NEWS OF THE WEEK.
THE second reading of the Royal Titles Bill in the House of Lords was carried on Thursday night without a division,—the Liberal party reserving itself for the vote on Lord Shaftesbury's motion of M onday next for an address to the Crown, entreating the Queen " to assume a title more in accordance than the title of 'Em- press' with the history of the nation, and with the loyalty and feel- ings of her Majesty's most faithful subjects." The second reading, -however, did not come off without a debate. The Duke of Richmond and Gordon made a dull speech, showing that the title of" Empress" bad already been used unofficially and without authority, in India —which nobody ever doubted, any more than they doubt, as the Duke of Somerset put it, that the title of " Reverend " has been bestowed without any legal authority on a great many persons who exercise spiritual functions,—but that is no reason why legal authority should be given to use a title which England thinks prejudicial. The Duke of Somerset wished to raise "the veil of Asiatic mystery drawn" over the matter by the Prime Minister, and laughed very much at that cheapest of all expedients for national defence,—the manufacture of a title for the Queen big enough to rival the title by which the Czar is supposed to be known in India ; and he twitted Lord Derby on his absence at a foreign Court, "practising his unaccustomed lips to pronounce
Empress.'"
