NEWS OF THE WEEK.

THERE has been a lull in politics this week—unusual even at this dull season. No one has said anything except Mr. Roebuck, who has said -exceedingly little, and Mr. Stansfeld, who has been very imperfectly reported, no intelligence of any moment has arrived from America, the quarrel in Germany is becoming as tiresome as German politics usually are, and the Genevan riots have ended in a resolution to submit the dispute to the arbitration of the Federal Council. Murders have been frequent and suicides many, but the murders have been of the stupidly inartistic kind, and the suicides are only interesting from the evident annoyance of the magistrates that they cannot levy fines on the other side of the grave. The London papers are reduced to articles on drought, laudanum, and Austrian tariffs, and provincial editors have visible difficulty in keeping the "gigantic gooseberry" out of ' their columns. There is dullness everywhere, a torpor so great that to judge by analogies next week ought to be marked by some sudden and furious squall.

The Genevan riots were much more serious than at first appeared. According to an official report from the State Council they com- menced in this wise :—An election was held on Sunday week to fill a vacancy in the State Council, when it was found that M. Chene- viere, the candidate favoured by the Conservatives, had 5,677 votes, and M. James Fazy, the Radical favourite, only 5,351. There- upon the electoral bureau, which is Radical, declared the election invalid. The Conservatives, excessively irritated, called on the State Council to upset this decision, which it had not the power, or apparently the will to do, and then marched in immense masses unarmed to proclaim M. Cheneviere. The Radicals of the Faubourg St. Gervais thereupon turned out armed and fired upon the Conservatives, killing some twenty per- sons. The Conservatives thereupon armed, and the Council after a vain effort to conciliate both parties applied to the Federal Govern- ment for troops. They were sent, and have hitherto maintained order, amidst which the Federal Council, acting not from any legal power but as arbiters, have declared M. Cheneviere's election valid.

We have of course no news as yet of the action taken by the Democratic Convention at Chicago which was to open on the 27th August last. The candidates discussed in America were first, Gene- ral M'Clellan, the favourite of the War Democrats,—then, Governor Seymour of New York, whose special cry would be "Resistance to the draft and arbitrary arrests," and hostility to New England,— Mr. Dean Richmond, whose strength is in the railway interests, and who is said to be a very decided War Democrat, but who is not likely to stand,—General Dix, the best of the Democrats, who recently protested against the seizure of the New York World, but who is as strong for war as Mr. Lincoln,—and finally, Ex-Presi- dent Franklin Pierce, who at present supports M'Clellan in the hope that if M'Clellan fails M'Clellan's friends may support him. The only policy of his presidency was truckling to the South. But probably all or any of these candidates would welcome back Slave States into the Union, and guarantee them slavery, the only cause of the war,— a policy as blind as it is infamous. Finally, London Secessionists rumour that General Buell, the greatest of the military failures of the North, except General Pope, who has for two years been without active service, and who has just resigned his commission, as he says, because be disapproves of Mr. Lincoln's policy, as others say, because he hopes for the nomi- nation at Chicago, will be nominated on the platform of agreeing to an armistice and a convention of all the States, both North and South, to see what can be done in the way of an arrange- ment,—a step probably equivalent to granting the South independ- ence and of course slavery also. The Times correspondent from Chicago is even disposed to think Mr. Lincoln might be induced to accept the platform of "armistice and a convention" without further conditions. If he does he consents to sacrifice all that he has fought for. The South may be defeated 'low, but a war sus- pended for six months could scarcely be resumed.

The military news from America is not of great moment. The Confederate General Early has been largely reinforced in the Shenandoah Valley, and as a consequence General Sheridan after occupying Strasburg retreated first to Winchester and then to Berryville, aftei a few trifling engagements between the outposts, in the first of which he was successful and the second unsuccessful. General Grant had made a successful demonstration north of the James River on the 16th, which was meant, however, to withdraw Confederate troops from Petersburg, for on the 18th he again sent General Warren with the Second and Ninth Corps to re-occupy Reams station on the Weldon railroad. The Times telegram for once gives a report more favourable to the Federals than M. Reuter. On the 10th, says the former, the Confederates attempted to dislodge Warren, but failed. M. Reuter says that they succeeded at first, but that the Federals afterwards regained the lost ground, and that fighting was still going on. From Mobile and Atlanta there was no later news of any moment except that the siege of Fort Morgan at Mobile by the Federal troops and gunboats had begun.

