NEWS OF THE WEEK.

THE election of M. niers for the second division of Paris, which is believed to be certain, has put M. de Persigny beside himself. He has actually placarded an address to the electors in favour of M. Devinck, the chocolate-maker, in which he asserts that the "illustrious historian" desires "the re-estab- lishment of a regim which has been fatal to France and to himself----of a re'gime flattering to the vanity of a few, and disastrous for the welfare of all—which removes authority from its natural basis to throw it as food for the passions of the tribune—which replaces the fruitful movement of action by the sterile agitation of harangues—which for eighteen years produced only impotence at home and weakness -abroad, and which, having commenced in street disturbance, continued amid the noise of such disturbance, and ended in in- surrection." A. very clever sentence, but Governments should never write too well. The electors, most of them Orleanist bourgeoisie, are irritated, and. the seat is safe, while the wits of Paris declare that M. Thiers has stamped his name upon history, M. Devinck only on chocolate.

Parliament re-assembled on Thursday, and the House of Commons discussed the Churchward case. Mr. Walpole made a motion which, stripped of technicalities, meant that the decision of the Committee which had reported that "Mr. Churchward's contract was, on his part, a corrupt one," should be annulled. This view was supported chiefly on the matter of form, it being unusual for the House to dictate the specific use to be made of any vote in supply; but Mr. Glad- stone proved that the vote, though unusual, was not without precedent, and the House, by a vote of 205 to 191, affirmed the view taken by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Mr. Churehward, therefore, has lost his contract; but a better system is still wanted to prevent individual members from interesting themselves in screwing the Treasury.

Mr. Goschen has been accepted as the Liberal candidate for the City of London, and will, it appears, be elected. The choice does the City credit, the metropolitan borough being the first to break up the bad system so prevalent in the great towns of sending to the House only middle-aged medio- crities. If that system lasts much longer, Government must be handed. over theoretically, as it now is practically, to the Peers, and the Lower House need not retain even the talking automa- tons who now represent the Executive within its walls. We trust, however, that other boroughs, with the City example before them, will pluck up courage to defy the sort of church- warden dictatorship under which they are apt to groan. Mr. Goschen's address is that of a staunch Liberal, who is not afraid of reform, who will support a free foreign policy, and, while adhering to the Church of England, aid to reform her. We only regret that he.should have accepted the absurd idea that the privileges of the City—which are privileges and not rights —are bound up with the great question of self-government. As well might Convocation assert it was essential to the Church of England.

Lord Palmerston has not come up to the meeting of Parlia- ment, and it is rumoured has been ill—seriously—these three days.

We have ascertained that the retention of Lieutenant- General Cameron, in the command at New Zealand, was not determined upon by the Secretary of State for War in oppo- sition to the wishes of the Commander-in-Chief, as intimated by a usually accurate military contemporary. The decision to which Lord de Grey has come in the matter, with the cordial concurrence of the Colonial Secretary, might better be described as a return to the arrangement originally advo- cated by the Duke of Cambridge, instead of as a step taken ia opposition to his views. The Commander-in-Chief has always been favourable to the retention of the Lieutenant-General in the New Zealand command.

Early on the 11th of November last the cart of a man named Fuller was seen standing in the road against a planta- tion belonging to a Mr. Birch. At three o'clock in the after- noon a policeman met Fuller in the Thetford road, and asked him if he had any game. Ile replied, "Two or three rabbits." In his cart were found four rabbits, a hare, and a partridge. The magistrates convicted him of having "obtained such game by unlawfully going on thel and of Mr. Birch in search of game." The Court of Queen's Bench held on appeal that they could not say there were no facts from which to draw this conclu- sion, and that the new Poaching Act had given magistrates the power to draw such an inference; and that, therefore, though they thought the facts insufficient to justify the con- clusion, the conviction must stand. Game-preserving magis- trates are authorized by law to draw untenable conclusions, and fine Englishmen by virtue of them. This is lawlessness legalized.

