NEWS OF TIIE WEEK.

THE first riot caused by the Cotton famine broke out at Staleybridge on the 20th inst. The Relief Committee bad, it appears, resolved to diminish the allowance to the operatives by 4d. a day, and give the remainder in tickets for certain articles. The operatives demanded that the latter rule should be withdrawn, and the former supplemented by an equivalent reduction in the hours of schooling. The demand was refused, and the mob joined the scholars in an attack, first on the police, then on the houses of the Committee-men, and then on the relief stores. These were plundered and great quantities of articles destroyed. It was necessary at last to call out a troop of the 14th Hussars, who, under Captain Chapman, cleared the streets without injuring any one, and enabled the police to make some sixty arrests. Twenty-nine were committed for trial and taken away to Chester. On the 23rd inst. a part of the Staleybridge mob, chiefly Irishmen, proceeded to Ashton, and terrified the bakers and publicans into giving them food, the Hussars being compelled to charge them. They next proceeded to Dukinfield, where they were met by the eounty constabulary, and driven back to Staleybridge. Since then the town has been quiet, and it is said the workmen in a great meeting have decided against the expediency of rioting. It is believed that the Relief Committee will make some concessions, as the Mansion House Committee have decidedly reprehended their course.

The occurrence has naturally excited extreme irritation at the North, where the blame appears to be laid principally upon two persons, Mr. Stephens, now a Dissenting minister, formerly a Chartist "agitator," and the unlucky Mr. Bridges, who published his convictions in the Times. The Manchester Board of Guardians have formally resolved that the state- ments made by the physician as to their mode of dealing with the people are not true. Mr. Stephens we cannot de- fend, aa he has not denied his atrocious doctrine about rent; but Mr. Bridges, though known at Oxford as a doctrinaire, is undoubtedly honest. The Boards and Committees of the North should beware of approaching this subject in a spirit of caste bitterness. The men at present are hopelessly in the wrong, and order must be maintained, if necessary, by the bayonet; but it is absurd to assert that in a long and complicated question of grievances all the blame is on one side. Above all, the distributing bodies should watch their subordinates more closely. The habitual and detestable harshness of un- educated Englishmen towards each other becomes in these men, when worn out with worry, unbearable insolence, and is the cause of half the ill-will now shown.

The Emancipation Meeting of Trades' Unionists presided over by Mr. Bright in St. James's Hall, on Thursday night, had a character of its own. It was not merely an emancipa- tion meeting, though it was that, and a very hearty one ; it was not merely a meeting to sympathize with the Not them Republic, though it did that heartily too ; it was not merely a protest on behalf of the rights of labour, though it was this also, and the negroes were especially compassionated by one of the speakers as, "non-society men." It was, besides this, the first approach to a common understanding between the great democratic orator and the only English class which is ever likely to form a great democratic party; and it was also curious in its non-political aspect—as the first attempt of various half-fledged orators to try their wings before the greatest master of English eloquence. Mr. Bright struck the key-note of the meeting in a republictun. speech of his usual nervous vigour, the effect of which was but slightly injured by a vexatious cough, denouncing passionately that "Privilege which every morning, with blatant voice, comes into our streets and curses the American Republic." He was succeeded by a series of working men,---broken only by an able and eloquent, but violent and one-sided declama- tion from Professor Beesley,—many of whom had shrewd sense, some considerable education, and one or two real power which only needed culture. Mr. Howell, a bricklayer, who had the unenviable duty of following Mr. Bright, but did so with dignity and fair success, made a good point when he said that the secession of our American colonies was at the time justified, not by abstract rights, but by twenty-nine special grievances,—and that the South had had no grievance to allege. Mr. Odgers, a shoemaker, made a still better point, when he asked why, if more successful resist- ance, apart from a just cause, justifies our "recognition" of a rebellion, we did not at once recognize the Taepings, who had resisted for ten years, instead of two, the Imperial Government, and ended a clever speech with some sentences really finely conceived, and only needing a better pronuncia- tion and more careful construction to make them truly impressive to all his hearers. Mr. Cremer, a clever and very republican joiner, who spoke faultlessly and fluently, but too long, had the courage to say that so far as the working classes of Eng- land are not prosperous in ordinary times, they have only themselves to blame. But Mr. Conolly, an Irish mason, who took off his coat before going into action, amidst the most vehement cheering, was clearly the favourite of the meeting, and, we think, our own, though he did bear hardly on The Times and Telegraph when he told his fellow-workmen that it was their " pince that supported the talent on such filthy rags as those." He showed, in discussing the political question, not only Irish humour, but a very clear head, and was the only speaker who fairly faced the enormous strength and ability of the South. Mr. Bright's hearty compliment to the speakers was really well deserved by most of them, though there were some grotesque mistakes.

