NEWS OF THE WEEK.

THE text of the Treaty between Denmark and the two German Powers has been published, but it contains nothing new. The line of division between Schleswig and Jutland will apparently be drawn from Kolding in a north-easterly direction to the present frontier, thus giving Denmark a snippet of Schleswig, in return for which she surrenders the islands on the coast of the Duchy. The national debt is to be divided according to population, with the exception of the war debt, which will remain to Denmark, and Jutland is to pay the expenses of occupation until the final, con- clusion of peace. The treaty has been announced to the Danish Parliament in a short speech from the King regretting the sacri- fices he has been compelled to make, but the Lower House has not yet accepted it. Rumours of disturbances in Denmark are rife, but they are not confirmed, and the Government is dismissing its soldiers and laying up its vessels. There is great pressure for money, as the remaining revenue does not yet reach a million, and the whole of the sum paid for the redemption of the Sound Dues has been expended in the war.

Nothing is yet known as to the disposal of the forfeited Duchies. Prussia, it is said, has asked for Lauepberg, and has proposed a joint Provisional Government for Schleswig and Holstein ; but she is getting up demonstrations in favour of her protectorate over Schleswig. It seems that the majority of the people are furious at the idea of annexation to Prussia, and demand the Duke of Augustenburg ; but the landholders, the aristocracy, and the Danes are favourable to the Prussian claim,—the landholders be- cause they are afraid of socialist theories, the aristocracy because they sympathize with victorious Jankerdom, and the Danes be- cause only a strong Power can protect them from German insults. We have described the position of the quarrel with the Diet in another column.

Lord Palmerston paid on Monday his long-promised visit to Bradford, to lay the first stone of the new Exchange. He was received by the members and about 4,000 of the neighbouring gentry, the arrangements were excellent, and the apparent wel- come was of the heartiest. The working-men had previously agreed to receive him in.silence, and present an address complain. ing bitterly of his conduct in the matter of Reform ; but the com- mittee of management declined to transmit the address, and when his Lordship appeared strangers and townsmen cheered together. After the ceremony came the banquet, and Lord Palmerston made an unusually happy speech, full of flattery for his entertainers, actually talking of the "mass of manly intellect in the hall," and claiming for himself indirectly most of the merit of free trade. He promised Bradford yet greater prosperity, and consequently only the men of Leeds felt delighted when Sir F. Crossley, himself one of Lord Palmerston's baronets, and Mr. Forster ventured amidst their welcomes to remind him of one or two political short- comings. The address from the town thanked the Premier for peace, and for being so old, and glorified Bradford for having become so prosperous, which, as war with Germany would have specially in- jured the town and many of its leading merchants are Germans, was very natural.

After keeping silence for a week the Record condescends to explain. It admits its plagiarisms from the Tablet and ourselves, but says there were only two. We published five. It considers the quotation from Canning common property, which is just, only the stone and the setting are not the same thing, and as for the rest, remarks with a funny little explosion of spite, " The Spectator need be under no alarm, for in regard to its columns it involves an infinitesimal sacrifice to refrain in future from anything which might justify even the most morbid jealousy." Only imagine a man talting a passenger's watch and excusing himself with the remark that after all it didn't go very well ! We shall not fling back tha taunt. Our charge against the Record is not that it is wanting in power, but that it comprehends profoundly the moral law it has broken, the charity which it refu3es to display, the lofty and austere faith which its tone so habitually brings into disrepute. So far from underrating the Record, we can only regard with admiring humility the capacity and the courage of the writer who having on Monday last acknowledged his offence, on Wednesday takes from the Economist a whole article on Mexico, idea by ides,- fact by fact, yet leaves no trace of verbal plagiarism.

There is a grand chance open to a millionaire. The Danish; Government is so pressed for money that we suspect it would sell Iceland, which has an expenditure of 8,0001. against a revenue of 4,0001., for a good round sum. The island is considerably larger than Ireland, and its 64,000 inhabitants are very good, obedient people. Would not a crown suit the Marquis of Westminster as well as the strawberry leaves? Seriously Iceland is the best situated place in the world for a penal settlement, isolated and healthy, but likely to exercise a strong influence over the imagination.

