Again the foreign news is very slight. At Dresden there
has been much coming and going of diplomatists ; and the Conference has been sitting—but with closed doors. The understanding is, 'however, that nothing is reported because there is as yet nothing -to report.
• The Elector of Hesse-Cassel was reinstated on the 27th of De- 'cember ; a large number of Austrian and Prussian soldiers lite- rally " assisting " at the ceremony. The people were gloomy ; but their sulky reception of the Elector was contrasted with the very friendly reception they gave to his troops ; just as the stories of complete " settlement " in the electorate are contrasted with half- told stories of collisions between the alien soldiery.
In France, the subject is the trial of Allais for falsely accusing certain persons of having plotted to assassinate General Changar- ,nier and President Dupin. The man was conf cted without a shadow of defence to back the asseverations of his own effrontery. A more important result of the trial is the disgrace of M. Yon, a Commissary of Police specially retained by the National Assembly. M. You wished to show his zeal by making a police business which should be agreeable to the intriguing majority of the Assem- bly, and his zeal has made him the easy tool of a worse than Rye- house plot.
The report by the Secretary of the United States Treasury con- firms the anticipations that the Government at Washington intends a new raising of the tariff. The Model Republic has to pay for the • expenses of the Mexican war ; and Mr. Corwin proposes to do so by increased taxation rather than by loan ; the taxation to be laid on "the foreign importer." The President and his Financial Minister therefore are to embark in the enterprise of trying to find out the precise point to which increased taxation can raise the re- venue without inducing the proportionate and sometimes more than proportionate defalcations of diminished consumption. This is a costly experiment, and not very likely to profit the treasury at Washington ; so, after all, the stock-dealers may speculate for the
- 'loan.
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