NEWS OF THE WEEK.
THE week at home has b een almost devoid of political interest. The Ministry are quietly mustering their forces to resist or shelve Mr. Stansfeld's motion, and there is an un- dercurrent of excitement in political circles which points to a coming contest, but of action there has been none. The subjects on which parties really differ are all postponed, and there is a tacit resolution not to discuss imperative questions, like Lancashire distress and Irish outrages, while they can be avoided. Indeed in the Irish matter the House snubs importunate speakers like Mr. Maguire a little too peremp- torily. Ecclesiastical questions would, during the lull, be incessantly shoved forward, as in Lord Ebury's little nibble at the Act of Uniformity, but fortunately for the peace of the country they have first to be discussed by an aristocracy, and it is difficult to drive men of the aristocratic temper into a passion about polemics. They are safe buffers for the ecclesiastical rams, and show much more excitement about highways which they can improve than about beliefs which they cannot. So the Houses having no business to do, determined to keep political questions placed in abeyance, afraid to attack social subjects, and resolved to keep down clerical squabbles, sit in a sort of contented dreariness cheerfully doing nothing. They will wake up next week on Tuesday, then display on Wednesday keen interest in the Derby, resume the debate more languidly on Thursday, and then adjourn for seven days' country air and recreation. It is a pleasant life enough for everybody, except the few who still retain a faint belief in politics, and who think that short time is just the time when sensible men would clean the machinery.
The Commissioners ordered, after the exploits of the Merrimac, to report for the second time on the necessity for fortifications, have completed their task. They decide in favour of forts. Shot they say have pierced the Warrior, and guns may be made to pierce any conceivable weight of armour which can be placed on a ship. These guns will be too heavy for vessels,and consequently they must be mounted on forts. This conclusion derives new force from the recent American news. Fort Darling has driven off, with heavy slaughter, a whole fleet of iron clad vessels, and the public who so rapidly accepted the fight in the James River as decisive will probably veer round as rapidly to the other side. The final result in all probability will be a compromise, forti- fications to defend the dockyards alone. The advocates of economy must restrict their efforts to insisting on the most efficient and cheapest form of work. The Commission declare iron almost as cheap as granite, but there is one defence which Armstrong bolts will certainly never penetrate,. and that is earth. Mr. Lincoln has issued the most menacing order yet issued against slavery. General Hunter, in the strange self- willed style peculiar to American generals, had proclaimed martial law throughout Georgia, South Carolina, and Florida, and added that in a free country martial law and slavery were incompatible. Consequently all slaves were free. His odd-looking theory was substantially just, for slavery not being an inherent status, but one created by civil law, ceased with the suspension of that law, but the Border Statesmen raved. Mr. Lincoln, therefore, annuls the General's order, but reserves the power to declare eman- cipation an incident of martial law, and pleads with the Slave States earnestly to accept his offer of compensation. His whole tone is that of a man who sees that the end is near, that abolition cannot be long delayed, and that when the hour arrives, it will be complete, final, and without com- pensation.
Lord Ebury, whose life is spent on that political equivalent of the quadrature of the circle—the discovery of some common measure between the conscience of a spiritual and secular peer—on Tuesday again failed to rub off one small but super- fluous irritatant from the fetters of the clerical conscience, and failed from the old cause. Even Lord Russell, who came to his assistance, saw that the Episcopal mind would not tolerate so great a change as was proposed,—no less than the repeal of a special declaration imposed on clergymen accept- ing benefices, that they " give their unfeigned assent and consent to all and everything contained and prescribed in and by a book entitled the Book of Common Prayer.' " There are three other carefully guarded portals, which the clergy- man must pass before this pass-word is demanded from him. At one of them the pass-word is the thirty-nine articles, at another he must repeat the three articles of the thirty-sixth canon, which assert that there is nothing in the Prayer Book contrary to the Word of God ; at the third he must re- peat his thirty-nine articles again, and add another solemn declaration. Still the postulant cannot be excused the last gate, with its tremendous assent and consent to every word in a human compilation. The Bishop of London thinks a complete suppression would be premature ; the Bishop of St. Davids thinks it would be dangerous ; the Bishop of Or- ford thinks it would be impious,—so Lord Russell persuades his noble friend that it would at least be impossible, and Lord Ebury, whose solicitations are always modest, with- draws his bill.