It is not quite fair to estimate the character of a speech from a condensed report. We are bound, however, to mention that the Bishop of Oxford is said to have made a speech of unusual judgment and liberality. It was delivered on Monday to a con- gress of. all his clergy. After lamenting the attacks on the Scripture- now so frequent, Dr. Wilberforce professed his belief that the origin of all the difficulties in the Bible was the " human element," the- inability of the recorders to transmit precisely and without an admixture of error what they were commissioned to reveal. The message in his opinion was not " verbally" given. If this means what it appears to mean the Bishop of Oxford has extended the limits of belief much further than the Committee of Privy Council, but the difficulty is to believe till the detailed report appears that this is his meaning. Is it credible that a Bishop who sees a " human element" in the Bible should have helped to anathematize Dr. Colenso's Scriptural arithmetic ?

Lord Carlisle has come home from Dublin, sick he says, ennuye to death as the public seems to believe. The Viceroyalty was offered to the Marquis of Lansdowne, who prefers to remain on his estates, and to the Duke of Devonshire, who pleads the same excuse,— a bad one in both instances, the raison d'être of the Peerage being its willingness to serve -the country when called on. The Irish are, however, fortunate, for the Times hints that the post has. been given to Lord Wodehouse, who, if there were only some func- tions annexed to the office, would be sure to perform them admir- ably. As it is, if he is appointed the ablest diplomatist at the dis. posal of the Government will be sent to perform duties any actor of the Elliston class could perform a great deal better. Why not send a Prince there? Ireland is the only part of the, United. Kingdom in which Her Majesty or her family never live.

A great theatrical scandal has formed the subject of much London gossip this week. Mrs. Bristow, box book-keeper at the. Adelphi Theatre, was assisted in her duties by a daughter by a former marriage, Miss Georgiana Turner. According to her account she had reason to suspect the nature of an intimacy between Miss Turner and Mr. Bateman, the father of the cele- brated Adelphi actress, and on the night of the 1st of August last she watched her daughter leave the theatre about eleven o'clock and then enter a cab with Mr. Bateman. She went up to the cab and said to Mr. Bateman, " You wretch, you have taken my daughter She then accuses him of hitting her on the shoulder and kicking her. on the leg. Miss Turner, on the other hand, asserts that the suspicion of improper intimacy between her and Mr. Bateman in

groundless, that she was simply taking advice in a cab at eleven o'clock from Mr. Bateman as to going on the stage, and that Mr. Bateman never kicked or hit her mother. The magistrate before whom the charge of assault was brought confessed himself unable to decide on such conflicting evidence, and committed Mr. Bateman for trial, taking bail.

The friends of the South have been announcing all the week that General Grant had abandoned the siege of Petersburg. One report even stated that he had pressed nearer to Richmond, leaving Petersburg in command of all his communications. He has, however, steadily pressed the siege, advancing by mines, and on the 30th of July blew up a fort, with a regiment in it, and advanced to an assault the result of which is not known. General Early had again endeavoured to effect a diversion by a raid into Pennsylvania, but retreated before he had reached the border. In Georgia it appears clear that General Sherman has not yet cap- tured Atlanta, but two desperate attacks made by General Hood had failed to dislodge him from his position. The first attack on the 20th of July cost him some 5,000 men, and the Federals 3,524, and in a second made on the 22nd Sherman lost from 2,500 to 6,000. General Macpherson was killed on the Northern side, and there is a report believed in New York that another General was either -dead or so seriously wounded as to be incapable of service. The second battle was claimed as a victory in Richmond, but General Sherman has not yielded his ground, or given up the siege, or lost many more prisoners than he has himself captured.

A correspondent of the Times supplies an interesting piece of literary intelligence. Dr. Dethier, Director of the Austrian School, has been permitted to examine the relics of the library of Matthias Corvinus preserved in the old Seraglio. He has turned over every leaf and manuscript, spending twelve months in the work, and has discovered two manuscripts of real interest, some scholiasts of Aristotle believed to be new, and an invaluable his- torical work. This is " an account by an eye-witness of the events of the reign of Mahomet the Great, of the capture of Constanti- nople, and in a word, of all the exciting scenes of the last seven- teen years of that long and eventful history. The manuscript is a beautiful one," and "full of curious details."

