At home, the explosion of the Great Eastern has supplied
a topic valuable to public writers in this dead season, and it is there- fore hunted down over and over again, like the veteran deer of Windsor. The inquest on the bodies is still unfinished while we write ; but the main facts appear to be tolerably well known ; and they show that, lamentable as the disaster was, it affects no essential in the design or structure of the ship.
Looming in the distance is an explosion of the revived " Man- chester " party ; which is about to inaugurate with festivities in its Free-trade Hall a newly organized movement in favour of direct taxation. But surely the mission which has for its object to increase the amount of the round sum demanded. by the func- tionary with an ink-bottle at his button-hole is not calculated to inherit the popularity of the agitation to take a few pence off the four-pound loaf !
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