The Times' correspondent at Paris has answered Mr. King- lake's charge of cowardice against the Emperor Napoleon. lie says he has watched him for fifteen years, and was close to him when in 1850 the mob threatened him at Besancon; when he penetrated almost alone into the Croix Rousse of Lyons, the most dangerous place in France ; and when, during a season of terrible excitement, he rode alone, and in advance of his staff, along the Boulevards of Paris ; and, finally, during the Orsini and Pianori attempts. On all these occasions the Emperor remained impassive, never changed a muscle, or shrank from any danger however menacing. The writer believes, therefore, that the charge is wholly unfounded. It is one which has been brought against almost every King and General who has attracted the notice of the world—against Napoleon the First and Frederick the Great. Its root we believe to be this. These men have none of what soldiers call fear, can face a battery or charge a square ; but they have, from the habit of their lives, a real dread of personal violence, a sort of respect for their bodies, which is entirely apart from fear. It is the feeling which made James the Second exempt from all amnesties the fishermen who searched him, and which made Napoleon faint when fists were shaken at him in the Council of the Five Hundred. He crossed the bridge at Arcola none the less for that.

It is announced by the Times that the European Powers are inclined to refer the position of Poland to a Congress of all the States which signed the treaties of 1815; and by the Post, that the Russian Government has promised important "con- cessions." We distrust neither statement. France cannot build a policy on the treaties of 1815, which she has "torn up," and Prussia has broken them just as much as the Russians. As to c4peessions, they can be manufactured in any quantity, and might he worth something, if the Czars would observe them a week, or the Poles believe them an hour. The Post talks about guarantees, but the only guarantees worth a straw , are the restoration of the Polish army and of the universal right to bear arms, and the Czar will grant neither till he is com- pelled. The true course for the Poles is to keep on fighting without great battles till disorder wakes up the half sleeping revolutionary spirit, and compels the kings for their own sakes to give them freedom. Louis Napoleon, it is again said, will not interfere ; but Louis Napoleon has not rebuked those who urge him to do so.

One of the most notable debates of the session took place last night on the motion of Mr. W. E. Forster, "to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether the attention of Her Majesty's Government has been called to the danger to our friendly relations with the -United States, resulting from the fitting-out in our ports of ships-of-war for the service of the self-styled Confederate States, in contravention of the Foreign Enlistment Act and of the policy of neutrality adopted by this country." Sir Roundell Palmer's reply was quite inadequate, though an attempt at special pleading of more than an hour's duration. He was heavy upon "legal evidence," vindicating, with much superfluous emphasis, the "British principles of justice," which, he said, did not allow us to take action in the ease of the Alabama "on mere suspicion." Into the details of Mr. Forster's facts Sir R. Palmer did not think fit to enter, contenting himself with giving it as his opinion that the accusations of the hon. member for Bradford as to the breach of international law were unjust and "shocking." Mr. Bright followed Mr. Forster in an eloquent speech, striking and to the point, and more moderate in tone than almost any of his previous orations. His exclamation, "Your neutrality is a cold and unfriendly neutrality," elicited cheers even from the Conservative benches. Then came Mr. Laird, M.P. for Birkenhead, reading private and confidential letters from anonymous correspondents, showing that President Lincoln's administration had attempted to get iron-clad vessels built in this country, besides buying some odd thousands of pistols and muskets and no end of percussion caps. These statements elicited immense cheers from the House, and legislative strength having thus exhausted itself, the assembly lapsed into its normal state of apathy. Mr. Layard himself looked drowsy in finishing-up the debate, while reading for a second time the brief entrusted to Sir Roundell Palmer.

Sir James Outram was buried on Wednesday in West- minster Abbey, his only fitting resting-place.

