NEWS OF THE WEEK.
AMONG the honourable augmentatives set forth in the style and title of his Highness the Sultan is to be that of " K.G." ; for Abd-ul-Medjid, it is said with every appearance of authenticity, is to be created or elected a Knight of the Garter ! The Com- mander of the Faithful, descendant of the Caliphs, is received into a Christian order' of knighthood! The fact is not so exces- sively incomprehensible, especially when we remember what we so often forget, that the Mussulmans are nothing worse than a sect of Christians scarcely more schismatical than the followers of Johanna Southcote. The deed, however, seems to be actually ac- complished ; and it has to be regarded less in its statutory light than in its political bearing. In conferring the highest honour which the British Crown can bestow upon a fithigner, . our Go- vernment adds another link to the bond which includes the Porte
within the European system. • .
And this additional act of amity has a peculiar force at the moment when the Russian Emperor ,appears to be deliberately trying to back out of-the treaty of Paris by renewing Russian en- croachments on Turkey. We are not prepared to magnify the importance of Serpent Island, but the more paltry that rock, the more marked is the gratuitous encroachment attempted and ob- stinately pressed upon it by direct orders from St. Petersburg and the more impudent the latest propoial ascribbd to Russia in the-ordiihiry news. It may have been noted, that since the con- clusion of the treaty, her diplomatic agents have insisted upon Bolgrad, and not Belgrade, as the town intended for a boundary-
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mark in " rectifying " the confines of Bessarabia ; and it is said that Russia now offers to concede Serpent Island, if the Western Powers will concede the Bolgrad point. The only reply to make to such a proposition would be some diplomatic-euphuism signify- ing " Thank you for nothing." The robber, having snatched two valuables, magnanimously offers to purchase one by giving back the other. Of course our Government does not intend to com- promise a felony, much less one committed by the heir of that recreant Knight of the Garter who ought to have been degraded for making war upon the -Sovereign of the Order, upon the new Knight Abd-ul-Medjid, K.G.
