NEWS OF THE WEEK.

Tits New Year begins with announcements preparatory to the marriage which is by a fresh link to join the Government of this country with Lutheran Germany. One consequence of the schismatical differences in the Christian faith, coupled with the 'asiumed necessity of making- our royal matches upon a certain level, is that the highest family in this country is supposed to be neceisarili more closely united with alien than with English in- terests. The knowledge vouchsafed to, the country this week is interesting : the marriage-e,eremony is to take place in the Chapel Royal, certain royal persons will arrive and take 'up their abode at Buckingham Palace, or at other places provided for them ; three theatrical entertainments will take place at Her Majesty's Theatre ; . and when Prince Frederick William of Prussia shall have, been three days the• husband of Queen Victoria's. eldest daughter, he will be Invested with the Order of the Garter. Yet the whole programme has not given satisfaction ! Few of our Sovereigns have been' so popular as Queen Victoria ; but if the public regards her as belonging to the country, the said country &es not like t6 be excluded from witnessing the grander exlii-• 14tions of her royal state. It is quite true that the 27,000,000 saris of the United Kingdom cannot " assist " at the first mar- riage in Queen Victoria's family ; but the public could to a cer- tain extent assist by proxy ; and if the ceremony itself could not be viewed-by a vast concourse, the approaches to it might be public.

Why does not the marriage take place in Westminster Abbey? —that is the -great question of the week. Precedent has perhaps decided in favour of the Chapel Royal : precedent also has kept the programme. of the ceremony concealed until it is perhaps too late to alter the arrangements. If a coronation can 1.* performed in Westminster Abbey, 'why not a marriage ? There is one practical test which would draw the line between Walla and private character in such events. At present the whole arrangements of the marriage look too much like alamily affair ,—not a favourable aspect for it to bear in the public sight. And if it is so, we ought to find that all the cost of it, even the alterations of. the Cliapel Royal, have been defrayed out of the private purse of the Crown. If a Am little bill" is presented to Parliament for the expenses, then it-is not a private but a public affair; and the public ought to be admitted to a participation.

Some official movements raise a surmise that matters are not quite so settled as we might suppose in the Government. A little while ago it was understood that there was to be no change ; but it has since been officially known that the East India Company is to be superseded, and that a new department of state is to be created on the ruins of the Company and the Board of Control ; the names of various statesmen being already mentioned as likely to take the nowly-created Secretaryship. Lord Harrowby_ suddenly retires from the (Jammu, awl rom, r.a. Privy Seal, in order to admit Lord 'Clamicarde ; who, even within a few weeks, has been considered almost an Opposition Peer. The explanation is, that Lord Harrowby's indifferent health causes [WITH MONTkILY SUPPLEMENT.] him to retire : but the public remembers that while he failed to vote for Lord' Palmerston's Jew Bill, the present Ministers will be all the better for a little more strength to encounter formidable opponents in:debates on Indian affairs. It is always supposed that Macaulay was made a Peer not solely in acknowledgment of his eminent literary services, but also in the hope to secure from hi,m occasional assistance in grand debates, particularly on Indian matters. Baron Macaulay will of course take the very highest ground, and-he may rise to more exalted discourse than Lord Ellenborongh can command.- The practical details of the immediate measures in prospect, however, will need a man in more vigorous health and one More recently accustomed to business; and Lord Clanricarde is such a man. His accession to the Ministry is a double gain, since it probably transfers him from the ranks of the Opposition to add him, to the ranks of the Ministerial side.

• The retirement of Lord Stratford de Redeliffe from his post at Constantinople is a greater mystery, and it has not yet been explained. The Times treats it as the close- Lord Stratford's active political life : but " there is life in te old dog yet," and he is still too energetic a man to be spared—or at least to spare himself. His return to the West is rather remarkable in sequel to the recent state of affairs at Constantinople. He and M. Thouvenel the French Minister -were known to be Violently at issue. It has been reported that the French Governinent sue- eumbed to ours in the matter of the Principalities.; and M. Thouvenel, it has been said, was made to "knuckle' down" before Lord Stratford de Redcliffe. The French diplomatist, like Achilles, retired to his own abode and sulked ; and, curiously enough, he only emerges from this seclusion when his trium- phatit opponent, Lord Stratford, is for some reason Or other re- called home. It would look as if France made the concession in show, while England made it in reality : but at present the mys- tery is simply, inscrutable.

The fuller despatches from India considerably qualify the first statements issizid to the public. From those it might have been imagined that Sir Colin Campbell had made some progress in re- ducing at least the city if not the province of Oude ; but it is now obvious that the rebels remain in force much more concen- trated than they were supposed to be ; that Sir Colin still needs reinforcements to dislodge them, and that the work before him will be an affair of time and labour.

Among official papers, three possess the interest of eyents. One sets forth the conditions on which the dispersed but not guilty fragments of the Bengal Army may be received back in their corps—as if the army still existed ! Another specifies the modes in which compensation will be given to the British who have suffered loss of property,—all arranged to give somewhat equably-distributed. relief rather than to meet individual eases.' The third, by the Judicial Commissioner of the punjaub, declares that in future Native Christians will be encouraged to enter the .public sertiee, and invites the Missionaries to aid a commence- ment of the new rule ; which is said to have been at work for three months. .