The dogs at Islington are in greater force and finer con- dition than ever. The Duke of Beaufort's foxhounds are there, this time in admirable order and beauty, being assembled in. a large laced-wire pavilion of their own, where they are pre- served from all undue excitement and the assiduities of visitors. The larger hounds stand up with great dignity on a kind of dais within the pavilion, which they evidently regard as their own rightful station, whence now and then one of them condescends to come down and mix with the common pack for a few minutes, but soon returns to the raised platform with his peers. There they stand, contemplatively wagging their tails at the deers below. The Prince of Wales's harriers are also very graceeul creatures, and there is a magnificent show of the Scotch deerhounds—the true nobles of the canine species. There is one very fine and formidable American slavehound,—dark, menacing, fatal,—and Cuban bloodhounds used for the same purpose, but appearine.e' comparatively inoffensive. The only intellectual idea which appears to be anxiously impressed on the minds of the dogs, is the same so intimately associated with the splashboareof the Hansom cabs, namely, Mappin's razors, the announcement of which has evidently more novelty for the dogs than for their masters. We saw a saga- cious pointer much impressed by the importance of the placard, and engaged in mastering the direction with an evident inten- tion to shave.

Mr. Roebuck made on Tuesday an open-air harangue, to prove to the inhabitants of Sheffield that we ought at once to acknowledge the South. Mr. Roebuck thought it would not lead to a war with America, and would lead to a peace in America; but if it did lead to war with America, it would lead to cotton too, and would therefore be good. The speech, which wehave elsewhere examined, was spasmodic, exceedingly poor, and much interrupted, and after he had done the clergy Mr. Bernal Osborne has been amusing his constituents at Liskeard with a sort of comic Parliamentary chronicle of the last two years. He praised the Revised Code, eulo- gized Mr. Gladstone, and found fault with the general absence of political work in Parliament, but the serious work of his speech was devoted to jokes. The House of Commons had become an Agapemone—an abode of love ; the Government was like Mrs. jellaby in Dickens's story, benevolently pre- paring flannel waistcoats for Italian constitutions, and neg- lecting the wants of constitutional sufferers at home. The Tories were extinct, or, if not, still extant in the red sandstone of Devon ; perhaps the Abbeville jaw-bone might have been the jaw-bone of an aboriginal Tory. The Whigs, "pure, but not simple," were also extinct. A few, possibly, still existed in the House of Lords—political Dodos, without either wings or tail. Mr. Osborne is great on the subject of non-intervention. He does not approve at all of putting a finger into the Polish and Italian "pies," as he facetiously expresses it, "to the neglect of our English roast beef,"—by which he means, apparently, refusing to ex- tend the suffrage. The simile is, no doubt, a delicate com- pliment to our British Constitution, which Mr. Osborne likens to the joint, while the new Continental ones are mere entrées; but Mr. Osborne's imagination runs wild with him when he touches the subject of food, or he must really wish to depre- cate reform when he likens it to fingering roast beef ;—which suggests unpleasant ideas of unduly rich gravy.

Miss Rye has arrived in Otago, New Zealand, with her first batch of female emigrants, has provided for almost all, and has written a long account of her experiences. She says the arrangements in emigrant ships are such that she believes the tales of fearful immoralities on board them to be too true, so true that she would almost ask for Government supervision. At Dunedin the immigration barracks are infamous. They were, when she wrote (16th March), full of women, and the Government had placed a body of mounted police in the building, with what consequences may be imagined. Every girl does as she likes as to ingress and egress, there is no con- trol, and "a more discreditable place does not exist under the sun," illegitimate children being already come, and coming, while the attics are occupied by women of the town. This evil can be, and ought to be, remedied at once, though Miss Rye will find that, as she cannot imprison grown women, nothing but their own principles will protect them ; but the immorali- ties on board ship are more difficult of prevention ; official inspection is no use, for quis custodiet ipsos custodes, and there must be sailors, and officers, and doctors on board. The only perfect remedy, we fear, is either to send the women out in such small batches that supervision is possible ; or to man ships expressly for the business, choosing only married officers, and paying their wives to accompany them ; or to select only emigrants who can be relied on when away from the control of home opinion. The fault is not so exclusively with the officers as Miss Rye seems to imagine. The writer could name a surgeon to a female emigrant ship who was persecuted nearly out of his commission, because an engagement at home kept him decently correct.

