NEWS OF THE WEEK.

THE half-hidden contest between the Emperor of the French and the Belgian Government still proceeds. We have described it elsewhere, and the consequences which may flow from it ; but may mention here that the French Government is evidently anxious to create an idea that the King is displeased with M. Frere-Orban, that the old report of a proposed federation between France and Belgium has been revived, and that the following appears in the Pays, written by M. Paul de Cassagnac, who calls himself habitually a;" Mameluke of the Empire," and is well known to understand the ideas of the Tuileries :—" Belgium has become a cave of cosmopolitan bandits ; Belgium, the ungrateful, defies us ; Belgium is the strap on which political assassins sharpen their poniards; Belgium has become the Tunis—the Algiers of all the pirates of the pen. These are the things which are preparing the way for a great day of reckoning."

There was an odd little discussion on Monday in the House of Commons on a transaction the history of which we imagine to be something like this. Mr. Gladstone wished Mr. Stansfeld to be inhis Government, but not in the Cabinet, and offered him the Secretaryship to the Treasury. That office as it formerly stood would have killed Mr. Stansfeld in a month, so Mr. Gladstone made him Chief Secretary under the title of Third Lord, with /2,000 a year, and gave the Secretaryship to Mr. Ayrton. The latter gentleman does the Parliamentary work, while the former does the Treasury work, for which his singular grasp of accounts, first displayed at the Admiralty, gives him great facilities. Of course an arrangement of that kind gives enemies a chance of hinting at a job, so Mr. Sclater Booth and Mr. Ward Runt took some little trouble to hint it, thereby giving Mr. Lowe an opportunity to remark that he quite approved all the appointments, but that as for the Third Lord and the Secretary, he did most of their work himself, wishing to secure "unity of action," and thinking that recommendations from a Chancellor of the Exchequer came with more weight than from a Secretary or a Third Lord ! The true defence is that Mr. Stansfeld is worth double the money.

The Tories made a better thing of their attack on the Sixth Lord. The office is quite useless ; but the Marquis of Lansdowne owns Caine, and wants to learn business, so Mr. Lowe made him Sixth Lord—though, as a Peer, he never can have charge of any financial office whatever—and defends the appointment, first, because Lord Lansdowne does not want pay ; and, secondly, because he can " represent " the Treasury in the Lords. The first excuse is bad, as it avowedly gives a rich man the preference over a poorer one, by admitting him to office because he is rich ; and the second is nonsensical. Government is not represented even in the Peers by Sixth Lords of the Treasury.

A " Colonial Society" was founded on Wednesday by a dinner at Willis's Rooms, Lord Bury in the chair. Mr. Reverdy Johnson, who answered to the first of the distinguishidg toasts of the evening, "The United States,"—which figured, we suppose, as ex-colonies,—thought proper, with his usual tact, to suggest to the infant "Colonial Society" that British America might soon follow in the track of the revolted colonies, and would be very well received if it did. To this delicate compliment to England he added his usual sugary testimony to the "fixed love and admiration" entertained by "the sober and reflecting among his countrymen" for England,—this, with a view, no doubt, to the pleasure the report of his words would give on the other side of the Atlantic. Lord Granville snubbed the American Minister in his usual smiling way,—relating the consolatory remark made to him by a friend that the Colonial Office "required but a modicum of sense," and remarking that doubtless Mr. Reverdy Johnson would scarcely give him credit even for that modicum, when he stated that he was not yet prepared to open negotiations for the cession of British America. General Grant has, apparently, not yet recalled Mr. Reverdy Johnson. But surely no man was ever yet spoken of as the representative of a nation who took Fe much pains not to deserve the name ?

At the same dinner, Lord Granville mentioned the revival of the order of St. Michael and St. George by his predecessor, the Duke of Buckingham, as an order especially intended to decorate distinguished public men whose services have been rendered to the Colonies, as the Star of India decorates distinguished public men whose services have been rendered to our Indian Empire. A. Grand Cross of the order had been given to Viscount Monck, the ex-Governor-General ; and Lord 1)erby, Lord Grey, and Lord Russell, who have all been at the Colonial Office, have since accepted Grand Crosses. The Duke of Cambridge is to be the Grand Master of the renovated order. The Duke of Buckingham had also conferred, upon leaving office, a few of the second and third classes of the order. Lord Granville promised to maintain "the high character" thus impressed on the order. We suppose it is all right. Certainly tying the colonies to us by ribbons is more hopeful than chaining them to us by links of steel. And if, as we imagine, the only thing the United States do at heart regret is the showy side of the monarchy, it is clearly right to use the ribbons freely across the border.

