NEWS OF THE WEEK.

T"great event of the week is the conclusion, not, however, as yet officially announced, of a convention between France and Italy, the effect of which is to terminate the occupation of Rome by the French within two years without endangering,—that at least is to all appearance the object of the Emperor,—the temporal power of the Pope. The general tenor of the convention appears to be that Italy is to resign her pretentious to Rome as a capital, to select a capital at once,—said to be Florence,--to engage to respect the Papal frontier and make it respected by others, to throw no obstacle in the way of the Pope's recruiting an efficient army in any countries he pleases, and that the Emperor on his part will withdraw the French garrison within two years at the utmost, and probably pari passu with the formation of the Pope's force. It is added that Italy accepts a share of the Papal debt in propor- tion to the territory she has taken from him, and that France and Italy mutually secure each other against the intervention of any other foreign Power. Two years is a long time for delay in the operation of an arrangement so certain to stir both popular and dynastic passions as this, against which M. Mazzini is likely enough to combine his forces with the reactionaries of Austria and Spain. It is not to be supposed that the popular imagination of Italy can really relinquish Rome as a capital. But the cessation of foreign intervention is a great step, and the Italians may once more show that power of patient waiting, which has distinguished this above any other revolution, by accepting it.

General M'Clellan has accepted the nomination of the Chicago Convention, but in terms which pledge him as irrevocably as Mr. Lincoln to the preservation of the Union at all hazards. " 'I'he existence of more than one Government," he says, " over the region which once owned our flag is incompatible with the peace,, the power, and the happiness of the people." He adds—very signifi- cantly to those who have studied the history of those Northern statesmen who have been the tools of the South—" The Union was originally formed for the exercise of a spirit of conciliation and compromise. To restore and preserve it, the same spirit must pre- vail in our councils and in the hearts of the people." In other words, General M'Clellan is as much of a Unionist at all hazards as Mr. Lincoln ; but his method for securing Union is the old one,—pros- tration before the South. The Baltimore platform pledges Mr. Lincoln to do all in his power to uproot for ever the cause of war —slavery ; General M'Clellan is self-pledged to offer any sop to the South it will accept. And it does not strike us as creditable even to the understanding of the North that in such circumstances the Democratic party should have a chance of victory,—certainly not so good a chance as our' New York correspondent in his able letter seems to foreshadow.

A very remarkable conversation between Mr. Lincoln and Judge Mills of Wisconsin shows how lucidly as well as honestly Mr. Lincoln recognizes the true issue between himself and the Demo- crats. " There is no programme," he said, " offered by any wing

of the Democratic party but that must result in the permanent destruction of the Union." " There are now in the service of the United States near 200,000 able-bodied coloured men, most of them under arms, defending and acquiring Union terri- tory. The Democratic strategy demands that these forces be disbanded, and that the masters be conciliated by restoring them to slavery. The black men who now assist our prisoners to escape are to be converted into our enemies in the vain hope of conciliating their masters. We shall have to Agit two nations in- stead of one." That is only lucid Union policy, but Mr. Lincoln shows real feeling for the cause of the slaves behind it :—" There have been men base enough to propose to me to return to slavery the black warriors of Port Hudson and Olustee, and thus win the respect of the masters they fought. Should I do so I should deserve to be damned in time and eternity. Come what will I will keep my faith with friend and foe." Mr. Lincoln's subordinates have too often been untrue to his anti-Slavery policy, but the worst enemies of that policy could not do better than adopt the line of some of the violent abolitionists—not, we rejoice to say, the great abolitionist of all, Garrison,—in dividing the party now, when the only chance is a unanimous effort for the best President the North has had since the presidency of Adams.

Atlanta was evacuated by the Confederates under General Hood on the night of the first of September. General Sherman unable to storm the place had adopted the manoeuvre which has gained him amongst his soldiers the name of " Old Pothook." Leaving a corps strongly entrenched in the tete du pont on the Chattahoochee, he took the rest of his army a long southern detour, broke the West Point Railway, marched east to the Macon Railway, and then encountered and beat the Confederates at Jonesboro', twenty- six miles south of Atlanta. " This," says the Confederate General flood, made it necessary to abandon Atlanta, which was done on the night of the first of September." The Confederate head- quarters are now at Lovejoy station, about thirty miles south of Atlanta, and General Sherman having gained his point has leisurely withdrawn his army to Atlanta to consolidate his great gains in Georgia. We have discussed elsewhere the brilliant campaign which has taken him in little more than three months at least 140 miles into the heart of a hostile and very difficult country.

