NEWS OF THE WEEK.
Air R. JEFFERSON DAVIS was captured by General Wilson's .a 1. cavalry at Irwinaville, Georgia, seventy-five miles south-east of Macon, at daybreak on the 10th inst. There is a myth (contra- dicted, however, by the only authority who mentions it, and pro- bably mentioned in order to be contradicted) that, finding himself surrounded, he tried to escape to the woods in a dress of his wife's. Mr. Davis, under a strong guard, was at once sent on his way to Washington. The news will be received by almost all Europe with regret, except perhaps by a few of Mr. Davis's most violent political partizans, who may now think him, as John Brown said of himself, " worth inconceivably more to hang than for any other earthly purpose." Even they, however, can hope for no result from his execution—if it come to that—except obloquy to their opponents' cause. Should indeed Mr. Davis be implicated by trustworthy evidence in the plot against Mr. Lincoln—an event improbable enough, even if he knew of and sanctioned or ignored it—no one would then regret his execution. There seems to be some evidence (published with names a year ago in The New York Tribune, and never disowned by the South) of a plot to kidnap Mr. Lincoln having been submitted to the Government at Richmond and sanctioned, and it may be argued that kidnapping implies provisional murder in case of rescue. This is, however, not the sort of evidence on which any man could be hanged. If Mr. Davis be found guilty only of treason, and condemned to death, President Johnson—a personal enemy of Mr. Davis's in the Senate of the United States—will be placed in an embarrass- ing position, and certainly accused, if he enforces the sentence, of motives of personal revenge. The capture of Mr. Davis is no good fortune for the North. We may look, however, for a grander State trial and an abler defence than any since the impeachment of Strafford.
