NEWS OF THE WEEK.
THE incident of the week has been the return of Said Pasha from the British Embassy to his own house. The Sultan sent about twenty messengers to him, usually great officials, who conveyed promises of safety and of pension, and on Monday Said yielded. He informed Sir Philip Currie, in a published letter, that he had been driven to escape to the Embassy by "intolerable intrigues," which even now forbade him to accept the offices offered by the Sultan. He ex- pressed grateful acknowledgments for his reception, and so departed, probably to disappear from public life. He is already reported to be mad ; and Sir P. Currie, with the -consent of Lord Salisbury, has taken the strong step of sending a despatch to the Porte to convey the official hope of his Government that the promises made to Said will be kept. Possibly alarmed by the Russian Ambassador, who carried to him a letter from the Czar, and possibly also elated by his successful clutch at Said Pasha, the Sultan has issued the decree authorising the stationing of twelve guardboats in the Bosphorus. They are dropping in one by one, H.M.S. 'Dryad' being the first, and the Italian second. The only news from the interior is that the massacres were more general than was believed, two hundred Armenian villages having been destroyed in a single district; that they were all on a concerted plan ; and that this plan was authorised from Constantinople. The Armenians are, in fact, being extirpated, and the Powers therefore have solemnly resolved that they will keep a strict census of the massacres ! This is literally all.