Indian trade is somewhat reviving ; and 'speculationappears so ready to rebound, that what looks like an official caution has been conspicuously published in the Globe, warning all whom it may concern that the measure for placing India under time direct go- vernment of the Crown will not justify the speculation of some persons who appear to be gambling in Indica securities. It is in- timated that the revenues of India will still, like those of Canada or any other British colony, continue to be separate from the Imperial revenues.

Another question has been opened this week, giving us a glimpse into the vista of future debates. A writer who is master of his subject shows, that instead of handing over India to the covert control of a bureaucratic State department, it, would be muoh better to give the responsible Minister in London the as-

sistance of a Council, whose members might sometimes have opinions of their own, and whose recorded proceedings would greatly assist Parliament in controlling the Executive.

[LATEST EDITION's]

The contested election for Buckinghamshire has led to an in- teresting discovery. It passed 'off almost as a matter of course, and there was no necessity for that prelleantay whidlat as we see by the Mayo election, appears to be dill neeessary In Ire- land—the introduction of military to keep 'the peace eritile the "free and independent" exercise their privilege. The Tories have been supposed to possess the county of Buckinghemehire, though the Liberals were magnanimously allowed to return one out of the three Members. A soi-disant representative of the tenant-farmers, Captain Hamilton, attempted to get for them the third seat ; but the Liberals have found that they could return the son of the late Member, Mr. Cavendish, in spite of the Tories. Disraeli's own county therefore is not so completely in the hands of the Opposition as it was supposed to be ; and the same change is found to have taken place quietly in other counties supposed to be Tory preserves. This gradual but steady increase of Liberal feeling is an index of growing opinion in the country, which should be kept in mind by those who are respon- sible for the construction of the promised Reform BM. It shows that it will not do to underrate either the opportunity or the Liberal feeling even among flirts.; classes that are not generally VeilWiere4 ttubnlent or dangerous.

By all the eitablished tests of the commercial barometer, we ought to be able to report an improvement ; and there is no doubt that improvement is going on, although the reaction can- not possibly be so rapid as the sanguine anticipate. The lower- ing of the rate of discount at our own Bank, last week, from 10 to 8 per cent, has been followed by the Bank of France, which still keeps considerably below ours, now descending from 6 to 5. It has been remarked that the repayment of the two millions of sv er -issue towards the end of last week may be said formally to have closed the crisis : but in many respects the termination is only formal. If few large houses are now falling, many smaller establishments are still added to the list of bankruptcies. And the eases which occur continue to point a remarkable distinction between commercial houses which declare their position and place themselves in the hands of their creditors the moment they find that there is any deficiency in their capital—any want of balance between their means and their liabilities, and those houses which have been for years trading upon consolidated insolvency. Many circumstances contribute to disclose the hollow nature of trading for some time past,—such, for example, as the discovery at Belfast, that the ship-returns of 1856 show numbers below those for 1855. From New York they report something better than a mere resumption of specie payments,—a large cotton crop, - and declining prices ; high prices never being so healthy a state for large trades as moderate prices. It is not unimportant to note, that with the commercial recovery in Paris and London the drain of silver to the East appears to be reviving : with our faci- lities tome back the most enigmatic of the difficulties.

And if we were prone to a preposterous revival of over-con- fidence, the Revenue-tables would rebuke it. They show a de- cline a 1,800,000/. on the year. No doubt, this is in great part owing to diminished taxation, especially the 800,000/. of decrease in Income-tax ; but diminished consumption also has much to do with the decline of 600,000/. in the Excise, and of 1,154,1100/. in the Customs. It is tube hoped that these sombre figures will prelude a more healthy year than that which followed upon the showy figures and inflated boasting at the close of 1856.

II. Regis has been hastening up to Paris to satisfy the doubts of the Emperor Napoleon on the subject of the African free emi- gration scheme. The British Government, it appears, has re- monstrated ; perhaps intimating to the Emperor -that supplies of labour can be obtained from other sources—from China or India. And the Emperor has been so far impressed that the friends of the new Marseilles slave-trade are driven to great exertions in defence of their traffic.

If occupation cannot be found for French capital and hands in that direction, the improvements of Paris are to continue, not- withstanding the progress made already, and the difficulty of anding the money.

Another Continental capital is to be improved. Among the pacific signs of the times is the demolition of the internal fortifications of Vienna, in order to the better building of the city. The in- cident, however, is not so great a testimony to pacific policy as it is supposed to be. The capital of the great Austrian empire has long groaned under the nuisance of fortifications which cramped the dwelling-accommodations, and the Government has only ceded to the importunity of years.

In the long list of stories of disaster and heroism at sea, one of the grandest and most beautiful of all is that of the -Sarah Sands, an iron steamer used as a transport for troops. 'On the voyage Zrom Portsmouth to Calcutta, the ship was found to be on fire ; a storm

was raging at the time ; there was a large stock of ammunition on 'board; and numbers of people, including many women. Theifitermery was made too late to suppress the fire ; but to orgedle volunteer partial of the soldiers—to snatch the gun- powder from the hold■ote pat the ship up to the wind, keeping the fire sternwards--to ply the hose as if upon a blazing house in a quiet street—to defend the threatened main- mast with wet blankets—to witness without despair the burning out of the after-cabins, with an explosion of a portion of the gunpowder that could not be removed—to keep the wo- men floating on rafts or in boats for ten hours or more during a severe gale—to recover the ship and all on board without the loss of a single life—and to reach Mauritius, four hundred miles distant—are the incidents in a story that would be incredible if it had not been actually accomplished.