One of the most painful cases ever tried came before Mr. Cham- bers, Q.C., who is acting as substitute for Mr. Justice Williams, at Wells on Monday. A labourer named Allen had lived comfort- ably with his wife for years until a few months since, when some navvies working on a neighbouring railway came to lodge in the house. There seems reason to believe that he had grounds for sus- picion that his wife was about to leave him with one of these men, and on May 4, on his wife's giving an evasive reply to a question on the subject, he cut her throat and then attempted to cut his own. He did not succeed in inflicting any very severe injury on him- self, but the woman died in a few days. The most distressing feature of the case was the evidence of the crime given by two little girls against their father.

A murder also prompted by jealousy, but even more remarkable in its nature, formed the subject of a trial at Gloucester assizes on Wednesday. A widow of fifty, blind from her childhood, who earned her living by basket-making, was knocked down with a hammer and murdered by a stonebreaker of fifty-five, who con- fessed his guilt, and stated that her intimacy with a gamekeeper in the village had urged him to the crime.

The ceremony of laying the foundation-stone of the pedestal which is to bear a statue of O'Connell took place in Dublin on Monday. It was made the occasion of a demonstration very creditable to the people of Ireland. The population of Dublin turned out, and thousands of countrymen hurried up to the capital, the trades' unions were all in attendance, the Lord Mayor and Corporation, and hundreds of gentlemen on horseback. Banners generally bearing the " national" colours were carried in numbers, the procession extended five miles, and was two hours passing O'Connell's house, before which all uncovered, but there was neither riot nor bloodshed. The whole affair passed off quietly, and will be remembered as worthy of the man who throughout his career deprecated violence, and who though terribly mis- guided in his later years won for one-third of the population of the United Kingdom freedom from disabilities, and made:,it pos- sible for England to plead the cause of Protestant Christians in Spain, Italy, Southern America, and the vast countries in which apostacy from Islam is treated as a civil crime. On the same day at the same time the Orange mob of Belfast burnt the Liberator who had gained for Protestants this great advantage in effigy. We regret deeply to perceive an official announcement that the United States Government has decided to require a passport from every traveller, American or stranger, who lands in any port of the Union. The passport must be vised by the American Consul at the port of embarkation. The measure is intended apparently to be a temporary one, but even as such it can be only regarded as one of Mr. Seward's senseless freaks of official power. The very letter which announces the order exempts all emigrants in- tending to reside, and of course all political spies or agitators will become emigrants for the nonce.

A curious case has ended this week at Liverpool. Dr. Rowe, of that town, it appears was engaged to Miss Beattie, but the lady jilted him, and married Mr. James Potts Brice, a winebroker. She asked Dr. Rowe for her letters, but he said they were neces- sary for his own defence, and kept them. Mr. Brice therefore called in a friend, an Irishman, named James Scott, and together they called on Dr. Rowe and demanded the letters. Dr. Rowe still refusing to surrender them, Mr. Scott produced a heavy riding-whip, and the two in spite of a stout resistance with the fire-shovel beat the unhappy doctor nearly to death, broke his leg, and inflicted severe internal injuries. The jury found them guilty of an assault with intent, and the judge sentenced them to eighteen months' imprisonment with hard labour. There is a little obscurity as to the provocation given, but whatever it was it did not affect Scott, and could not extenuate a deadly assault made by two men upon one.

The Galway packet line having come to an end, the Irish members are being worked on to press for another job. At a banquet given by the City of Cork to the Lords of the Admiralty and the officers of. the Channel Fleet on Tuesday, Lord Fermoy stated that Irishmen felt that as partners in the concern they were " entitled to a share in the profits," alluding it seems to a project for making a dockyard at Cork. The Duke of Somerset when returning thanks for the Admiralty spoke at some length of the project, and though he refrained from any assurance hoped Irish members would vote for it in a mass,—a remark he would scarcely have made if Government had not resolved to make the proposal. The idea in itself seems a just and feasible one, but somehow people connected with Irish improvements have a way of making them look like sops to Irish members.

Another form of railway danger has attracted some attention this week. On the 4th inst. a tall strong sailor labouring under delirium tremens took his seat in the express for the north in a car- riage with four other male passengers. They had no sooner started than the man declared himself robbed, shouted violently, tried to throw himself out, and when restrained attacked the four passengers. After a severe struggle they got him down, and strapped him to the seat, where they kept him till the train reached Peterborough, nearly two hours afterwards. All this while they endeavoured to attract the attention of the guard, but in vain, and at Peterborough the station-master was with difficulty induced to remove the man—a characteristic specimen of the habitual treatment of third-class passengers. Lord Edward Howard sug- gests apropos of this story that shareholders should compel the directors to adopt precautions, but he evidently never was on a Railway Board, or he would have known that the business of a railway shareholder is to support the direction, pocket his dividend, and hold his tongue. There will be no cure for the evil till the Lords, who are less amenable to railway " influence," take up the matter and refuse to consider. any bills proposed by companies which run trains without hand-rails and foot-boards.