The Polish revolt has sustained a severe blow. Lana°iewicz, on the 17th inst., found himself in presence of aRussian column near Zagoscie, but gave them a brilliant repulse. He pursued the flying enemy, and on the 18th gave them though reinforced, a more severe defeat, the scythemen mailing sad havoc among the musketeers. That night, however, a Council of War was held, and it was resolved that Langiewicz should leave, and that the corps d'armee should be split into three. He left accordingly, and tried to cross Galicia, but was arrested by the Austrians and imprisoned in Cracow. His men, deprived of their leader, lost their morale, and on the 19th, being again attacked, fled in confusion. The secret reason of Langiewicz's departure would seem to have been the dislike of the "Red" Poles, whose chosen Dictator, Mieroslawski, he had superseded by assuming the post for himself. This is proved by a justificatory letter published by Mieroslawski in Paris, whither he has returned. On the other hand, Langiewicz himself, in his final general order, assigns the necessity of raising other districts, and of dividing the corps, as the cause of his unexpected movement. The Cen- tral Committee at Warsaw has resumed its functions, and the revolt does not visibly languish beyond the two palatinates, Sandomir and Radom, under Langiewicz's direct command,.

Lord Palmerston is about to propose a new candidate for the Greek throne, Prince William of Denmark, brother of the The return of the Marquis of Hartington for North Lanca- shire, who has been back to his constituents to get them to confirm his appointment to the post of a junior Lord of the Admiralty, took place on Monday at Lancaster without oppo- sition. The noble Marquis is not only a supporter of Lord Palmerston, but a strong Southerner, having just returned from a tour in the Southern States—a double reason with a large part of the Tory party for leaving him unmolested. In his speech on the occasion the noble Marquis panegyrized the policy of his chief, argued in favour of the borrowing power for the unions in preference to the rate-in-aid, suggested that the Government might lend the boards money on the security of the rates at 31 per cent., and then explained the result of his experience in the South, which only amounts to this—that all men equally, whether interested directly in slavery or not, were bent on shedding their blood to the last drop rather than submit to be conquered.

The Lord Chancellor on Wednesday night brought in a remarkable bill. He has a right to present to all livings Princess of Wales. It is said that the Princess Dagmar is about to be betrothed to the Russian. Ctesarewitch, or heir apparent, and there will, therefore, be no opposition at St. Petersburg. France has acceded to the nomination, and the Greeks will, it is understood, raise no objection to a choice which gives them so close an English connection. Prince William is eighteen years old, and probably as competent as any one else of his class and caste. Should both the announce- ments prove true, the two families of which the Prince of Wales will be one day the head, will occupy no less than ten thrones Great Britain, Russia, Prussia, Denmark, Hanover, Hesse, Portugal, Belgium, Greece, and Saxe Coburg. That of Holland is lost to them, the Prince of Orange having been recently affianced to a cousin, reputed the wealthiest heiress in Europe, and probably the wealthiest out of England.

The Bill brought in by the Great Eastern Railway Company for running a line from Shoreditch to Finsbury circus has been thrown out by the Lords, in order that the level may be amended. It is lucky the Peers exist, or these great com- panies would some day order the Commons to pass a law compelling everybody to travel at least twice a week. Their influence in the Lower House seems positively irresistible.

Mr. Hubbard raised on Tuesday his usual discussion on the Income-tax with his usual measure of success. He moved two resolutions, "that the incidence of an Income-tax, as affecting the products of invested income, should fall upon net income ; and that the net amounts of industrial earnings should, pre- vious to assessments, be subject to such an abatement as may equitably adjust the burden thrown upon intelli- gence and skill, as compared with property." His argu- ments were in principle sound ; but as they did not tend to show that the scheme would be easily practicable, they were very quickly disposed of by Mr. Gladstone, whose only substantial objection was, perhaps, a legitimate one, the enormous difficulty of change. We submit more easily to injustices to which we are used than to new, even though minor, forms of injustice. Still the answers given to Mr. Hubbard were far from strong, though very cleverly put. To argue that it is wrong to throw a greater burden on a widow with 2001. a year in the Funds, in order to release a less certain professional or trade income of 1,000/. a year, is transparently fallacious. It is rather the widow with 2001. a year derived from an uncertain business, who is relieved by the change ; and the man with 1,000/. a year from a certain landed property, who is fur- ther burdened in order to lighten the weight on the equal but uncertain income of his professional friend. Mr. Gladstone casually remarked in his speech, in answer to a leading question from Mr. Leathern, that it was not for him to say yet "whether he had a surplus or not."