There is nothing that the House of Commons redly discusses with more pleasure than beef and mutton,—we do not mean in the dining-rooms, but in the Ibuse itself. The debate on Lord Robert Montagu's Contagious Diseases' (anitird) Bill, on Wednesday, was eminently vigorous and intelligent. Lord Robert Montagu himself, indeed, was elaborately dull ; but Mr. Ileadlam and Mr. Norwood, speaking respectively for the consumers of Newcastle-on-Tyne and Hull, and the North country in general, and Mr. Read, speaking for the tenant farmers, who think, of course, more of their cattle than of the people's food, stated their opposite cases with pre-eminent clearness, and in that practical fashion which showed that they followed the course either of the butcher's meat to the market, or of the suspected foreign animal to the English herd, as the ease may be. Mr. W. E. Forster summed up the case on the part of the Government and against Lord Robert Montagu's Bill with great force and clearness, showing that Lord Robert Montagu did not propose any rigid principle, any more than the Government, while he did not throw a full responsibility on the Government officials, who would have to admit or reject importations of foreign (live) cattle ; that he did not find the resources for establishing the foreign cattle markets ; and that what he proposed was an addition to a complication of measures, instead of a consolidated measure like the Government's. The Bill was rejected by a majority of 56-253 to 197.

After the beef and mutton came the University Testa' Repeal Bill, on which Parliament is divided by very similar party lines. Sir J. D. Coleridge made no oratorical effort in his speech, stating that he had made three speeches on the subject, and the matter for a fourth failed him. Ile has, however, adopted the provision permitting Colleges to dispense with the theological test for their fellowsilipa, if they please to do so. Mr. Mowbray, the undistinguished Member for (Ilford University, against whom Sir Bounden Palmer's brilliant abilities and scrupulous self-denial had no chance of success, moved the rejection of the Bill. Mr. Mowbray used the usual suicidal arguments. The motto of the University of Oxford is "Dominus illuminati° mea," which Mr. Mowbray intimated that the University was abandoning in admitting Dissent. Does he mean that God -does not give light to Dissenters, or that He does not give light to anybody unless they put their names to certain propositions about Him? As to the Colleges, Mr. Mowbray made a great point of excepting Keble College from any permission to elect non-Churchmen to fellowships, on the ground of the known wishes of Mr. Keble himself. Clearly Mr. Mowbray would have made Adam and Eve sign an " article " against eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and would have had the fall to consist in carrying the repeal of the Paradise Test Abolition Act. What formalism it is ! Sir R. Palmer moved the adjournment of the debate, which stands, at present, second in the orders for Monday.

The Duke of Argyle introduced an Indian Bill on Thursday, the object of which is threefold. First, to enable the Viceroy to make laws for the Non-Regulation Provinces by decree, as he used to do before the Company was abolished, but cannot, it seems, do now,—a wise reform, though burdened with the useless and objectionable provision that the Lieutenant-Governor must recommend the decrees. Why ? They may involve matters of Imperial policy, such, for instance, its sudden orders for disarming. Secondly, to punish Queen's subjects who happen to live within native States and commit crimes, a very necessary power, accidentally destroyed by a clause in an Act of Parliament. Thirdly, to enable the Viceroy to select natives either by competition or by order for the Covenanted Civil Service, a measure of generous justice, not effected, we think, in the wisest way. The Viceroy should be empowered to appoint any native to any office he pleases, previous Acts notwithstanding. Natives who have proved themselves competent ought to be selected, not lads, and competition ought not to be allowed. We venture to predict, if it is, five in six among native civilians will be Bengalees. No race in India can possibly compete with them at book-work.

There are 16 Scotch and 28 Irish Representative Peers. Nominally they are elected, but really the Scotch Peers are nominated by the Duke of Buccleuch, and the Irish Peers by Lord Derby. Consequently, no Liberal Irish or Scotch Peer has a chance of admission, a system additionally hard upon Scotch Peers because they may not sit in the Commons. Mr. Stapleton, Member for Berwick, proposes to remedy this injustice by a Bill introducing the minority principle into the elections, and Mr. Gladstone on Tuesday hinted his adhesion to the principle. Mr. Stapleton will scarcely get his Bill through the Lords, more especially as the Scotch and Irish Peers have not surrendered their hope of entering the Peers in a body.