The Copenhagen correspondent of the Times thinks Europe will soon be divided into three empires, the Latin, Teutonic, and Slavon, whereupon " A Student" points out that Dr. Cumming in his book upon prophecy declares that the tripartite division of Europe is the next event he anticipates. The three Powers, after organizing themselves, are to quarrel. That is lucid, only Great Britain happens to be in Europe, and is not included among the Powers. Of all interpretations of prophecy that which was most uniform and widely believed was the one which assigned to the Court of Direc- tors the position of " Kings of the East." The Directors ended, but editions containing the prediction are still read with the fullest credence, and nobody has yet invented a substitute for the great corporation.

We publish in another column an account of the donkey-show at Islington, which opened on Monday amidst considerable enthu- siasm from the costermongers. The show of their animals is un- expectedly good, and there is evidence of very considerable kind-

mess and judgment in their treatment of them. The exhibition nearly exhausts the list of domestic animals, as we have already had horses, cattle, pigs, dogs, and donkeys. The only suggestion to be offered in the way of novelty is a great show of cats,—there .are tabbies and tortoiseshells, and grey cats and white cats, and Persian cats and Angora cats, cats with tails and cats without tails. A collection of them might attract a crowd, particularly if the London cats could be induced to exhibit their special faculty of ambling at full speed inside the area railings, with a foothold not two inches wide.

The newspapers have been full for some time of complaints from persons annoyed by tramps sleeping in the parks. They look, it is said, very wretched, and are very dirty, and perform too much of their toilettes in public, and are the "scum " of society, and -ought to be removed by the police. At least a dozen letters have appeared censuring the police for not taking them away to the :station-houses at once. A better illustration of the selfishness of English respectability it would be hard to find. The ratepayers first allow all the casual wards to be shut up for the summer to save their pockets a few farthings a year—Mr. Villiers calculates the expense as equal to a third of a farthing in the pound—and -then quarrel with the poor wretches because, having no home and being driven out of the streets, they sleep under the sky, dress where they can, and eat so little that they look " wretched." Do the writers of these letters suppose that the tramps like sleeping unt, or that hard labour in a prison is the fitting punishment for having too little to eat ? A reporter in the Daily News sent -specially to examine the case reports that these assemblages are unexpectedly orderly,—but then he seems to think that people with less than a hundred a year have a right to exist, which is not a respectable prejudice.

The Spanish Government has announced that it intends to restore the Chincha Islands. Admiral Pinzon was not ordered to take them, and but for the attempt on the life of Don Salver they would be restored at once. As it is they will only be retained until the Peruvian Government has cleared itself of complicity in that incident.

Sir Joseph Paxton writes a letter to explain the increase in the price of the finer kinds of fruit. He says that private gentlemen produce great quantities, and being ignorant of their real ex- penditure force a sale at prices which drive the regular market- gardener out of the field. The statement reads well, but its poli- tical economy is surely a little odd. Either the private dealers sell at higher rates than the market-gardeners would or they do not. If they do the dealer can still produce at a profit, if they do not they are cheapening the article to the public. The real cause of the preposterous price of fruit in London is the absence of markets, and the consequent monopoly enjoyed by the few Jews who really -control the supply. The profits now demanded by the fruiterers, who are merely agents to these men, are absurd. We have known fine fruit selling in Esrex at a sixth of the London price, and market-gardeners who have found it impossible to find a sale for their produce till they had "come to terms" with the monopolists. Let any of the great London proprietors establish four or five fruit markets, and fruit will drop fifty per cent. in two years.

Mr. Charles Hindley, Secretary to the Brighton Swimming Club, -while admitting the accuracy of the account we last week gave of the swimming match, complains of one mistake. The " damsels" who hauled up the one-legged winner in his very tight bathing drawers were not, he says, damsels at all, but men dressed up in girl's clothes. The object of the masquerade was a little drama, in which drowning women were to be rescued by the members of the club. The explanation does not, we think, improve the matter very much, as the impropriety, such as it was, was the impression created on the spectators rather than on the minds of the people in the boat The amphibious people who' attend the machines do not 4' mind"" anything much, but the habit of not minding is just the one we do not wish to see spread.

