QUPPOSE, just as a wild supposition, as the upshot of all this horrible imbroglio, this devil's dance of civilization over its own resources, that Alsace and the Vosges...

very candid official account of the difficulties to be overcome in the siege of Paris,—possibly even slightly exaggerating them,—in order to make the German people more patient...

Orleans, bad as it was, was certainly not what the Prussians said,—whose telegraphic accounts of military proceedings are less and less to be trusted, —a defeat of the whole...

was a reconnaissance on the 13th (Thursday week) to the south of Paris, towards Chatillon, where the Mobiles of the Cote d'Or carried two barricades at Chatillon at the point of...

Frenchman to make his army, equip it, and crash with it through the enemy's lines grows fearfully short. The same correspondent, after a painful calculation, believes that Paris...

Parisian prospect of defence. General Trochu is overcoming his grand difficulty, want of equipments. According to his own letter to the Mayor of Paris, and to an invaluable...

General Boyer to Prince Frederick Charles to negotiate, that the Prince referred him to the King, and that he passed through Versailles on his way back on the 16th inst. It is...

illusions. The defeat at Orleans is known there, as is the failure of M. Thiers' mission, and in an exaggerated form the tardiness of the provinces. The Gaulois of the 4th...

Government intends next session to bring in a Bill for the enlarge- ment of the Army ; and Sir Henry Storks, now candidate in the Liberal interest for Colchester, and the best...

service by speeches on Army reform. One which he delivered on Wed- nesday in Edinburgh was directed to prove that the extinction of purchase, without which no reform of any kind...

to raise new armies in the field is couched in a much more contemptuous tone. It speaks of the Southern Army, of its not daring to attempt the relief of Strasburg, and of its...

North, and will probably make his head-quarters at first at Lille. General d'Aurelles des Paladins keeps the command of the Loire army. General Garibaldi, in conjunction with...

National Guard behaves well, but the troops have apparently lost all sense of discipline. They obey no orders, insult and even strike their officers, who, on the other hand,...

days. It was, however, fully invested from the beginning of October, but even then the investment and siege together hardly lasted much more than a fortnight. According to...

style of announcing minute events which they suppose (often rightly) to be of good omen, as far as they go. Thus M. Gambetta's proclamation issued on October 13, describing,...

sion of Normandy. It was reported on Monday that Rouen had been threatened, but since then no movement in that direction has been recorded, though the extraordinary richness of...

no ground for believing in the insubordination of the 4th Bengal Native Infantry at Allahabad. It remains, therefore, only to account for the telegram, which was, we are told,...

Bruce and Wallace than the days of Sedan and Gravelotte, has been achieved by the 'gallant little garrison of Montmedy. Under cover of a thick fog, 500 of them issued forth and...

has, it -would appear, re-opened negotiations with Victor Emanuel, and the Crown is to be offered, if the Cortes consent, to Prince Amadeus, Duke of Aosta, the candidate...

of Marines to China, where "the force is already considerable." This is probably sufficient, provided Lord Mayo has been warned, but the intelligence from China is still very...

to give a good result, though as yet there is a good deal of confusion in the attempt to mediate between the various Local Committees. Professor Huxley and Miss Garrett are both...

their way to France from America. The Government of the United States has decided, like our own, that a power which chooses to go to war—that is, to do a bad thing—has no right...

sewage promises to produce important results. He has hired the -sewage of Romford for 2600 a year, pours it in a fluid state by pipes over a farm of 121 acres, and produces root...

at Wilhelmshithe who had met a Commissioner from Alsace, and 'learned from him that the German Government had offered Bazaine permission to march out with his army, and go...

the Italian Government on entering upon Rome, and has declared the intention of the Pope to surrender no particle of his rights and to re-enter upon them as soon as the occasion...

marriage of the Princess Louise with the Marquis of Lorn, but answers for it that "it is a marriage of the purest affection." Ile happened to be staying at the house of the...

THE DECADENCE OF FRANCE. T HERE is an idea rapidly gaining ground among our own people, in Germany, and in America which ought to be discussed. Is it not possible, ask grave...