General Grant had selected before his accession a Cabinet of amateurs, and has lost his Premier and Finance Minister already. The former was Mr. Elihu Washburne, an able man, and a great friend of the President, but not in the first rank of politicians. The Senate, however, had no sooner accepted him than he " elected " to go to Paris, and was succeeded by Mr. Hamilton Fish, formerly Governor of New York. The first Finance Secretary was Mr. Stewart, owner of the great dry-goods store, and very rich; but a man utterly unknown in politics, and ineligible, the law forbidding a trader to take this department. His successor is Mr. Boutwell, a Radical, member of the House. The Secretary at War is General John A. Rawlins, General Grant's old chief of the Staff during his campaign on the Potomac,— presumably a good appointment ; and his Secretary for the Navy, Mr. Adolph Boris or Bowrie, a Philadelphian merchant of repute, but never before in public life. The Secretary for the Interior is General Cox, a young man who fought well in the war, and was recently Governor of Ohio ; and the Attorney-General, one of two brothers named Hoar, lawyers of distinction in Massachusetts. General Grant is clearly determined that his Cabinet shall represent him, and must be held responsible for what seems in the main very much a selection by personal liking. The omission of every leading politician is almost unprecedented.

Mr. Locke King introduced his Bill on Tuesday for distributing the landed estates of intestates as the personal property is already distributed,—to the next of kin,—without opposition, being even supported by Mr. Walter. Mr. Beresford Hope, however, gave notice of his intention to move its rejection on the second reading. The chief feature of the debate was the disposition on all sides to speak of it as introducing a change that would not have any

material effect on large landed properties, and Mr. Gladstone', admission that the present law as to intestate landed estates Wm not the beat, and needed some change " in the direction "at least of Mr. Locke King's motion :—whence we argue that the 80. called law of pritnogeniture Is on its eleath-bed.

The Canadian Dominion seems to be prospering. Nova Scotia has given way, and now the Legislature of Newfoundland hes passed a resolution in favour of Confederation, while Lord Gran. vine says he has devised a plan under which the Hudson's Bay Territory, a little estate about the size of Europe, may be placed under the Legislature of Ottawa. It only remains for British Columbia and Vancouver's Island to come in, and the Dominion will be a mighty Federal State, which, with a few more years of British protection, may develop into an independent Republic, with a splendid future.

Lord Edward Cecil on Friday se'ennight asked the House in a very sensible speech to resolve that Government should bring in a Bill for the more effectual punishment of adulterations, and the use of false weights and measures. Mr. Bright refused to agree, declaring that many convictions for false weights are merely for inadvertencies, and that till the standards were made more accurate it would be unjust to strengthen the law. As to adulteration, it arose from extreme competition, and was promoted by the ignorance of customers, and would disappear when they knew better. Inspection was objectionable, for if traders were to be tracked by inspectors in their private businesses every hour of the day, he should advise them to emigrate. There is no adulteration in this speech, at all events. It is pure old Whiggery, a perfect illustration of the great art "how not to do it." Nobody was asking for inspection of food, or any such folly. What is wanted is a law empowering a customer to bring the seller of adulterated goods before a magistrate, to be heavily fined on conviction, and his name to be published like that of a bankrupt, in the London Gazette. The harmlessness of some adulterations has nothing to do with the matter. Let anybody sell plaster of Paris instead of flour if he likes, or put salt water in his beer, but let him say so. On what principle does Mr. Bright object to the adulteration of the coin ?

Sir R. Temple proposed the Indian Budget on the 8th of March, and a summary of his statement arrived in London on the following day. That is creditable to M. Reuter, and would be more so if the summary were intelligible, but it is not. Even Mr. Massey gives up the conundrum. As far as we can understand, there was a deficit of £2,800,000 on the year just expired ; but nevertheless Sir R. Temple expects a surplus this year, derived in part from a new income-tax of 20. in the pound, which will yield £900,000. A loan of £5,000,000 is to be raised, to be spent partly in irrigation, partly in paying £1,000,000 of old debt, and partly in something else. All that does not sound well, but most of the difficulty is imaginary. India has a permanent surplus of about £5,000,000, and the "deficits," "loans," and other muddles are all caused by public works, most of which are judicious enough, or by the chronic Indian inability to state figures clearly.

