NEWS OF THE WEEK.
THE week has been singularly diversified both in its weather
and its interests. Bright days broken by heavy storms, wet days suddenly clearing up into brilliant sun, have been a trial to the farmers, whose corn is still much of it out, and where so, almost as sad-coloured as their own emotions. On the Continent peace was signed last week, but Count Bismark has spoken officially as if its continuance were anything but certain. Mr. Bright, in ad- dressing the evening-Reform meeting at Birmingham on Monday which followed up the vast popular demonstration of the morning, told his audience that the Derby Government was a " declaration of war against the working classes of this country," and whether that be false or true, the demonstration itself was certainly a declaration of war by Mr. Bright and the Working Classes against the Derby Government. The week has had its daily lesson in the meetings of the British Association ; and its daily joke, enjoyed the more for being a naughty one, in the evidence taken before the various election commissions to prove how deeply convinced are a large class of English constituencies that the sincerity and value of political opinions are to be measured by the power and will of the candidate to pay generously for the opportunity of announcing them in Parliament. The cholera is rapidly decreasing with the chillier autumnal weather ; so the Bishop of Oxford seized the last appropriate moment for painting it into his autumnal day-of- judgment speech, and had to eke it out with the terrors of foreign invasion ; and the Boards of Guardians and companies for supplying London with putrid water are taking heart of grace, and thanking God that this time of tyranny is overpast.