Dr. Alfred Taylor, commissioned by the Privy Council, has sent in a report on the means of committing murder by poison which are allowed to exist in England. He says that poison enough to kill two adults can be purchased anywhere for threepence, and that the careless dispensing of poisonous drugs is the cause of most frightful accidents. As to laudanum, it appears to be sold whole- sale, single shops often in the Marshland supplying three or four hundred customers every Saturday night. Retail druggists often dispense 200 lbs. in one year, and one man complained that his wife had consumed 100/. in opium since he married. It is a mistake to consider the practice confined to the marshy districts. We do not believe there is a town in England where some one chemist'does not on Saturday night load his counter with little bottles of laudanum, and we were assured by a wholesale drug- dealer that he could and did sell it in the eastern counties to the extent of some thousands of pounds' weight in a year. This gentle- man, au old and keen observer, declared that the demand had sprung up shortly after the introduction of teetotalism, and that it wouldbe found to vary everywhere in accordance with the pro- gress or decline of the system of total abstinence.

The cutlers held their annual feast at Sheffield on September 1, when Mr. Roebuck made an odd speech upon the qualifications of a legislator. A member of Parliament, he said, represented all England, and influenced the whole world, and to be a good mem- ber a man must have knowledge, honesty, and courage. Courage was especially necessary, ' there were buzzing flies not simply bred in dirt, but nurtured in dirt, whose only object was to be uncom- fortable to cleanly people." Mr. Roebuck hint-d, though he did not exactly say, that his mission had been to kill those flies—at least we can discover no other object in a speech which, as reported by telegraph, is almost meaningless. Sir F. Crossley followed with a speech deprecating interference in America, and declaring his belief that slavery was the cause of the civil war, a belief received with some expressions of dissent.

Another frightful tragedy is reported from the Chinese seas. Tlie brig Louisa was on 30th May off the coast of Hainan, when she was attacked by a Macao junk, and the Malay crew after fighting gallantly till their only cannon burst jumped overboard.

The pirates then came on board and cut off the captain's hand, and commenced cutting off his toes, to make him confess where hie money was. At last the captain jumped overboard, but after a determined effort for life,—said to have lasted four hours, which is incredible,--sank from fatigue and loss of blood. The mate was already dead, and the gunner having thrown his wife and child overboard jumped after them with a plank, and kept them and himself afloat till he was picked up by another vessel. The Chinese then tied the bands of the captain's son, threw him into the sea, and fired the vessel, which was seen burning by the crew of the Young Greek. They picked up the gunner and his wife, and rescued the Chinese cook and a passenger, the only survivors of all who were on board the ill-fated vessel. The murderers slipped away, whither is not yet known.

The Catholic Congress was opened at Malines on the Slat August by the Cardinal Archbishop of Malines, and was attended by more than 4,000 persons. The Pope's name was received with cries not only for his spiritual but for his temporal sovereignty. " Vire Pio None Vice is Pape Roil" Baron Gerlach was chosen President, and proceeded immediately to dilate on the divine miracle which unites in the Papacy "so much force and so much weakness.' "God willed it so, gentlemen, to show that all this force comes from Him,"—an argument which would tell with still more effect if the Pope would but give up his secular dominion altogether, and show us that all his force is spiritual,—or rather ecclesiastical, which is sometimes very different indeed from spiritual. "The Papacy," said Baron Gerlach, "forgets injuries and responds only by acts of beneficence," and quoted as an ex- ample Pius VIL's intercession for Napoleon at St. Helena :— "Religion alone, gentlemen, can raise souls so high.' Would it not be an act of greater magnanimity to respond by some "acts of beneficence" to the present King of Italy ? It does not require much to make a certainly vain intercession for an utterly fallen foe. We suspect it would be truer to say that the Papacy is often politic enough to ignore injuries, but never forgets them.

