NEWS OF THE WEEK.

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THROUGHOUT the week the rumour of a Conference on the Greek difficulty has gained strength. It is now stated that it will be held in Paris within a few days ; that it will be attended by the five Great Powers, by Italy, and by Turkey ; that Greece will be excluded ; that nothing will be said of the Eastern Question ; that Crete is not to be mentioned ; and that the only basis for negotiation will be the fiveSoints of the Turkish ultimatum given elsewhere. In spite of the rumours, however, it is very doubtful whether the Conference will meet, or whether, if it meets, it will come to a decision, or whether, if it decides, it will make its decision executive. Mr. Gladstone will be no party to an occupation of Athens, and with England neutral Greece has as many friends as enemies, while she is ready singlehanded to risk the encounter with Turkey, also singlehanded.

The Turks affirm that Colonel Petropoulaki and his volunteers have surrendered, and that all Crete has submitted to the Sultan. It is therefore probable that the Turks have sustained some serious reverse in the island. Indeed, that would be certain, but that the • Greek accounts claim some great success, which makes the matter doubtful again.

As we suspected last week, the municipal elections in Spain have been favourable to the Republican party. They lost Madrid, but they have obtained large majorities in the Councils of twenty cities, including Barcelona, Seville, Malaga, Toledo, Valladolid, Valencia, Saragossa, and Cordova ; small majorities in twelve other capitals ; and minorities in only nine. Their victory, however, was secured mainly by small numbers of voters, and it is doubtful whether those who stayed away agree with their opinions. The result of the national election is therefore still doubtful, more especially as the Government will exert itself much more to return its own candidates. It must be added that recent accounts show the insurgents in Cadiz to have been Republicans, and to have behaved with the greatest daring.

Count von Bismarck has formally proposed that a treaty shall be concluded with Baden, allowing its citizens, when residing in North Germany, to enter that military service, while German citizens shall be similarly competent to enter the Army of Baden. The matter is of little importance, except as showing that Prussia presses on towards military unity with the South, and as empowering the Grand Duke to employ Prussian general officers. The Baden Army is already at the disposal of Prussia as an ally, but under this arrangement it will be simply a Prussian division.

Its stated, apparently on good authority, that Mr. Cardwell's great plan for reductions is to recall 20,000 troops from the Colonies,—Canada contributing 12,000,—and suspend recruiting for a year, thus gradually reducing the Army by that number of men, without disorganizing the cadres. We mention the report merely as a report, but it is clearly in this direction that the first reductions must be made. The great difficulty in the way is the Canadian reluctance to part with the troops, under the idea, quite erroneous, but, we are told, very powerful, that it implies future desertion of the colony. able to the legality of the St. Alban's authorities,—that six lighted candles appeared on the altar of that church during the ordinary morning service last Sunday, but that they were extinguished before the commencement of the Communion Service, and two large ones were lighted instead, which stood, not on the altar, but on each side of it. Mr. Mackonochie, who was himself the celebrant of the communion, did not elevate either the paten or the chalice, but "three times during the prayer of consecration he either knelt or bowed very low." Mr. Mackonochie had not, however, we believe, then received the Bishop of London's "precept" announcing the judgment and instructing him to obey it ; indeed in a letter dated on Tuesday,—the last day on which Dr. Tait was still Bishop of London,—the latter stated, in his very friendly and respectful letter to Mr. Mackonochie, that the formal notice through the Bishop's Court had still to be sent. The legal position, therefore, had not probably, as yet, been affected by the judgment, and Mr. Maekonochie was technically still at liberty to act as he chose. Let us hope that the slight concession he did make, indicates his inclination to obey the law strictly, whether other parties in the Church obey it or not.