There never was a great cause committed to men so incom- petent as those who bear rule in the Northern States. Mr. Vallandigham, Senator for Ohio, is, it is well known, an ultra-Democrat, and probably a secret sympathizer with the South. He recently made a speech at Dayton denouncing the war, deprecating its continuance, and denying its success. He called it a war for releasing blacks and enslaving whites, but urged his audience not to resist the laws. For this General Burnside has had him arrested by soldiers, tried by court-martial, and sentenced to two years' transportation to the Dry Tortugas. The President has confirmed the con- viction, but diminished the punishment to banishment to the South. A more illegal act of violence was never perpetrated. A court-martial has about as much right to try civilians in Ohio as in London, and banishment is not a sentence known to any kind of American law. Mr. Vallan.digham had as much right to oppose the war as Mr. Seward to promote it, and as a member of Congress his officially recognized duty was to tell• his constituents his honest opinion. In England such an act would have been instantly met by the dismissal of the South, and a Wesleyan, the Rev. J. Guttridge, moving an amendment in favour of neutrality. The Unitarian and Mr. ' Roebuck carried the day, a large majority of the ten thou- sand preferring to interfere on behalf of the slave-power. took up the battle ; a Unitarian Minister, the Rev. J. Minister at War who advised the confirmation of the verdi Page Hopps, moving the resolution to acknowledge the but the American Constitution is so devised that the Executia have all power, no permanency, and no responsibility.

The news of the week from America is of slight import- ance. The retreat over the Rappahannock has been received without depression, and General Hooker has issued a general order which almost claims the victory. "By fighting at a. disadvantage, we would," he says, "have been recreant to our trust, to ourselves, to our cause, and to our country," and he therefore retreated, but not till he had "taken from the enemy 5,000 prisoners and fifteen colours, captured seven pieces of artillery, and placed hors de combat 18,000 of the foe's chosen troops, destroyed his depots, filled with vast amounts of stores, damaged his communications, captured prisoners within the fortifications of his capital, and filled his country with fear and consternation." Generals in command should not employ Irishmen to write their bulletins. They can be modest for themselves, but not for other people. This. bulletin is nearly as full of inverted facts as if it had been written by a Napoleon.

The facts recently detailed in the Spectator as to the organi- zation of the secret Government of Poland have been confirmed by the special correspondent of the Times. He says it has- officers all over Poland, and a national police, transmits- itx orders by telegraph, though that is in Russian hands, and levies the taxes, which the regular Government is quite unable to collect. Three Jews offered to buy some plundered property, and paid up part of the purchase-money, but the Committee forbade the transaction, and they were compelled. to yield. The Russian Government has nominated M. Laski Director of the Bank of Warsaw, but the National Government have ordered him not to sit. They have, more- over, annulled the contract between the Government and Sir- Morton Peto for supplying Warsaw with water-works, and the writer believes the contractors will consequently find it impossible to execute it. The Archduke cannot cope with a power which every Pole is bound to obey, which issues six. newspapers in Warsaw, and has recently ordered all absentee landholders to return at once to their estates. They are, moreover, carefully protecting the peasantry, and it is said_ that this class are at last turning towards the Revolution.

The Prussian struggle has ended in a truly Prussian way. Finding that the Chamber would not give way, the King sent down a message stating that their claim to exercise discipline over the Ministers was illegal, and compromised the dignity of his Crown. The members, nothing daunted, responded by an address, in which they re-assert their right, declare the conduct of the Ministry unconstitutional, and once more fulfil their conscientious duty by "declaring to your Majesty, with the profoundest respect, that the House or Deputies has no means left of coming to an understanding with this Ministry, and that it refuses its co-operation with the present policy of the Government. Every fresh trans- action does but confirm it in the persuasion that, between the counsellors of the Crown and the country there exists a chasm which cannot be filled up otherwise than by a change of persons, and still more by a change of system." The in g received the address, and replied on the .27th May by a decree in which he threatens that, if in case of war, the Chamber re- fuses supplies, "he will seriously oppose such unjustifiable efforts to extend the constitutional rights of the members," and prorogues the Chamber. He, however, strikes no coup d' etat, but hopes for a better understanding; and so the quarrel goes on without ever coming to a head.