A census just taken by the Italian Government gives the popula- tion of their territories at 21,777,334 souls. the fifth population in Europe. If all Italy were united the population would be 27,000,000, which if taxed up to the French level would have a revenue of 70,000,000/.

The annual report of the Directors of Convict Prisons for 1883 is too long and too full of facts for condensation, but the following appear to be the principal points of interest :—The number of ad- missions under sentences of penal servitude was 2,848, of whom only 471 were sentenced for more than seven years, and 1,318 for less than four years. " Out of a total number of 16,780 men set at liberty during the 10 years ending the 31st of December, 1863, 727 were re-convicted or had their licences revoked during the year 1863, being a per-centage of 4.39. Of female convicts 2,225 have been set at large, and 142 were received back into prison during the year, being 6.38 per cent." The directors report that the number of re.convictions of females is increasing rapidly owing to short sentences, that arson has increased three hundred per cent., that sixty per cent. of all sentences are for larceny, arson, and military crime. They report that the dietary has been reduced, the beds made harder, and the solitary system made much more severe by bolting up the cell-doors during the whole nine months, and keep- ing prisoners by themselves while taught. This punishment is now made terribly severe, and it seems doubtful whether, if inflicted at the end instead of the beginning of a sentence, it might not have a distinct effect upon recommitments. " We have issued," they say, " a stringent notice, approved by the Secretary of State, on the subject of convicts changing their religion in prison, which had grown into an abuse, and we believe it has had a beneficial effect."

Mr. George Irwin, of Serpentine Avenue, Dublin, writes to the Daily Telegraph to offer a solution of the Waterloo Bridge mystery. He says that there is strong reason to suspect that the mutilated limbs found in the carpet bag were those of Mr. R--, a Tasmanian of some property and respectable position, who came over to England about the time in question, sold 1,4001. worth of Tasmanian bonds, went to lodge with a Jew named W—, a returned convict who lived close to Waterloo Bridge, and was never heard of again. He was a man of eccentric and penurious habits, and known to scarcely any one in London. The Jew W— also disappeared about the same time. Mr. Irwin offers to give the names of all parties represented by initials to any one conduct- ing a proper investigation into the matter. By publishing the story in its present form, however, Mr. Irwin has done quite enough to put W— on his guard. It would certainly have been better to have given the police the opportunity of making inquiries without exciting suspicion.

The Royal Insurance Company held its annual meeting on the 5th inst., when it was announced that the profits last year amounted to 83,545/., out of which it was proposed to declare a dividend of 7s. per share. The Directors' report also stated that a larger business was done in 1863 than during any former year, the income from fire premiums having figured for 341,668/. ; new life assurances, 752,5461.; and duties paid to Government, 12,9731.

The list of applications for shares in the Peninsular, West India, and Southern Bank closes for London on Wednesday next, August 17 ; for the country, August 18 ; and for the Continent, on Mon- day, August 22. Shares are quoted at 2 to 2+ p.m.

The minimum rate of discount at the Bank of England remains at eight per cent. The stock of bullion at that establishment is further reduced, the amount held being 12,609,925/.

On Saturday last Consols closed at 891 for money, and 891, 1, for account. Yesterday they left off at the following quotations :— For money, 89*, 1; for account, 89*, 1.

The following table shows the closing prices of the leading Foreign Securities yesterday and on Friday week :—

Greek Do. Coupons .. Mexican Spanish Passive •• Do. Certificates Turkish 6 per Cents., 1858..

,n, Consolides..""::

The leading British Railways yesterday and on Friday week left off at the annexed prices

Caledonian ..

Great Eastern Great Northern — Great Western..

Lancashire and Yorkshire London and Brighton London and North-Western London and South-Western London, Chatham. and Dover Midhwd

North-Eastern, Berwick .. Do. York .. West Masud, Oxford

Friday, August 5. Friday, Aug. 12.

.. - 231

• •

49 29

11 69 72 28 • •

••I

24 30 13 72 691 60

••

Friday, Ant:48. Friday, Aug. 12.

129 ••• 126

471 47i

114 .. 1342 1201 100 117i 98 43 138

31

108 07 ••

••

•

•• •• as ••

••

126101

708 17.7

99

••■ •• ••■

m8481

110

91 48