One or two curious results of the judgment in its bearing on the Low-Church party we have noticed elsewhere. Here we will only add that it seems to declare various little customs illegal which are not peculiar to any party, such as the turning to the east at the Creed,—a very unmeaning practice,—the bowing at the name of Jesus in the Apostles' and Nicene Creed, —the second hymn at least,—the Prayer-Book only permitting one " antbem,"—the practice of chanting "Glory be to thee, 0 God I" before the reading of the gospel for the day, and we believe some others. The only place prescribed by the Prayer-Book for a " sermon " is after the first part of the communion service, so that a sermon is said to be illegal at evening prayer, or whenever the communion service is not used. On the other hand, it is asserted that the judgment makes the following rubric compulsory :—" The curate of every parish shall diligently, upon Sundays and holydays, after the second lesson at evening prayer, openly in the church, instruct and examine so many children of his parish sent unto him as he shall think convenient in some part of this catechism." A judicious curate would certainly think it " convenient " to examine none at that time,—if he has any discretion in the matter. A surer way of wearying the ordinary congregation than by hearing children cross-examined on the Catechism in the middle of the service could not be invented,—and we do not speak without experience.

Dr. Pusey is very angry with the judgment, and thinks it an aggravation of it that the Privy Council, while laying down so rigid a rule for ritual, lays down so lax a rule for doctrine. Mr. Blomfield Jackson replies in a very able letter that unity of outward ceremony is essential to comprehensiveness in doctrine. In talking, writing, preaching, the clergyman expresses only his own views, and then the Romanizer and the Rationalizer are comprehended alike. But when he begins to alter the forms of worship in which all alike are expected to join, he diminishes the area of true comprehension, and imports his own individual view into the Catholic forms intended to include all, so as to rob them of their comprehensiveness,—and this must be resisted, from whatever side it comes,—Romanizer, Rationalizer, or Calvinizer.

The House of Commons met on Tuesday, to enable some new writs to be issued. Lord Bury took advantage of the opportunity to make a short speech, condemning the law which sends Ministers to their constituents for re-election. He promised to bring in a Bill to repeal the statute of Anne, and we hope he will keep his word, not, however, by a statute enabling all members to take profitable office,—that would not do,—but enabling them to take any of the offices now described popularly as" Ministerial." Police, died on Sunday, at the age of 73. When only 33 years old, and a rising barrister, he was selected by Sir Robert Peel to organize a Police for London, till then almost unprotected. In the teeth of the most bitter criticism he, in conjunction with Colonel Rowan, organized the Force on its present basis, making London from 1829 to about 1862 the most secure capital in Europe, or perhaps in the world. 1)uring the last six years the violent criminals of the metropolis, aided by causes discussed elsewhere, proved almost too strong for his little army of order, but for more than a generation the cool barrister maintained real peace and security through a city which is a kingdom at an expense of 3s. 6d. a head a year. In his youth, and prime, and green old age, we doubt if the country ever had a more successful servant than Sir Richard Mayne, to whom it gave nothing but a moderate salary, a K.C.B., and some strictly official esteem.

The Calcutta correspondent of the Times sends home a curious document, a report by Colonel Daly, British Agent in Gwalior, of some conversations with Sindhia on the British and Native systems of Government. The Maharajah seems to have spoken very frankly, telling Colonel Daly that we were unpopular, that we worried the people with unnecessary legislation, such as sumptuary laws against expense at weddings—passed, be it remembered, however, to prevent the massacre of female children,—and averring laughingly, "the people will bear more from me than you." He, however, declared that the feeling of order and security created by the British Government "was a substance, a silent working power, never attained under any previous rule," and advanced a theory to account for the difference which we have discussed elsewhere. He deprecated the withdrawal of British Agents from Native States,—a very sound objection, as even if they do not interfere, they play the part of a well-informed public opinion,—and apparently thought popularity scarcely worth seeking,—which also is sound, for we shall never get it, and the thirst for it only disturbs what should be a serene judgment.

The dispute between the British Envoy at Pekin and the Government of China appears to have blown over. The Viceroy of Nankin has yielded under coercion to all Mr. Medhurst's demands, tablet of stone included. That is satisfactory so far ; but Sir R. Alcock seems to have sadly mismanaged the affair. What had he to do with the local magnate ? By yielding to the request that he would act locally Sir Rutherford has thrown us back on the old system, under which the Emperor referred us to Yeh, and Yeh pleaded popular pressure, and redress was unattainable except at the cannon's month. That system produced wars which threatened to be periodic, and it was to end it that we extorted the treaty of Tientsin, the whole object of which was to concentrate Chinese political business in Pekin.