A telegram from Copenhagen informs us that the difficulties which impeded the settlement of the Greek question are settled. Prince William accepts the throne for himself and his descendants. So the Greeks have at last a king, till the next hitch.

The annual meeting of the British and Foreign Anti- Slavery Society was held on Saturday, but without Lord Brougham. His lordship, it appears, considers that to act as chairman to a meeting held to condemn slavery would be "to depart from that strict neutrality which, in England, ought to be maintained in regard to events taking place in America." Murders are taking place there—are we not to condemn murder for fear of breaking our neutrality ? The cause, however, regained an old adherent. Mr. C. Buxton has convinced him- self, we are happy to see, that the decree of emancipation has not produced a servile war, and is, therefore, once again the friend of the slave. He even ventured to say that, with the ,aperation of the American Government, they might hope in few years to see the abolition of slavery throughout the world. We welcome the member for Maidstone back to the only position worthy of his name, but we would ask him one question. If Poles have a right to rebel because they were kidnapped for soldiers—a proposition he has supported in the House—why have not Degrees who are kidnapped in order to do much harder work ?

It is to be hoped that the Royal Commission on the subject of army prize, for which Colonel North is to move on the 23rd of June, will be granted without opposition. We are, at the present day, not merely a maritime but a military nation, and the protection which Parliament has given, through the medium of the Court of Admiralty, to those who make captures at sea, ought undoubtedly to be extended to army prize. The prize-money of our soldiers should be quite as sacred as the spoil taken by our frigates, and it is impossible to understand why law and precedent should determine the latter class of claims and not the former. But if military booty is to be distributed simply by the exercise of the royal prerogative, it must still be borne in mind that the Crown is, in this case, merely dispensing a public trust, and it is much to be desired that some fixed rules and principles of distribu- tion similar to those which are recognized in the Court of Admiralty, should be laid down by competent authority. Rules are even more wanted in the army than the fleet. Prize stops plunder, and plunder ruins discipline.

Victor Emanuel opened the second Italian Parliament on the 25th May, in a manly and able speech. After a touching reference to Cavour, the "illustrious man who was so power- ful an aid in the work of regeneration," the marriage of his daughter, and sundry commercial treaties, including one about to be arranged with Great Britain, he referred to the organization of the new army, "remarkable for an equal valour, an equal discipline" with that of the Subalpine king- dom, and a navy "which would not fail to keep pace with the progress of the army." His "most fervent wish was that the nation should securely rely on the strength of its own armaments, and that the whole of Europe should acknow- ledge this reliance." "Freedom," he continued, "every- where exhibits its wonted results—order and well-being," the "locomotive has crossed the Trento," and the great duty now is the finances. For if "the capital of Europe flowed freely in obedience to our call, trusting the new order of things which has been established among us, it is a debt of honour on our part to meet such confidence with ready sacri- fices." For himself, "secure and unterrified (impavido), he hastened with firm faith the fulfilment of the destinies of Italy." The speech was received with deep feeling, and a sentence in which the King observed that "France acknow- ledged the opportunity of military arrangements for the sup- pression of brigandage, and was ready to act with Italy," has created some excitement in Paris.

It is reported that the Papacy has felt the emotion of shame.

s. Orders, it is confidently affirmed, will be issued to dissever the Roman Government from any farther connection with brigandage, and it is said that Padre Curci, whose sermon, when quoted by Lord Palmerston, so smashed poor Sir G. Bowyer, had received 'orders from the Vatican. The report needs confirmation, but Jesuit priests do not often preach unpleasant things without orders.

The Times calls attention to the case of the family of the late Sir R. Inglis, He defended Lucknow, but, surviving the siege, was rewarded with a regiment and the command at Corfu. Unfortunately he died too soon to make any provi- sion for his family, and his widow, daughter of Lord Chelms- ford, only receives a widow's pension of 140/. a year. It is contended that as the widow and son of Sir H. Havelock received each 1,000/. a year, and Sir W. Williams the same sum for the defence of Kars, Lady Inglis should be placed in the same position.

