NEWS OF THE WEEK.
_ THE general result of the appeal to the Country is now decided : the organs of the Ministry give up, when they are compelled, the useless dispute as to whether or not the Opposition will have an office-commanding majority. The precise extent of that majority indeed will not be known till next week, when the sweepings of the election-ground, the last returns from the Counties, from Scotland, end Ireland, come in ; but it is already known that Sir ROBERT PEEL will have all that is needed to place ostensible power in his hands and the two Houses of Parliament at his disposal. Already, too, are reluctant Ministerialists beginning to anticipate the tactics of Opposition, and to count upon their strength to attack instead of defend. The desire to secure that strength still stimulates them to the best exertions ; and not altogether without success. If the Whigs are weak, the fact that the Metropolitan county, among others, should be peaceably shared between the two parties, neither having the resolution to risk a fall for it, proves, if proof were wanting, that the strength of Toryism is not what it was. And the Whigs do not neglect to press upon its weak points: one of their best manoeuvres, as it was expected, is to aggravate the new Premier's admitted "difficulty with behind"; and their-half- disavowed journeyman, the Liberator, has given up his Repeal business for the time, and has been raising the steam ex- clusively in their favour. And skilfully as well as vigorously does he work. To the more enlightened electors of Dublin he addresses himself with elaborate good-humour : with an artful, careless-looking manner, he seems to let fall, half unconsciously, half as if provoked by some attack made upon him at the moment, proofs of his own merits, excuses for the shortcomings of Whig Ministers, and old recollections of obsolete Tory misdeeds : his speech at the Dublin nomination on Monday, reckless, disjointed, and even frivolous-seeming, was constructed with the utmost skill to awaken feelings of attachment to his person, admiration for his great services to his country, fear and hatred of the Tories, and a sense of safety in the present Administration, to be shaken by its removal. In Carlow, which O'CONNELL seeks to occupy by proxy, in the person of Son Jona, he has a different plan : he finds the place in a state of violent excitement ; the Tories, it is alleged, have kidnapped and cooped unwilling voters; instead, however, of repressing the dangerous vehemence of his wild countrymen, he appeals forcibly to their primitive and untutored feelings—kisses the children of captive voters, weeps with bereaved wives, stimu- lates the religious terrors of Papist against Protestant aggression ; 'and the effect of all is crowned by the expectation that Mr. O'CoN- EELL will obtain writs of habeas corpus to restore-the inveigled voters to their helpless families. The maddened people, stung with Orange misconduct and goaded by the Liberator's suggestive sympathies, rush hither and thither, weeping and cursing, and re- taliating violence : a military force becomes necessary to maintain the law ; and something is gained towards securing a vote for the Whigs, and at all events increasing Sir ROBERT PEEL'S " difficulty -with Ireland." The worst of it is, that there are BRUENS to give colour at least, if they do not give cause, for those disorders.