The new Bishop of Peterborough, Dr. Magee, has begun well in more respects than one. He has given a vacant canonry in Peterborough Cathedral to one of the ablest and most thoughtful of the theological critics of our Church,—the Rev. Brook Foss Westcott, a writer of wide learning and true critical Weight. A better appointment could not have been made.

Dr. Magee has also delivered a really fine speech at Leicester,— the chief town of his diocese,—on the work the Church has to do in the great towns and cities, where, at present, its work is least efficient. While speaking with the greatest respect of Dissenters, he pointed out that the social influence and position of the Church will open to all her clergy ready access to the richest and most powerful, and so enable them to be real links betweenthose extremes of wealth and poverty proper to town life, give her great opportunities and lay upon her great obligations, which are not open in the same degree to the Dissenting ministers. He contrasted very ably the characteristics needful for the clergyman of a rural and for the clergyman of a great town parish. The rural clergyman might be a little rigid,—despotic, if he were an able and sensible man,—without hurt ; but a town clergyman should be a man of elastic intellect, "active, eager, experimental ; and perhaps it would not hurt him if he were a little impulsive. The staid solidity of a country life would not do as well in the impulsive, eager, hasty life of a town." He could not wish for a better motto for the Church in Leicester than a motto he saw written up in a large manufactory of that town,—" Elastic web." He wanted to see elasticity and movement in the methods of declaring the truths of revelation, to see a real difference between the Church of the nineteenth century and that of the centuries which had pre ceded it. If any one can throw this new spirit of elasticity and life into our Church, it will be, we thinkrsach men as Dr. Magee.

The Patriarch of Constantinople appears to be an able and intelligent man. On receiving the summons-from the Pope to the so-called (Ecumenical Council of neat Dteember, he stated to the Pope's messenger that he knew its substance from having read it in the newspapers, and that, being what it was, he must decline to receive it. If the Pope, he said, had really wished to restore union, his course should have been not to summon his equals, the various Eastern Patriarchs, but to apply to-them to know on what terms an agreement to summon such a Couneil could be arrived at, and then summon such an assembly in concert. As it was, the Pope's mere modes operandi assumed the whole point in dispute. Moreover, he thought for himself that the only mode of recovering unity would be for all parties to go back ten centuries to the creed and practice of the Church before the time of the rupture, and strike off anything added, or add anything lost, by every one of the branches since that date. As for the Council of Florence, which had overruled the Eastern views, it was an "assembly collected on political grounds, on grounds of pure worldly interest, which ended in a decision imposed for a time on some few of our Church by dint of starvation, and every kind of violence and threat by him who was then Pope. Such an assembly is not even worthy of the sacred name of 'council.'" In a word, the Patriarch of Constantinople appeared to understand the situation in every sense,—political, ecclesiastical, theological,—and the emissaries of the Pope carried back the unopened letter.

The Times is enthusiastic beyond measure to find a Patriarch who not only reads the newspapers, but owns itrind recognizes officially the information he finds there. It is a good feature, no doubt, in the head of an Oriental Church, and shows plain, straightforward sense like that of our own new Primate, but still the Times' delight in a newspaper-reading patriarch is perhaps a trifle excessive. It is a capital thing in itself, no doubt, but it is not yet quite true that God is glorified mainly by newspapers.

The telegraphic accounts from New Zealand are ver, .....d. It is said that fifty European families have been massacred by the rebellious Maories, and that one of the rebels has recurred to the traditions of cannibalism for the sake of reviving the old racehatred,—sending round a cask of potted meat made of the bodies of some of his victims. The New Zealand Government seem to be unaccountably weak and hesitating. When first the volunteers took the war in hand, they redeemed the colony from the gross mismanagement of the regular army ; but now they have relapsed into all the helpless traditions, and seem to be quite unequal to the occasion. That they will recover themselves, there can be no doubt ; but we fear that before they can do so passions will be excited which may tarn a war hitherto most humanely prosecuted on their side into a war of extermination.

