NEWS OF THE WEEK.
ATUCH alarm was spread through Europe on Thursday by ji. the receipt of an official notice that the Czar, who is at Livadia, has been attacked by typhoid. The symptoms up to Thursday were declared to be favourable, but men cannot help remembering with apprehension that daily bulletins are never issued about Kings till doctors are alarmed at their responsibility, and that members of the Romanoff family, though healthy in other ways, seldom show much power of recuperation. The alarm is therefore general, for Nicholas IL is everywhere felt to be a bulwark of the peace of Europe. Not only was he the author of the Conference at the Hague called to promote peace, but he has steadily kept the peace in spite of much pressure towards a contrary policy. In Russia itself the tension of feeling is even greater, for an un- happy termination to the Czar's illness might grievously complicate the question of the succession. The Grand Duke Michael, who has instantly left Denmark for Russia, is at present the heir ; but if the Empress, as is possible, bears a son, there would be a long Regency, which is hardly con- sistent with the Czardom. Fall authority can be transferred to a Regent, but not the sacrosanct character which "good Russians" attribute to their Sovereign.
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