Mr. Edmund Potter, M.P. for Carlisle wrote a long letter to the Times of Tuesday in favour of delay in the emigration policy proposed for Lancashire. He showed very conclusively that the Cotton trade has not in reality increased more rapidly than any other trade—less rapidly than many; that the talk about over-stocks has been, in great measure, erro- neous, and has led to very false inferences ; and argued, therefore, that if we could get the cotton again at a reasonable price next year, or the year after, the trade would require all the labour it could get, and would be seriously crippled by the emigration of any large number of labourers. Other- wise, his letter was not hopeful. under a certain value, and has 320 livings which he can hardly induce anybody to take. He proposes, therefore, to sell the advowsons, and expend the money in improving the livings. He hopes that they will be bought by the squires, and that they will gradually endow them up to a reasonable standard. The bill was uncommonly well received, and is really a bold and clever device ; but Lord Westbury must beware of one blunder. He means to make resale illegal for five years; but he must extend the term. Other- wise, the managers of the Simeon's Trust Fund will contrive to lay their hands upon dozens, and the little livings will be filled with men of one opinion. For an object like this the Recordites would subscribe half a million in a month, and the order forbidding any purchaser to buy more than four advow- sons is easily evaded.

We are informed, on excellent authority, that since the massacre in Warsaw of 8th April, 1861, no less than twenty Russian officers have perished on the Polish side. The first was Gortschakoff's Adjutant, who blew out his brains rather than fire on the people ; and he was followed on the same occasion by Colonel Korff. The detachment of two hundred which marched on 26th January from Petrikow to Radomsk, was commanded by four Russian officers, of whom two were taken and shot ; yet, in the very same town of Petrikow, only a week later, four others, also taken prisoners, were sum- marily sentenced to death. The cause which its enemies pity is far from lost.

There is no American news this week of any value, beyond the two incidents mentioned in another place, and a report that Mr. Chase has concluded a loan of twenty millions in gold with European capitalists. This rumour is repeated in several quarters; but requires confirmation, the price hinted at being about 65. At least, that is what we understand by the statement that the loan has been taken at a price which, " exchanging the gold into greenbacks, is equivalent to par." If this report is correct, which we doubt, unless Mr. Chase has cotton or corn to offer as guarantee, it may materially relieve the Federal Treasury.

The recent Royal Marriage has been commemorated by a medal really worthy, in design and execution of the event, designed by Mr. Wyon, and issued by Messrs. Hunt and Roskell. It is to be had, we believe, in gold, silver, or bronze ; its diameter, of nearly three inches, however, render- ing the latter form the one in which it will obtain by far the largest range of purchasers. The obverse-type consists of busts of the Prince and Princess of Wales, perfect likenesses, and executed with exquisite finish. On the reverse side, the arms and emblems of the United Kingdom and Denmark are united in a design of great taste.

The gaming scandal at Paris described recently by our French correspondent has ended in a conviction. ItIM. Calzado and Garcia, found guilty of winning some 150,000f. with false cards, have been sentenced, one to five years, and the other to eighteen months' imprisonment. M. Garcia is the man who has broken all the gambling banks of Europe, and M. Calzado once bought up all the cards in Havannah, sent out his own, and then followed to play with them,—a device worthy the Napoleon of blacklegs. These facts, and many more of the same kind, were well known ; yet both were ad- mitted into the company of some of the best names in France.

. The Corporation of London have published their formal defence of the shortcomings of their police on the 7th. It is but a weak affair. They affirm that the populace was massed together by the order prohibiting the civic procession from passing Temple Bar; that the loyalty and enthusiasm of the people were unbounded; that vans and cabs entered the line after the time fixed for their exclusion ; and that there was a want of a complete understanding with the 1st City of London Volunteers. In other words, they allege the loyalty of the people and their own blunders as reasons why they ought not to be blamed for not having had sufficient force to prevent a crush dangerous to the safety of the Princess. They do not half understand their business. The true official " explanation " would have been to deny the crush, and affirm all reports exaggerations circulated for a sensation. That was ir G. Grey's course about the garotters, and it would have been, but for Mr. Adderley, quite successful.