The Times of Friday assures its readers that Englishmen like aristocratic institutions, great properties, primogeniture. A landed aristocracy is, it says, "a passion, almost a religion with them." Very good! then the British people, as represented in the House of Commons, will not abolish primogeniture, and the Times need not be afraid. The truth is, it is afraid, and assumes the nation's faith in order to make it believe,—a very old device. It further says, "The aristocratic sentiment is so deep in the British nature, be it English, Scotch, or Irish, that it takes several generations of town life or other ordeal to subdue the instinct in favour of country houses, parks, domains, tenantries, and humble dependents, all in association with noble names or old families." English, Scotch, and Irishmen have populated the United States, the Canadas, Australia, and New Zealand. In all they have shown the greatest dislike for primogeniture, settlements, and any laws intended to keep land in large masses. So far from the middle class thinking it just to create an eldest son, they think it the most unjust thing in the world ; and if they leave land to one, heap rent-charges on it till it is almost valueless.

Only three theatres in London North of the Thames are this year giving pantomimes, and two of those crowd out the true Harlequinade with gorgeous spectacle and ballet. The change is a curious one, and suggests that the people are growing unconsciously less childish. It is a fashion to say that grown-up people enjoy pantomime as much as the children, and if by pantomime is meant Matt. Morgan's or Mr. Beverley's scenery, that may be true, but did anybody ever meet a grown man of this generation who was not bored to death by the buffooneries of the Harlequinade ? 'The children are not, but the children don't buy tickets. Whether the pit still enjoys the red-hot poker is more doubtful, and modern managers have pretty nearly suppressed the pit.

Mr. Johnson has pardoned Mr. Jefferson Davis, Mr. Benjamin, and all the other as yet unpardoned offenders of the rebellion,— partly, no doubt, to annoy Congress,—but, from whatever motive, net unwisely. When a political offence, however grave, has remained so very long unpunished, the moment when severity can be of any use has passed, for long-deferred severity always produces the impression of injustice.

General Grant is trying to teach his countrymen the value of reticence. The other day he is reported to have said, by way -of returning thanks for his health, that his audience knew he was no speaker, knew that he did not even wish to be a speaker, knew that he thought speech-making was greatly overdone in America, and that it was his own hope to set a new example of doing more and saying less. On another occasion, when he had been called for by the crowd and had declined, one of the people shouted -out, Just two words, General,' to which the President elect replied, "No, Sir I" with a prompt courtesy that elicited a roar of laughter. Perhaps, however, General Grant would prize military reticence less, if public speaking in America had more in it of practical discussion, of real elements of conviction, and less of mere dogmatic sentence-making. Congress, whose debates have little weight,—thanks to the Constitution, which robbed 'Congress of the most instructed speakers,—has lowered the whole tone of pellWcal oratory. Compare Mr. Gladstone's Lancashire -canvas with the ablest Presidential stamping tours on record,— President Lincoln's and Mr. Douglas's in 1860,—and the comparative want of instructive detail, of practical information, in the latter, becomes at once apparent.

That everlasting Kirwee Prize-Money affair is not settled yet. Lord Palmerston agreed that it should be settled by an award of the Court of Admiralty (Dr. Lushington). Most of the money was paid, but among the prize was /200,000 in Company's paper. The India House keeps this, under an idea that the Company's debts cannot be made Company's soldiers' prize. The objection is very shabby, but there is one way out of it. Let both parties agree to submit to Sir R.. Phillimere's opinion.

A criminal of a nearly unique kind has been tried in Northern India. The Indian papers, with their usual indifference to trials not involving Europeans, publish no details ; but it appears that Ramadheen, Hindoo apparently of the Mirzapore district, took to poisoning as a relief from ennui, as a grand and exciting sort of hunt. The number of his victims is unknown, but he killed twenty-seven in a year and a half, and exhibited a particular taste for holy men -on pilgrimage, that is, according to Hindoo ideas, for the worst forms of murder he could commit. There is strong evidence, indeed proof, that a Society of Poisoners exists in India with which the Thug department has great difficulty, but Ramadheen was, it seems, an amateur.