Dr. Goss, the Roman Catholic Bishop of Liverpool, laid the foundation-stone of a new Catholic chapel at Buxton, near Preston, last Sunday, and made a speech on the occasion, in which he dis- -claimed that worship of the cross and images of the saints which popular Protestantism ascribes to the Roman Catholics. He -asserted also the genuine loyalty of the Roman Catholics to the Throne, maintaining that loyalty was a Catholic virtue, and in- stancing their loyalty to the Stuarts, from whom they had never, he says, received any outward advantages. He denied that their loyalty or disloyalty was a mere question of religion,—ft was a question of national feeling. No doubt it often is so, and we at least have no wish to question it ; but no good Catholic would deny that with him the prospect of gaining over a new nation to his Church or preventing its falling away would always outweigh the duty of • loyalty to existing dynasties or institutions. The Roman Church is a polity as well as a church, and necessarily therefore comes more into competition with political duties than any other. He went on to deny that Protestantism had anything to do with the greatness of England,—aseribing her rapid rise in the scale of nations to coal, iron, and cotton. Perhaps he is partly right, yet even Dr. Newman, we believe, admits that the English character is naturally averse to the subjugating claims of the Catholic Church, and that in the secret of that aversion lies a great part of its secular force. He concluded his speech with a fling at Democratic despotisms and Abraham Lincoln,—the first public intimation, we think, of a Roman Catholic preference for the cause of slavery.

The new Confederate cruiser the Tallahassee has committed dreadful ravages among the commercial marine of the North. She is an iron steamer, schooner-rigged, of English build, a very long and narrow vessel, with a crew of about 100 men, and carries one pivot gun, three forward guns, and a brass rifled gun of large calibre on the hurricane deck. Her commander, John Taylor Wood, says she can steam 16 knots an hoar, and has crossed the English Channel, 21 miles, in 72 minutes. He boasted that within a week he had destroyed 50 vessels. He remarked casually that as his ship was very fast he preferred not to fight but rather to run. On 19th August, while coaling at Halifax, the Tallahassee was ordered away by the English Admiral Hope, and left steering eastwards on the 20th August with coal for a few days only.

Mr. James Aytoun, in a recent pamphlet on "Real Reform and Sham Reform," appears to have made a charge against Mr.

H. F. Berkeley, the well-known leader of the Ballotites in the Home of Commons, of being insincere in his advocacy of secret voting, nay, of being really opposed to it, and of bringing forward his motion only "for the purpose of humbugging and gulling a number of stupid constituencies, and -preserving the seats of those constituencies to a number of servile supporters of the Govern- ment who would be sorry to see the ballot established." When challenged by Mr. Berkeley, and desired to withdraw this libellous statement, he did so, only putting in as proof that Mr. Berkeley and his ballot council had recommended the electors of London in the election of 1859 to waive the point, and support Lord John Russell in spite of his being a known foe to the ballot. Mr. Aytoun appears to have shown about as much notion of evidence as Mr. Kingsley in bringing his charge againt Dr. New- man. Mr. Berkeley prefers securing a Liberal candidate without a new vote for the ballot to securing a Conservative candidate with or without one,—therefore he is not sincere in advocating it. Probably Mr. Aytoun would prefer life without the ballot to death with or without it. Would he therefore be insincere in saying that he valued the ballot? Mr. Berkeley's pet political hobby is an ignoble one, but no doubt genuine enough.

Sir Charles Trevelyan agrees with Sir Charles Wood upon the subject of Indian currency, and from Christmas next the sovereign is to be received in all treasuries at its par value of lOrs. As its market value varies from 3d. to 14d. above par it is not easy to see why people should prefer to pay their debts in a coin so dear, but the merchants of Calcutta seem to imagine that the change will really relieve the money market. They base this impression, we presume, either upon the idea that it will cost them less to pay their contracts in dear coin, than to wait for weeks before they can get the cheaper sort, or that a large importation of sovereigns will send the coin down to par. We doubt if it will, as the advantage of easy carriage must always make a sovereign hi India worth more than its silver equivalent.

Mr. E. J. Goodman complains to the Times of a grievance. It appears that his brother, Mr. W. Goodman, on a visit to Cuba, went on 25th June accompanied by a Cuban friend to see the Morro, an ancient fortress near Santiago. They wandered about, and wished they could take sketches, but took none, and on their way home were arrested by order of the Commandant, thrown into a dirty cell, and there kept without food or drink other than bad coffee till the next morning. They were then tied with cords, marched to Santiago, where bail was offered for their appearance to answer any charge. This was refused, and they -were again plated in prison, where, however, their friends sent them food till two o'clock, when they were taken before the Fiscal, who examined their memorandum-books attentively, but without gleaning anything from them. Unable to discover any evidence of guilt, the Fiscal on the demand of the Consul released them without apology or compensation. It appears that the charge against them was one of taking plans of the Morro, a charge of which they had not even the means to be guilty. They were obviously unjustly treated, but the case is hardly one for the official interference Mr. Goodman demands. There is no doubt a law against sketching the Morro, the Commandant thought they had broken it, the accused were produced before the magistrate the day after the offence was committed, and after a "civil" hearing were at once discharged.

