NEWS OF THE WEEK.
MAGDALA has fallen ; King Theodore is dead ; the prisoners have been released ; and the British Army is returning. This was the pleasant intelligence announced in Paris on Sunday, in England on Monday, and confirmed by Mr. Disraeli on Monday evening in a short speech in which he described the "feat of arms as one unparalleled for completeness and precision," and Sir Robert Napier as " that great leader," and promised a further communi- cation when Government had been more fully informed. As yet the India House has only received telegrams, which, however, show that Theodore attacked the British Army on Good Friday, the 10th of April, and was driven back with heavy loss to himself and only a few wounded on our aide. On Saturday and Sunday Theodore sent in all his European prisoners, but the British Gene- ral, doubtless to keep a promise made to his native allies, demanded that the King should surrender himself into our hands. The King, though deserted by the majority of his soldiers, refused, and on the 13th of April Magdala was carried by storm in the teeth of a furious resistance from a few of the despot's more devoted adherents. Theodore was either killed or, as his two sons affirm, shot himself, and Abyssinia lay at the disposal of the British. The orders for its evacuation have, however, been issued, and it is calculated that by the 30th of May the Army may be afloat, having achieved every object for which it was organized without the loss of one man killed in action, with little or no loss by disease, and without a blunder worthy of record.