The Archbishop of Armagh has replied to the letter of the Rev. Mr. Greer mentioned by us last week on the subject of the mob which erected the Orange flag over his church, and it seems perfectly obvious that his Grace really knew nothing about the events -of which he undertook to give the account in his letter to Mr. Gladstone. On one point only does he make good his case against Mr. Greer. It is obvious that Mr. Greer did, through his advocate, admit that he was legally wrong in refusing to celebrate the Church service for his parishioners on account of the party symbol erected over the church,—a point on which, as it was one of law only, he was probably never consulted by his advocate. As to the statement of the Archbishop that he had paid Mr. Greer's costs, it seems to have been unfounded. His Grace now admits that a bill of costs was presented to him, which he paid, and at the time supposed to be Mr. Greer's ; but he no longer asserts that they were, even in part., Mr. Greer's, though he thinks Mr. Greer might have been liable for them, "had the suit proceeded." The whole affair certainly does not redound to the credit of the Archbishop, who is evidently regarded as the favourer of the Orange party in his diocese, and even, on his own showing, palliates these insolent demonstrations of party feeling as the mere acts of "young. and thoughtless persons." year give the usual wearisome catalogues of the events of the year. The Standard alone in parts redeemed the dullness of the composition by free and pure invention. Thus, after reciting Lord Derby's illness and resignation, it went on :—" It was known that Mr. Disraeli had accepted from Her Majesty the commission to reconstruct the Government, and was at that moment Prime Minister of England. Mr. Gladstone was bitterly and intensely mortified. The rival to whom he had shown a hostility even more personal than political—with whom he had on every possible occasion put himself in collision and in contrast—had won before him the great prize which both had in view—had gained precedence of him in history and in political rank—was Premier while he had never been more than Chancellor of the Exchequer. Mr. Gladstone's mind was made up. He forgot his lesser fend with Mr. Lowe in his greater, older, fiercer feud with Mr. Disraeli, and eagerly welcomed an alliance," &c. If the Standard were Mr. Gladstone's conscience, or even his confessor, it might possibly know matters of this kind. As it is, it is hardly wise to write this sort of stuff. If it were matter about which the public could imagine that a paper might know something, it would not be so silly. But to embody violent and wild speculations in a record of the events of the year, cannot raise its reputation even with the maddest Tories.

There is a strange callousness sometimes in our police. On Saturday evening last, Hannah Saunders, wife of a respectable cab proprietor, tried to commit suicide in the Regent's Canal. The police took her out half-dead, she was shown to a surgeon, who said she might be moved, stripped to her chemise, and in that state carried to the Hackney Police Station, placed in a cold damp cell, and there left. She begged for an old coat, but the police would not give her one,—they had, however, sent for clothes,— and she died on the bare bench of the consequences of her immersion aggravated by the cold. The utter want of humanity displayed in the affair is aggravated by the fact that it was quite within police routine to have carried her to a hospital, where she would have been properly attended. She was not locked up alone, another prisoner being with her, and there seems to have been no intentional cruelty, only a dull indifference to htunanity, decency, and duty.

The Post Office appears to have got again some very careless or untrustworthy servants near London. During the last few weeks Three letters, all from the same hand, correctly addressed to us from the neighbourhood of Canterbury, (one of them containing stamps), and one letter posted, we believe, somewhere in the N.W. district, have, to the beat of our knowledge and belief, never reached this office. Complaint to the Post Office is, we suppose, useless, without anything more to go upon than evidence that letters were posted, but never received.

Owing to the more favourable intelligence from the East and the probability that the Turkish difficulty will again be postponed, the Stock Markets have presented a firm appearance this week, and prices have been on the advance. Consols closed at 921 for delivery, and 92k I for the February account. In the Foreign Market the most prominent feature is the advance in Turkish Five per Cents., which went to 39i, 40, °lithe news of thearrangements for a Conference becoming known. Russian Railway Stocks have recovered from the recent heavy depression, and most of the other changes have been favourable. The market for British Railway Stocks has ruled steady. Metropolitan Stock has been very firm, and the quotation has advanced to 104k, 5. As usual at the close of the year, the demand for money has been very active, and the rates in the open market have advanced to a par with the Bank minimum. The stock of bullion in the Bank of England is now £18,445,858; in the Bank of France, /44,305,000.