather prolixly that they were in revolt because they had a right torevolt, and sent a copy of it to Lord Russell. On the 25th of November Lord Russell replied to the agents of the "so-called Confederate States" that he had received the manifesto, that the Government "deeply lament" the struggle, that Great Britain has been since 1783 (except for a few months) friendly with "both the Northern and Southern States," that since the war the Government have felt equally friendly to both, but that they have not "pre- sumed" to judge the causes of the rupture. Lastly, they believe it best in the interests of peace to do nothing,—a principle which is clearly right, and might perhaps have been applied to the ease of writing this despatch.
The Major-Generalship vacated by the resignation of General M'Clellan has been given to the youngest and most distinguished of the American Generals, General Sheridan.
Dialler's farewell to his parents has been published this week, and his father's reply. Dialler's letter is highly sentimental, pro- tests his innocence, expatiates on his sin in leaving Germany with- out parental consent, ascribes to that sin all his troubles, gene- ralizes on "hope,"—apropos of his hope that his parents would forgive him,—recounts the story of his accusation not very truth- fully, and strikes a savage blow at Matthews the cabman for having "sold him as a slave" (whatever he may mean by that) for the 2,000 thalers offered as the reward for the discovery of the true murderer. Miiller's father replies in a very different tone from that of the German press in general, from Langen Dembach. The matter is with him so real and terrible that he evidently does not believe that political motives could cause a false verdict and unjust sentence. "flow are you fallen!" he says. "We forgive you, and if you are guilty, so shall God also forgive you ; and if you are innocent, so shall God soothe your last hours. I will conclude ; my thoughts are beyond my control—God be with you!"
The deficit in the Italian finance does not seem to be all due to unscientific taxation. It is stated by an ex-Minister of Finance, Count Revel, that last year the army contained 36,000 men more than the number voted; it is admitted that the pensions paid to func- tionaries in full health and strength, but doing nothing, amount to 1,600,000/. a year ; and it is alleged that the peculation allowed in the matter of contracts has been of the most flagrant kind. Italy wants evidently a Minister of the Frederick the Great sort, a man who if he cannot raise taxes will at least enforce thrift, double up offices, stop pensions not guaranteed by the nation, and generally place the departments on a regime which will work off all fat, and leave them mere bone and sinew.
Mr. L. von Maltitz, Dutchman of Colesberg in the Cape Colony, has discovered a new industry. He says he can tame ostriches and keep them like poultry, and has actually bred seventeen. They want about ten acres of grazing land apiece, but each bird yields twenty-four feathers every six months, worth with the smaller feathers about 121. 10s., or 25/. a year. At this price, the eggs being also saleable, ostrich farming would yield about 2/. 10s. per acre, an immense return in a country where land is exceedingly cheap. The only difficulty is the limitation of the demand, there not being perhaps 2,000 women in the world who will buy ostrich feathers at 25/. per lb., and as the feathers are intrinsically exces. sively ugly the moment they cease to be dear they will also cease to be used.
It goes to the heart of a magistrate to be compelled to punish a policeman. At the Lambeth Police-court on Tuesday it was proved that Salem Charles Lowe, of the P Division, arrested a railway porter in the street, charged him falsely with indecent conduct with a woman, lugged him away towards the statio -house, asked for a bribe, and on receiving 2s. 9d. let him go, ljJhimself
going on to repeat the same torture on another poor man. All this was distinctly shown on the evidence of the policeman's own serjeant, and Mr. Norton stated that this was the "worst case of ex- tortion ever brought under his notice," and then sentenced Lowe to one month's imprisonment ! This is the sort of case which pro- duces the fierce feeling against the police in the minds of the lower -classes, and it is only too common. A day or two after another man, 123 R, was proved in the Greenwich Police-court to have kicked a street girl off her feet, and knocked her head against iron railings for no visible provocation. The magistrate only ordered an inquiry into the policeman's conduct. Every offence against the police is punished, wisely enough, with a double penalty, every -offence they commit with about a sixth of the sentence anybody in fustian would receive. It is too bad.
The Daily Telegraph publishes a wild story about a Sultan's sevenge. A daughter of the late Sultan is married to Mahmoud Jelladeen Pasha, and like other Sultanas tyrannized over him. Suspecting him of infidelity with a slave, she ordered the girl to be killed, and had her head served up in a dish at her husband's table. He drank sonic sherbet, raised the cover, and died either of poison or, suggests the writer, of horror. Turks don't die of horror at anything, or the world would have been rid of them before this, and the whole story smacks strongly of the Arabian Nights. At the same time there must be persons in England who could tell a still more romantically horrible tale of one of Mehemet Al's children, and a harem is for the women in it just like a ship. They cannot get out, and the passions ulcerate.
Mr. Bazley on Tuesday made a dreadfully long and tiresome .speech to his constituents at Manchester. He objected to inter- vention and to paying for colonial troops, and wanted India "developed," considered the increase of 15 millions in the cost of our national defences as unnecessary, and called Sir W. Armstrong and Co. the "long firm," e., a pack of swindlers. Of course "it was not his intention to calumniate anybody." He believed our power of consuming cotton equal to 56,000 bags per week, wanted redistribution of the franchise, and would have the masses of the people "elect their own members." We almost wish they did, and then we should not have to read seven feet of this kind of thing. If there is one character perfectly certain of rejection under universal suffrage it is that Chinaman made intelligent, a typical "Manchester man" like Mr. Basley.