Mr. T. Hughes repudiates our statement that he is the soul of the Working Men's Club and Institute Union. Very good, we will alter it. He is only its Vice-President and most ardent supporter, whose name excites the confidence of the workmen to such a degree, that by the last report of the society, the mere announcement that he was to speak in favour of a club for Faningdon of itself overcame apparently invincible local obstacles. If anybody else thinks he is the soul, we recommend him to content himself with being the brain. ! The case of Captain Melville White, of the Madras En- gineers, whose treatment by the Peruvian Government was too diseusting and horrible for us to detail, will be brought before the House of Commons next week. This gentleman, who is well known to high Indian officials, and has strong testimonials from many of them, amongst others from Sir F. Halliday, the late Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, for his services during the mutiny, was seized on the 23rd March, 1861, on the pier at Callao, and imprisoned for nine months and seventeen days without a trial of any kind, under a charge which the Peruvian Government have admitted to be wholly groundless. He was not only causelessly confined during this time, but wounded and pricked with bayonets, imprisoned in the foulest and most loathsome places, obliged to lie down among human excrement, kept without food for days together, and all without any exertion on. the part of the English Consul, Mr. John Barton, who cer- tainly seems to have done absolutely less than the French Charge d'Affaires to vindicate the honour of the English flag. None of the circumstances of the case appear to be either disputable or disputed, and the only question that can arise will concern the amount of compensation to be demanded. The law officers of the Crown suggested four thousand five hundred pounds as a suitable compensation,—which, considering that Captain White lost a most valuable contract offered to him by the Ecuadorian Government, the value of which he estimated at twenty thousand pounds, by this infamous treatment, besides losing his health and seriously impairing his eyesight, certainly seems very small. Captain White's statement of his own case is naturally enough couched in a very excited tone—such injuries are exciting—but the French Government have demanded as much as 2001. per diem compensation for the unjust imprisonment of a French subject, Zuderel, during only twenty days ; and another, a cooper, Ross, was hand- somely compensated by 1,600/. for two blows with the fist. At this rate, Captain White's compensation should certainly be enormous ; and though our Government will scarcely be willing to take unreasonable French exactions as its model, it would be a premium on crime to let the Peruvian Govern- ment off for its intentional wickedness for such a sum as that.

Lord Nelson's anagram, "Honor est a Nib," may now be taken by the African travellers Speke and Grant. We men- tioned last week that they had discovered the sources of the White Nile in the Lake Victoria Nyanza, whose northern boundary is on the equator. Their journals have been received, and they themselves will probably be in England before the Geographical Society's last meeting for the session on the 8th June. In any case, Sir Roderick Murchison is empowered to call a special meeting to hear their narrative from their own mouths. They have lived for a year in three neg,ro kingdoms, of which the first and most southerly (on the S.W. coast of the Nyanza Lake) was intelligent and corn paratively civilized, but the third, bounded on the east by the Nile, just after it has issued from the lake, a kingdom of naked savages, supposed to be the man-eaters of Herodotus. Instead of fattening to eat, however, the King appears now to fatten only from a kind of scientific curiosity in the problems of gravitation. His object is to fatten his wives and children till the line from their centre of gravity comes to fall inevit- ably without the base, when, of course, an erect posture be- comes impossible, and their locomotion resembles, we suppose, that of a rolling cylinder. Messrs. Speke and Grant, how- ever, escaped the experiment, and are on their way to con- vince us that the most unapproachable spot in the world, except the tworoles, is also one which no one would, from any merits of its own, be anxious to approach.

Mr. Henry Fawcett is a candidate for the Political Eco- nomy Chair at Cambridge, and we should think no better candidate is at all likely to offer himself. The manual which he has recently published, and which we noticed in these columns, places him among the most comprehensive and lucid of English economists.

Consols are 921931 for transfer, and at 921 921 ex div. for account. The New Threes and Reduced are 911 911. India Five per Cent. Loan is 1101 ; and the Enfaced Paper, 1061. Turkish Six per Cents., 1862, are 721 72t; ditto, Consolides, 52* 52k; Greek 33* 33k; Spanish Passive, 33i 34*; ditto, Certificates, 121 12*;' Dutch, 651. Mexican, 351 35k; and the Conf. Loan 2 to 1 dis. The European Assurance Society have presented their report for 1862, from which it appears that the revenue from new policies has been 14,4761., the premium revenu (133,163/., the balance of receipts over expenses 31,1171., and the increase in the society's assets 67,4611.