Mr. Cardwell introduced the Army Estimates on Thursday, in a speech which delighted the Tories and old soldiers, and amounted to this. He has knocked off a million and a quarter by reducing the Army, chiefly in the colonies, and by not spending much upon stores, but does not intend to introduce any radical reforms. The abolition of purchase is postponed, the dual government is to be tolerated under cover of an assertion that it does not exist, the patronage of the Militia is to be left to Lord-Lieutenants, and the Volunteers are to be organized as they are. Mr. Cardwell was not ashamed to talk of the Militia as "the constitutional force of England," a "force ever dear to the people of England from constitutional antecedents," to tell solemnly how Lord Seaton had once said that one Militia regiment "was fit to stand by a regiment of the Line," and to describe the Yeomanry as "that ancient and most excellent force." Clearly, the Horse Guards, the Peers, and the Major-Generals have got the exact man they want, but what he does in a Liberal Ministry it is hard to understand.

Baron Martin has declared Messrs. Woods and Lancaster (Liberals) the Members for Wigan, duly elected, giving them costs ; but he has come down sharp upon Beverley, where he reports the corruption wide-spread, though not set in motion by the unseated members, Sir H. Edwards and Captain Kennard (Conservatives), whom he quite exonerates. In this case he declared the election void at common law, without any reference to the Acts, in consequence of the immense amount of corruption. More than a thousand voters were proved to have been bribed at the previous municipal election. Mr. Justice Blackburn has unseated Mr. Serjeant Cox (Conservative) for Taunton, for accepting the aid of the Conservative Association in defending the votes of men who, probably in consequence, voted with the Conservatives. There was a great deal of corruption, Mr. Justice Blackburn said, of this rather harmless kind, and so he should report, but he did not think the House of Commons would regard it as of a bad kind. Nineteen votes were struck off as bad from Mr. Cox's list, and Mr. -James (Liberal) seated in his place. This is, we think, the first ease of an effectual change in the return by a scrutiny since the Judges began their election circuit.

Mr. Mitt11 was yesterday returned for Bradford by a majority of more than 1,500,—Mr. Miall having 9,235 votes ; Mr. Thompson (who has never promised to support the Irish Church Bill thoroughly) only 7,732.

Lord Russell called attention to the pecuniary statistics of our education expenditure on Monday evening. In England he showed that 60 per cent, of the expenses of our primary schools -was paid by local contributions and school pence, and only 40 per cent. by the Government grant. But in Ireland the State had to contribute 93 per cent. On this he founded an argument against permitting denominational schools in Ireland to be aided by the State. The English denominational schools, he maintained, buy that privilege by paying so much as 60 per cent. of the cost ; while the Irish forfeit it by paying so little as 7 per cent, of the cost. We confess that seems to us a very petty view indeed. If denominational education is aided here on condition that the education given is found by inspection to be good, to say to Ireland, 'Because you pay so much more only of taxes and so much less out of your private pockets, you must not be treated so well as we English are,' seems at once insolent and silly. Of course, where there are Protestant children, or the chance of them, there should be a strict conscience clause, and no distinctive Catholic emblems in the schoolrooms. But to insist on this in districts where there are no Protestants is utter bigotry.

We see by a question in the House of Commons on Thursday relative to the assassination of Mr. Anketell, the station-master at Mullingar, that Mr. Anketell is said, by the Vicar of Mullingar, Mr. Reichel, to have known that he was a marked man, and that 4‘ his dismissing a railway official had been referred to from the -altar of a Roman Catholic chapel in such terms as induced two most respectable Roman Catholics to go to him and disavow all sympathy with what has been said." We trust this story is quite without foundation. But if it should prove to be true, the Government should make a formal demand on the Roman Catholic bishop of the diocese for the public censure of any priest acting in this fashion, and if he should refuse, publish the correspondence. These hints from the altar will become mere invitations to murder, if those who give them are not degraded in the eyes of the Catholic public. But no bishop could refuse to censure openly and severely these religious incentives—as they prove—to acts of

S. Figuerola has not yet fulfilled our prediction that he would be compelled to offer a composition to the creditors of Spain, but he has informed the Cortes that he must open a loan of £25,000,000 abroad, and offer special securities. We doubt if he will get the money, even at ten per cent., unless the interregnum is speedily terminated either by the election of a Bing or the declaration of a Republic, and the Cortes betakes itself to financial reform. The situation of the Spanish Treasury, as we understand it, is simply intolerable, the Finance Minister being compelled to spend some £2,000,000 a month, while barely receiving £1,500,000; but the members seem very cheerful about it all, are appointing committees to "discuss the bases of the Constitution," and leave the bases of credit unprovided for. At present the chances seem in favour .of the Duke de Montpensier, and he has certainly one recommendation. He is said to be the best housewife in Spain.