Lord Campbell (or Stratheden) made a laboured effort to prove to Lord Russell on Monday night that he ought at once to recognize the independence of the South. His precedents were numerous, but they resolved themselves into the three

categories, of diplomatic blunders—like the unfortunate effort of the United States to strengthen Hungary by acknowledging its independence after it had been subdued,—of recognitions which were accompanied with, or were intended to be accom- panied with, forcible aid, and lastly, of recognition after the attempt to subdue the revolted State had, in fact, ceased. Of course, none of the precedents were very much to the point ; and Lord Campbell's sympathies were, as sympathies are apt to be, his real arguments. After a panegyric, not, perhaps, un- deserved, on the great intellectual qualities displayed by Mr. Jefferson Davis, and comment on the poverty of statesmanship in the North, Lord Campbell declared "that a new chapter would be opened in the world's history, if on the great theatre of war in America those qualities to which men hadever pointed with scornshculd triumph over those which had hitherto always been regarded with admiration." Is this Lord Campbell's eu- phemistic mode of saying that the instincts of freemen have always been regarded with scorn, and those of slaveowners- with admiration? Lord Russell, at least, did not appear to think so ; after pointing out that there was no pre- cedent at all for recognition, unless it were accompanied by a formal effort-on behalf of the Southern cause, he concluded with observing that "if we have taken part in intervention, it has been on behalf of the independence, freedom, and wel- fare of a great portion of mankind. I should, indeed, be sorry if there should be any intervention on the part of this country which would bear another character." To interfere on behalf of Lord Campbell's able prote'ge no doubt would have another character—a very different character indeed. Let us hope that we may wait for that interference till we have Lord Campbell at the Foreign Office.

On Friday week, too late for our impression, a discussion was raised by Mr. Baxter on the Galway contract in the House of Commons, and an exceedingly able and amusing speech made by that gentleman, whom nobody answered, or attempted to answer, except on one of the minutest details. He showed that the Galway Packet Company had not the proper number of steamers for the mail service ; that the Government, who had pledged themselves to put up the con- tract for the Irish and American mails to competition, had given it back again to this company without any such compe- tition; and that the original Irish subscribers to the company are exceedingly unlikely ever to benefit in any way by the new grant. The reply of the Government was, in effect, that though there was no other defence to be made for the job, the political need of Ireland for "boons" was too great to resist. It is a dangerous kind of plea ; and, even granting it, if the condition had been made for an Irish port of departure, we do not see why the contract for the mail service might not have been thrown open to competition.

A curious debate arose on Friday about the Telegraphs Bill. There is a clause in this bill under which, if a wire crosses a man's house, aud he wishes to add a new story, he must ask permission of the Board of Trade. This was fiercely resisted, and, on the motion of Mr. Henley, an amendment omitting this power was carried without a division. Mr. M. Gibson contended for the clause ; but the members generally, we are happy to say, are getting tired of these aggressions. It is bad enough that no man in Lon- don should be able to add a conservatory to his house withiu his own ground without the consent of some official surveyor ; but to deprive him of half his site, namely, his right of build- ing upwards, would be intolerable. An official always thinks that a law ordering people to apply to some other official is rather agreeable than otherwise, and forgets the money value both of time and independence.

Mr. Cave, member for Shoreham, on Tuesday brought up the case of the Indian coolies in Reunion. There were, he said, 9,000 in the island who were in a condition of modified slavery, no man, for example, being allowed to move without a pass, and all who were physically weak being hired at less than contract rates. Mr. Layard corrected Mr. Cave as to the number, there being 47,000 coolies in R4union, and admitted Mr. Cave's facts. He would do all he could; but he was bound by the Convention. The statement was not satisfactory, the more so as the treaty provides for the suspension of emigra- tion if the coolies are not properly treated. Suspend the emi- gration for three months and the difficulty will be at an end. The same thing occurred once in the Mauritius. The planters, frantic with dread of cholera, sent two ship-loads of coolies to die on an exposed rock. Lord Dalhousie stopped emigration, and the planters, after raving for a week or two about bribes sent to India by the West Indies, helped the Governor to create a decent system of quarantine.