The Prince and Princess of Wales leave Dundee for Denmark to-day.

The Committee appointed by Earl de Grey to report on the comparative value of breech-loading rifles, consisting of six officers of the highest reputation, decided unanimously in their favour. Earl de Grey immediately acted on their report, and a notice pub- lished this week calls upon all manufacturers of small arms to send in suggestions on the conversion of the Enfield rifles into breech-loaders. The principal conditions are that the cost must not exceed 1/. a barrel, and that the rifle must shoot as well as before. Six rifles will be delivered to the authors of the best sug- gestions, to be altered within five weeks after their plans. A letter in the Times from an Englishman who has been in the Con- federate service adds some remarkable evidence on the merits of the breech-loader. He believes that the rapidity of loading corn- peimates for weight and solidity, that a regiment like the 60th armed with these weapons would destroy a brigade of Guards in fifteen minutes, and the writer saw 200 men defend a block-hen-se which the General in command thought could not be defended by less than a regiment.

• Nothing farther has occurred this week in Belfast, but there has been a sharp controversy between the Mayor, Mr. Lytle, and the Marquis of Donegall as to whether the former did or did not do his duty, a controversy in which the Peer is so clearly in the right that the Mayor loses sight of his temper altogether. Putting -aside disputed points the question lies in a nutshell. Both sides -admit that the Mayor went to Harrogate on Thursday and did not return for a week, during which week Belfast was a scene of riot and bloodshed, accounts of which the Mayor must have read -every day. Why did he not go back at once ? Admitting that he saw on Thursday no likelihood of serious rioting, which is possible, mayors not being people remarkable for foresight, why did he not go back ? Mr. Lytle says his measures when he did return were very efficacious. Very possibly, and so much the greater -the loss sustained by Belfast in his staying away. The best way to settle the controversy would be for some one sufferer to bring .an action for damages against the Alayor for neglecting his duty.

The Government has published a report by Mr. R. Lytton, Secretary of Legation at Copenhagen, on the Danish Electoral Law. It appears that the elected members of the Rigsraad are chosen on a plan devised by the Finance Minister, Mr. Audrx, in 1855, and which resembles in most points that of Mr. Hare. The 'object is to represent minorities as well as majorities, and the country is therefore divided into sections. In each section, con- taining say five seats, the electors send in the names of their choice in the order of preference. Any candidate whose name occurs as many times as the quotient of the number of electors divided by the number of seats is declared returned. If any candidate has more than the necessary number his name on the remaining papers is carried to the credit of the next name on the -same voting-paper. If all the electors do not vote a member may be seated when be has only half his quotient, but if he gets less than that the section loses that seat. The effect of the plan is that, supposing there are in Essex 10,000 Tory and 5,000 Liberal electors, and Essex seats ten members, then instead of all ten being Tories three at least must be Liberals. 1,500 votes will seat a member, and the Liberal votes will all be counted together, instead of being as at present lost in each separate borough and division. The specialty of Mr. Andrm's plan is that it recognizes 4ocal feeling in some degree, and it has worked very well indeed for eight years. That representation of minorities will one day be the English political problem.

A statue of the late Prince Consort, raised to his memory by the citizens of Perth, was uncovered on Tuesday in the presence of the -Queen herself. The statue is in lledliall freestone, nine feet in height, and remarkable according to local criticism at once for the dignity of the pose and the accuracy of the likeness, differing in both respects from the statue erected at Aberdeen. In that one the figure is seated in a chair much too big, on a pedestal much too large, and has from a short distance the absurd effect of a boy sitting in a chair he can hardly mount. The municipality of Perth presented an address containing the customary good wishes and rather better written than usual, and the ceremonial passed off exe,ellently.

