NEWS -.OF THE WEEK.
THE French Assembly has been the scene of furious debating all the week, nominally upon the Municipal and Electoral Laws, 'but really upon the form of government to be adopted in France. We have described the Municipal scheme elsewhere, and the idea of the Electoral Law is to disfranchise all men under twenty- five, to insist on fixed periods of residence for all not born in the Commune, and to limit the right of. candidature to men either born in the district or resident in it for three years. Neither Law is passed, but it is observable that whenever the final push comes on, Government has its usual majority of 74. The second reading of the Electoral Law was, for example, carried by 393 to 318. The debating has been very good, a speech of M. Gambetta in particu- lar being received in hushed silence, broken, as he ended, with a storm of nearly universal applause. The text has not yet reached England, but he evidently spoke with extreme moderation, while Inaintaining the necessity of leaving universal suffrage intact. All parties, it is stated, are becoming red-hot, all fearing the growth of Bonapartism, which their, divisions are fostering.