M. Duruy, recently a professor himself, now French Minister of Public Instruction to the Emperor of the French, has written a ciroular in the precise style of Cornelia Blimber (afterwards Mrs. Feeder, B.A.) on the way in which the French youths in lycies should employ their weekly Thursday holiday. "We are entering," he says, "on a season when the excursions by our pupils on Thursdays will be frequently interrupted." It would be a shame —M. Duruy does not put it of course in that language, but in words much calmer and more Latin—to keep them indoors, or even in the playgrounds (which last is questionable) ; so he pro- poses, by way, as he says, of blending "instruction with amuse- ment," that the lads should all go to the art exhibitions and museums with their teachers, and be lectured. "The sight Of the monuments of art exercises on the mind of the youngest children useful and fruitful action while it amuses them." The child is to look at these monuments whether he understands them or not, because "even when he looks upon productions which he cannot comprehend with an inattentive eye, he gains from them an idea of grandeur and grace,"—a proposition which we should have supposed to be only true when he is not bored by them. The boys are also to go to great manufacturing establishments, and sometimes "the pupils devoted to literature will accompany the pupils in science, and reciprocally." In other words, when there are not enough teachers to worry the children in their one holiday, the boys are to become pedantic prigs to each other. "They would return," says M. Duruy, "refreshed in body by a constitutional excursion, and morally amused and pleased." When bliss Cornelia Blimber told little Paul Dombey one nasty winter day she was going for her "constitutional," little Paul wondered she didn't send for it,—and we suspect the lade in Paris will in nine cases out of ten desire passionately to do the same with this much-worse mental constitutional in Art and Science.
Mr. Leveson Gower gave a poor account of a not very admirable Parliamentary "record," as the Americans say, to his constituents at Reigate on Tuesday night. He had supported, he said, the Qualifications for Office Oaths Abolition Bill, the Affirmation Bill of Sir John Trelawny, and Mr. Bouverie's Bill for Repealing the Act o Uniformity so far as it affects the oath taken by Fellows of
Colleges in Oxford and Cambridge. But he had opposed the vote to open the Botanic Gardens in Edinburgh on a Sunday, not so much on the tyrannical ground stated by Lord Palmerston that it offends some people's consciences for other people to walk in the Botanic Gardens on a Sunday, as for a vague reason of his own that "it might lead to opening other places of amusement." He also voted against the Catholic Chaplains' Bill,—a measure of the simplest and most obvious justice ever submitted to Parliament,— and finally he had voted against the Oxford Tests Abolition Bill, as he wished to secure at least the government of the University of Oxford to the Church of England. We fear Mr. Leveson Gower sympathizes with liberty of thought—when it is Protestant and orthodox ; otherwise not.
A man was found dead in Shadwell on Thursday week lying on a dungheap. Nobody knew his name, but it was proved at the in- quest that he lived by picking up rags and bones, that he had be- come shockingly emaciated, and that he slept about where he could in the open air, passing his last night on earth on the dungheap under a storm of rain. He had nothing on when found but an old coat and trousers, and it was freezing hard. The jury found that he died of exposure and starvation, a little fact which we trust will be remembered when the Night Refuges next apply for aid. Last week the Registrar-General's return included four deaths from hunger in London, a city which would raise half a million a year to meet distress if only some link could be discovered between the rich and the poor. Our social organization is not complete yet, whatever Lord Palmerston may think.
Mr. David Roberts, the Royal Academician, was seized with apoplexy suddenly in Berners Street yesterday week, and died the same evening. His pictures were at least always picturesque, and he was widely honoured, and by his intimate friends heartily loved. One of them has expressed his grief in the following pleasant and graceful lines :—
" Farewell ! my friend, whose living pencil spoke With a resistless eloquence, which sought To stir the souls of men ; and in them woke Sublime emotions, and grand domes of thought, In harmony with what old Geaius wrought In those bright days when Earth uprear'd to Heaven Temples where God might not disdain to dwell ! A kindred spirit had to thee been given ! And as we know, who long have lov'd thee well, Thy colours only symbord thy heart's hue— Bright, fervent, genial, and most nobly true !
Sleep gently ! after thy laborious days, . Which have won for thee fame that never dies, And made thy monument the wide world's praise, Soaring, cathedral-like, into the skies.
" JouN T. GoRD091."
The imports of the precious metals this week have been con- siderable, but owing to a revival of the export demand nearly the whole has been taken for shipment to Egypt and India. Several parcels of bullion have also been withdrawn from the Bank for the same purpose, and the stock held by that establishment has been decreased to 13,989,924/., whilst the reserve of notes and coin has fallen off to the extent of 399,415/., or to 8,816,824/.
The market for Home Securities has ruled heavy, and prices have given way. Consols for money, which left off on Saturday last at 91 to 91*, and for account at 89f, f, having closed yesterday at 89** ex div. for delivery, and at 89# I for January.
The stock of bullion in the Bank of France has farther increased by about 760,000/.
The leading Foreign Securities left off yesterday and on Friday week at the following prices :-
Greek •• ••• .•
Do. Coupons .. Mexican Spanish Passive .• Do. Certificates .. Turkish 8 per Cents., 1858.. „ 1882.. Consolides..
•• ••
•• ••
• • • • • •
•• •••
• •
Friday, Nov. 27. Friday, DLc. 2.
231 •• 33k
_ .. — 291 .. 291 31 .. 33 13 .. 13 71. ..
71 .. 711 47 .. 461
Yesterday and on Friday week the leading British Railways left off at the annexed quotations :-
Caledonian .. •4
Great Eastern ..
Great Northern ..
Great Western..
West Midland, Oxford -. Lancashire and Yorkshire London and Brighton .. London and North-Western Loudon and South-Western Loudon, Chatham, and Dover Midland North-Eastern, Berwick .. • • Do._ York .. • • Friday, Nor. 25.
131f 488 •• 195 • • 781 58 1101 1451 1191 88 4') 1371 114f 1* Friday, Dec. 2.
47
1391 133
74} as
1151 1051 Illj 98 39 137;
1141
1041