A terrible story has 'been related this week to the Coroner for West Middlesex. Mr. II. Jeffreys, lately a paper manufacturer of Maidstone, came to London, having apparently failed in business. He and a son sold medical bottles, and the son obtained a place at a woolstapler's, and two daughters made flannel shirts at 2s. the dozen. The father's trade fell off, the son was struck down . by a bale of wool, the daughters became dispirited, and at last for eight weeks they were compelled to live by pawning every article they possessed. When they were reduced to a bare bed the elder daughter died of fatigue and overwork, and the jury as they passed to view the body found the other daughter dying of ex- haustion and want of food. The jury found a verdict of death accelerated by overwork and fatigue, and we trust the man who gives 2s. a dozen for making flannel shirts will remember the report while he lives.

The rams purchased by the Government from Mr. Laird seem to be good bargains. The Scorpion on her trial trip made 12.30 knots an hour, a pace at which she would strike an opposing vessel with the force of a railway train.

A murder unique in its playful brutality was committed in Omagh, Donegall county, this day week. Mr. John M'Crossan, the murdered man, WAS solicitor to the plaintiff in the case of

"Doyle v. McLoughlin" at the last assizes, when a verdict of SI. damages was found for Doyle. Mr. M'Cromancs brother, the sub- sheriff, went to put an execution into McLoughlin's house, which was, however, barred against the officers of justice.. He sent for his brother, the solicitor, who came to the spot and began arguing with M'Loughlin, who was at one of the windows, which he had taken out, playing with a large bar of iron, but seeming, says Mr. Charles M'Crossan, "jocular and not very desperate-looking." When Mr. McCrossan came up, however, Mioughlin suddenly let down this bar of iron, which had a barbed hook at the end of it, from the window, stuck it into the unfortunate solicitor's neck and lifted him off the ground with it, as an angler lifts a fish out of the water. He bled profusely and death soon followed. We con- clude McLoughlin will be found guilty of murder.

The new discipline for convicts has not been carried before it was wanted. A gentleman inspecting one of the prisons says he found the following poetry by a prisoner, written upon a slate, which he sent to the Times :—

" I cannot take my -walks abroad, I'm under lock and key ; And much the public I applaud, For all their care of me.

Not more than others I deserve, In fact, much loss than more ; . Yet I have food while others starve, Or beg from door to door.

The honest pauper in tho street Half naked I behold ; • While I am clad from hoed to foot, And covered from the cold.

Thousands there are who scarce can toll Where they may lay their head ; But I've a warm and well-air'd cell, A bath, good books, good bed.

While they are fed on workhouse faro, And grudged their scanty food; Three times a day my meals I get, Sufficient, wholesome, good.

Then to the British public health, Who all our care relieves,

And while they treat us as they do

They'll never want for thieves."

Had they appeared a few months earlier we should have suspected the poet of being some person sent to Winchester Gaol on purpose, and in conspiracy with Lord Carnarvon ; but as it is, we may con- gratulate ourselves on the candour which so amply justifies what has recently been done to make these prisoners' lot somewhat less enviable.

The market for Home Securities has ruled extremely heavy, and prices have given way. On Saturday last Consols for money left off at 89 to 89f, for account at 89f . Yesterday the closing prices were :—For money, 88f I, for account, 881 1. The stock of bullion in the Bank of England is 12,980,0$3i.

The following table shows the closing prices of the leading Foreign Securities yesterday and on Friday week :-

Friday, Aug. 26. Friday, Sept. 2.

Greek

••

231

24 Do. Coupons ..

Mexican

231

282 Spanish Passive • •

301

Do. Certifioatee

13

141

Turkish 6 per Cents., 1858..

091 „ 1862..

a9„

701 „ Connolidds.. • .

••

502

1.0

501

The leading British Railways yesterday and on Friday w eek left off at the following prices: —

Caledonian .. , •

Friday, Aug. 26 .. 123

Friday, Said. 2.

115 Great Eastern ..

•• 471

301 Great Northern ..

••

)3.) Great Western..

691

032 Lancashire and Yorkshire

••

1102

••

1151 London and Brighton ..

•• ••

1021

1021 London and North-Western

••

1161

3121 London and South-Western

081

952 ex dlr.

London, Chatham, and Dover

•• ••

41

Midland .• 0 4

VII

136

••

131 ex. div.

North-Eastern, Berwick.. •

••

106

v•

105} Do. York

410

00

311

• •

031 West Midland, Oxf..)rd

• •

441

V.

451,