Brain diseases are said to be on the increase, but the figures produced only serve to show any reel change for the worse in this respect as regards the disease called softening of the brain. In 1857, the number of deaths ascribed to softening of the brain was 776. In 1866 it was 1,664, or more than double. This seems a remarkable increase, especially as a great number of cases were not very old persons, but between 45 and 65. The number, however, between 65 and 75 was nearly as great as the total of those between 45 and 65; and in these, doubt less, softening of the brain was only a form of old age,— an equivalent for some other disease to which old persons have usually been considered particularly liable. But the increase of the number of cases of softening of the brain in middle age must, we suppose, be due to the greater strain on the brain which modern conditions of life impose. The increase of apoplexy and paralysis is considerable, but much less remarkable, as doubtless it only means that more people than formerly now attain the age when they are liable to paralysis. We are apt to forget that if the general death-rate does not increase, it is comparatively unimportant which of the fatal diseases is ahead, except, indeed, so far as some forms of brain disease imply prolonged mental weakness before death,—a very great calamity.

The friends of the sea-gulls met in force at the HanoverSquare Rooms on Wednesday,—Mr. Sykes, M.P. (whose Bill on the sea-gulls we noticed last week), in the chair. It was stated that while 100,000 sea-birds a year are killed for mere pleasure, not 12,000 are killed for food. One gentleman intimated that if the gulls lived, the whitings would die, as they lived upon whitings, and destroyed perhaps 2,000,000 or 3,000,000 fry in the year. But then the whitings, again, live on the fry of herrings and other fish, and these two or three millions of whitings would destroy nine hundred millions (900,000,000) fry of herrings and other fish. Whence it appeared that the sea-gulls protect the herrings, if they destroy the whitings ; so that the sea-gull party and the herring party is identical. The sea-gulls are evidently in luck this year. We hope their appearance so far inland as the House of Commons is not, according to the old saying, a sign of coming hurricanes.

In these days of theatrical decadence the production of "a new poetical play" should not pass without a word of comment. Dr. Marston's four-act drama, just produced at the Lyceum, reminds us of Talfourd's Glencoe tragedy, and is of about the same calibre,—both plays being quite destitute of a single note or thought which we feel to be Celtic. The very names of the characters are impossibilities ; their thoughts, manners, fancies, are in keeping. Dr. Marston, of course, never intended to produce a play representative of the Celtic spirit, but has rather chosen his subject for the sake of certain conventional accessories. Some fine situations and much vigorous writing do not atone for the total want of verisimilitude. The acting was about as bad as it ever is on the London stage,—and that is saying much. Miss Neilson, who played the leading character, was painfully overweighted, but she had obviously taken great pains, and her defeats were not fatal ones. If she will dispense with the stucco smile she reserves for light speeches, if she will drone less, and refrain from contortions, she may, with her evident intelligence, become a leading actress. Why does not the lady, who plays a Highland boy with some verve, put on more clothes? Does she imagine that the Highlanders,—with those nipping winds and moist mists,—went about naked from below the knees half way up to the thighs ? Only one actor wore a sensible "kilt,"—and that was the gentleman who played " Colin," showing, moreover, sense and delicacy in a very small part.

The probability of an early rise in the Bank rate of discount unfavourably affected the Stock Market at the commencement of the week ; but in the publication of the Bank returns a more cheerful feeling was apparent, and Consols domed firmer yesterday at 921 for money, and 93 for the April account. Foreign bonds generally have become flat on realizations, and on rumours of new loans both for Italy and Spain. In home Railway Stocks a fair business has been transacted, and the quotations, on the whole, have been supported. The principal feature of the week, however, is the complete failure of the Victorian Government Railway Loan, the minimum price of which was fixed at par, at which figure very few applications have been sent in. There has been a steady demand for discounts, and good short bills are not taken in the open market under 3 per cent.