Mr. H. Berkeley, who, ballot-box in hand, seems to be the Parliamentary jester with his bauble, amused Parliament on Tuesday night with the dexterity with which he gained two successive victories for his favourite political sceptre. The House, expecting the usual amount of argument, and not • wishing to hear it, was remarkably thin when Mr. Berkeley got up to speak. He seized his opportunity, leaving hi& motion in the hands of the Speaker, which was seconded by Lord Fermoy in similar silence. Lord Palmerston rushed in to address the House, but the motion was already put, and on a division was carried by 33. The motion for the ballot at municipal elections, introduced with like speed, was carried with the same success by a majority of 34. The House evidently preferred the joke to the debate, especially as the division was thereby merged in the joke. Mr. Berkeley, as jester, should reconsider his advocacy of the secret ballot-box, since he can evidently juggle so much more amusingly with the visible beans.
The great Exhibition will not, it appears, after all, be a financial failure. The Commissioners, by applying unusual pressure to individual selfishness, have succeeded in making the nave a little less grotesque, the foreign contributions. have all arrived, the galleries are crowded with articles of exquisite taste, the majolica fountain is nearly complete, and the visitors have, consequently, begun at last to arrive. The attendance on several days this week has approached twenty thousand, the shilling tickets are sold in packets, and the guarantors for the first time wear cheerful faces: The num- bers of visitors will probably increase still further as the sense of disappointment with the show as a whole wears off, and men's minds, become impressed with the marvellous -extent and completeness of the collections stored within. The summer, too, promises to be tolerably dry, the Commie- sioners have repented of their preposterous edict abottt, change, visitors are at last convinced that the French re- freshment-room is not the place for food, and altogether there is every chance of crowds such as will drive all who really desire to examine into the five shilling days.
The New York Journal of Commerce, in an article affectedly moderate, threatens England with war next year. The South, it says, is bitterly sore, and the North will avenge the rescue of Messrs. Mason and Slidel. The only way for England to avoid this calamity is to change her tone, control her press, and dismiss a Ministry hostile to the Union cause. The object of all this impertinence is sufficiently clear. The Journal of Commerce is notoriously Southern at heart, and lopes, by threatening England with the vengeance of the restored Union, to induce her to try to prevent that dangerous reconstruction. The first object of the South is European intervention, the Index, its organ in London, pointing out, with comical gravity, how ." our" flag has been insulted, and "our" dignity imperilled by Federal action. Even supposing it all true, and the North as bitter as pro-Southerners represent, what has that to do with the question ? They are not going to declare war on us now, and long before they are ready they will have received a financial lesson on what war really means which will greatly lessen their ardour fora campaign to avenge themselves, be- cause we have not injured them.
The expectation of such a campaign is curiously wide- spread, and we note with pleasure that it extends to Canada. The Legislature of that colony has passed a bill appropriating one-seventh of the revenue to defence, and called out a militia force of 50,000 men, with as many more in reserve. With this force decently trained and armed, and 12,000 regular troops, the colony ought to be able to defend itself until England can bring her full strength to bear in its defence. The next task should be to supply the colony fully with all munitions of war, and then to complete the railway from Halifax to Quebec, which will make us finally indepen- dent of the St. Lawrence.
A telegram from India announces that Dost Mahomed has patched up a peace with the ruler of Herat. That is satis- factory, the more so as Lord Palmerston, on Thursday night, spoke very indefinitely as to the necessity for our interference. He did not believe there was any, but still he made much of the treaty with Persia, concluded in 1857. We are happy to be assured from Calcutta that the Indian Government has resolved neither to meddle nor make beyond the Passes, except under direct orders from home. Any Power which invades India from the North must ultimately reach the Bolan Pass, and with British troops at the Southern end, it will find itself in a cal de sac. The Government has, there- fore, convinced itself at last that it is easier for a man to shut his door than to charge the mob in the street.
The continental papers are full of stories about the Mexi- can expedition. The " inspired" journals of Paris affect to lament the departure of Spain and England, and strenuously maintain that the Emperor has always adhered to his engagements with the Allies. Meanwhile, the French corps d'armee, 7000 strong, is still marching on Mexico, appa- rently without resistance, and with it marches an individual named Mr. Paterson Bonaparte, son of Prince Jerome by his first wife, cousin of the Emperor, and a great favourite at the Tuileries. An American as well as a Frenchman, a Bonaparte and a Republican, he may possibly suit the Mexi- cans better than an Austrian Archduke.
The Roman Question remains, to all appearance, in statu quo, but there is obvious alarm in the Vatican. Removal has, it is said, been suggested to Francis the Second, and there are rumours of ultimatums. Best sign of all, the Pope appears -to be wavering, and has suggested to the Bishops and Cardinals assembled to vote the canonization, four questions implying that he must either recede or pro- ceed at once to extremities, that is, hurl the major excom- munication at the head of Victor Emanuel. As yet, how- ever, the only thing certain is that Louis Napoleon wearies greatly of a situation which makes him an object of attack to both clergy and Revolution.