T HE German nation is respectable, even when it is intoxi- cated and oppressive. No one can read the wild shriek of the national party in Germany for the reclamation of German...

T HE only serious event which has occurred in Franca during the past week is the despatch of Genera} Boyer, Bazaine's Adjutant-General, to Versailles to obtain an audience of...

study for many years, who has recently travelled there, and who has had unusual opportunities of consulting her public men, sends us the following "conclusions," or opinions,...

T HE Church Congresses are, we do not doubt, very pleasant and rather useful meetings, and none of them appears to have been more pleasant or more useful than the one just...

W E mentioned in a short note of last week the prophecy of the Nun of Blois, said to have been given in 1808, in relation, or supposed to be in relation, to the great troubles...

"E VERYBODY" that is anybody still talks of the marriage of the Princess Louise with the Marquis of Lorn, and it is quite curious to watch the amount of feeling and interest and...

T HE Workmen's International Exhibition has fallen upon hard times. The interest which several, at least, of the local - working-men's exhibitions held within the last few years...

XIL—RICHARD II. T O the dotage of a once great King succeeded the minority of a boy in the eleventh year of his age, and to a reign which. (notwithstanding its melancholy...

THE KNIGHTS OF ST. JOHN. [TO THE EDITOR OF TEM"SPECTATOR."] was glad to observe in your impression of the 8th a letter exposing the absurdity of the statements which have from...

[TO TR& EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR.'] SIR,—It appears to me that your reviewer of the " Unitarian Preacher " has done injustice to his subject by laying down at the beginning...

[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—Your severely logical and logically severe article of last week must mean one of two things. It may mean that if I saw a great many...

MR. SEN'S PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION.. THESE Lectures and Tracts form an interesting study. In spirit they are as profoundly, one might almost say mystically, devotional as any...

[TO TIM EDITOR OF TIM 'SPECTATOR."] SIR,—In the Spectator of Saturday last, in speaking of the effect of the Middle-Class Schools Commission, more especially as re- gards the...

MRS. WOOD'S success in the third rank of novelists is due mainly to the cleverness shown in her plots ; in the work before us we think she fails. We say we think advisedly, for...

He has neither the knowledge nor the critical discernment requisite for the task he has selected, and if the volume possess any striking characteristic, it will be found in a...

"THE process which is called "Natural Selection" in the physical world, and which performs the needful but cruel duty of keeping as from being overrun by weakly and degenerate...

is scarcely as interesting as usual. The reviewer con- tinues his answer to Mr. Matthew Arnold, and, though scarcely appreciating, we think, the spirit and purpose of the attack...

Bollaert. 2 vols. (Stanford.)—There can be no doubt that the civil wars which troubled the Peninsula during the years 1826-40 have a very considera- ble political importance....

the great song What is the German Fatherland?" a song which, in the remembrance of many of us, was a joke, but now represents a very serious reality. The article is founded in...

of the most amusing—not to the grown-up, we mean, but to the young— and therefore one of the most genuine, children's books that we have seen for a long time. The children, who...

little manual, by a writer whose competence for his task is too well known to need our testimonial. Mr. Hibbard arranges the flowers according to the months in which they are...

Grant calla his novel "a story of the Crimea." We wish the description were a little more applicable than it is. This is the sort of thing that we should think, remembering that...

—This is the sequel to a former volume on Jesus Christ," which we noticed at some length at the time of its appearance, and is, like that, a series of "conferences," delivered...

Wilkinson (Hamilton, Adam; and Co.), is a tribute of friendship to the memory of an artist who was capable of rather than attained high excellence. Brocky was born in Hungary in...

by H. Vizetelley. (Smith and Elder.)—" The Man with the Iron Mask" is a subject as inexhaustible as Junius. There are about as many different theories concerning him, with one...

is one of those books of adventure of which Mr. Macgregor's journals are the typical specimens. "The Kate" seems to be one of those yachts, if the term may be allowed, built to...