War between the Relief Committee and the Guardians has breiteuz out at Preiden. It is asserted by the Relief Comaibbee that the relieving-officers at the Poor-law Guardians, backed by tapir sueeriors, re.lessly distribute orders' for the workhouse when they know that there is no room. Scores of persons, it is said, chiefly young women, go to the workhouse at night, only to find the place full, and are so left to find shelter as they can. Strong condemnations of the action of the guardians in the matter were expressed by two of the Common Councillors and -other respectable persons, and a resolution was taken to collect all the useless orders thus given during the previous fortnight. The effect of a quarrel between the Poor-law Board and the Relief Association will be to double the labour of both. A strict division of responsibility between the givers of bare neces- saries, and of anything like comforts, is essential to success. At Blackburn everything is as yet harmonious.
The agrarian outrages in Ireland are multiplying fast. Mr. Leahey recently sold a farm called Lisheens, near Cork, which was purchased by Mr. Galgey. These gentlemen and their wives have been since presented with volunteer under- takers' letters, containing designs for coffins and cross-bone superscriptions. Mr. Galgey was warned, and fired at, when he went to take possession of the land he had bought. The suspected threateners are the O'Connell family, former tenants, all the letters asserting that a reckoning with Mr. O'Connell is inevitable. The Miss O'Connells have been profuse in maledictions, one of them kneeling on the land which Mr. Galgey had bought, and invoking loudly on the grass and the corn, on Mr. Galgev and his children, the wrath of Heaven. In Donegal, the bailiff on the Panel estate of Mr. Norman, of Faheen, has been murdered ; • his predecessor having been murdered some years ago. It is clear that. the Irish peasant will not believe in absolute property in land, and does believe that both customary rights and curses cleave to, and run with, the land.
The Master of the Rolls has given judgment in the case of the trustees to whom real property was left for the propaga- tion of the views of Joanna Southcote. The devise was contested on two grounds : First, that if otherwise legiti- mate it would, as real property, be voided by the statute of mortmain; secondly, that it was for an illegitimate and immoral object, and therefore, in itself, null and void. Sir John Romilly dealt with the last matter first. He had pe- rused, be said, the works of this prophetess, and did not find them fundamentally immoral. She believed that she should become the medium of a miraculous conception, but the mere anticipation could scarcely be called subversive of morality ; nor did her writings contain much on this delusive anticipation. For the rest they were pious and weak. The Master of the Rolls could not have declined on the score of immorality to affirm the devise. On the second ground, however, he conceived the devise to be null and void by the statutes of mortmain as it was given out of real property. The prophetess is justified ; but her sect, if there still be one, are not the less the losers by the decision.
We are glad to observe the number and importance of the Belgian papers likely to be read and discussed at the forthcoming meetings on Social Science in London. Amongst them is a paper on Mutual Aid Societies, their number and progress, by M. T'Kint-de-Naeyer, Vice-President of the Permanent Commission of the Societe de Secours Mutuels in Belgium : again, an Inquiry into the Condition of Philan- throphic institutions (now being made officially) by M. Ch. Faider, premier Avocat-General in the Court of Cessation ; on the Division of Estates, by M. Henachling, head of the Sta- tistical Division of the Ministry of the Interior ; a paper on Provident Banks for Miners, by M. Auguste Vischers, Mem- ber of the Council of Mines ; on the Crisis of the Cotton Trade at Ghent, and the Position of the Working Class, by M. Rolin Jacquemyns, barrister, of Ghent ; a paper on Ap- prentice Workshops in Flanders, by M. de Graef, Provincial Registrar at Ghent ; a paper on Industrial Schools at Ghent by M. Loppens ; and on Mutual Credit. Societies in Belgium by M. Hank.
A curious literary deception has, it is said, been practised in a London College on the learned professors of that insti- tution. A student discovered suddenly a new autograph of BunTau.'s. It was a, letter addressed to a, customer, a Mr. Oldham, concerning some kettle that Bunyan had under- taken to mend for him. The autograph was prepared with coffee and other devices to make the writing look old. It was received with enthusiasm, connoisseurs remarking that hitherto Bunyan's tinkering had rested on insecure popular rumour, and on no adequate evidence. One learned pro- fessor even wrote a monograph on the Mr. Oldham to whom the letter was addressed. Such is history. The youth him- self, who has the merit of the discovery, conscious of the coffee and the very moderate amount of intellect to which he is indebted for this curious antiquity, trembles doubtless at the greatness of his success.
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