The famous guerilla Confederate General John Morgan was surprised and killed and his staff captured at Greenville, Tennessee, on the 5th of September. He is probably no great loss to the Confederates, and is chiefly known for the telegraphic ventrilo- quism, if we may use the expression, by which he imposed upon some credulous Federal's and extracted useful information from them along the wire.

The British Association has ended this week a session over which the only gloom was cast by the unfortunate death of Captain Speke, on the very evening before he was to have discussed with Captain Burton the true source of the Nile. After two hours, shooting on Thursday week Captain Speko was stepping over a low stone wall when his gun, with the muzzle pointed at his chest, exploded. The charge entered his lungs, and he expired in a few minutes. His only words after the wound were, " Don't move me I" Much as he has journeyed and explored, Captain Spoke was only thirty-eight years old. It was a melancholy end for a great dis- coverer, for no doubt Captain Speke would have echoed with all his heart Corporal Trim's gallant sentiment, " I hope Death won't take me cowardly when I'm cleaning a gun."

The Social Science Association treads very closely on the heels of her more solid and material sister. Before the voice of the one was silent at Bath that of the other was raised at York. The meet- ing promises to be a very interesting and useful one, but the inau- gurals of its noble President Lord Brougham are more discursive than valuable. Like " Observation with extensive view "he "surveys mankind from China to Peru," and science of any kind is scarcely the word for the gleanings which result. He began with indulging his feelings. Yorkshire undivided was the constituency which he represented just before the Reform Bill, "and there still live those, my colleagues in office, who know how bitter was the pang of exchanging that proud position for the highest office in the State, how firm the determination of refusal, and to what urgent remonstrances submission was yielded." Certainly Lord Brougham has been much belied. Public rumour had always said that Lord Grey first offered Mr. Brougham the Attorney-Generalship, which would have enabled him still to support the Government in the House of Commons, that he refused it with emphasis, being determined to grasp that higher prize which we now learn that he accepted with so much reluctance. Towards the end of his diffuse oration Lord Brougham as usual explained how social science condemns the crime of the American war, and proves that Mr. Lin- coln and his party care nothing for the abolition of slavery, and share none of the noble sentiments which animated his own anti- slavery efforts. " It had been reserved for the later act of the tra- gedy," said Lord Brougham, "to see the North, when destitute of other troops, drive herds of the unhappy negroes to slaughter with no more remorse than sportsmen feel in clearing a preserve." Lord Brougham is perhaps incapable of even conceiving the motive which leads these negroes, little versed as they are either in " useful knowledge" or social science, to flock eageily into the ranks where they can fight for freedom. Lord Brougham ended his address with a panegyric on religious piety, and a poetical apostrophe to Lord Lyndhurst as " Soul of the Past ! Companion of the Dead !"

The Times of this day week gives a curious piece of information, " which comes to us," it says " in a very authentic shape," concern- ing the Rwasne plan of war, had France and England declared war on the Polish question, as Russia, it is said, expected. Taking a - lesson from the Alabama, the Russian Admirals on the Californian and American coasts had been ordered to leave their stations and rendezvous in mid-ocean at a place only defined by latitude and longitude, and then hold themselves in readiness to bear down in case of war, first on Melbourne, then Hobart Town, then Adelaide, then Sydney, and then New Zealand. The ships, it is -added, that were to be detached from the New York station would have numbered 156 guns, and those from Japan and California 43, and the naval force was 2,971 seamen and 127 officers. The vessels were armed with 68-pounders ; but those on the New York station were to buy whatever rifled guns they might want. The plan was not a bad one for crippling our great Australian com- merce, and we cannot think with the Times that it supplies no argument, of the selfish kind, to the separationists in Australia. It is true that a very weak State must expect to be a prey to any plundering neighbour,—but common plunderers are not common among civilized States, and the weaker the State the less is the chance of a quarrel. If union with a great empire is no advantage in itself, it certainly is the reverse of an insurance against attack.

Count von Bismark has been so elated by the depressed silence of England that at last he seams to have even counted on extorting from Lord Russell's fears some polite applause of his moderation. In a despatch dated Gastein, August 9, he hopes that the British Government " will not refuse to recognize the moderation and placability displayed by the two great German Powers." This, moderation and placability consist in having annexed as the result of a war for the emancipation of nationalities a territory contain- ing 200,000 Danish inhabitants to Germany. The 200,000 Danes have been petitioning King Christian with vain cries not to abandon them. What can Italy do when the great Powers are so passive that Count von Bismark even thinks them converts to his logic or to his display of military power ? Lord Russell replies with spirit, but without temper, that in each a case " it is out of place to claim credit for equity and moderation." Count von Bismark finds it easier to frighten us into deserting an ally than into deserting an opinion. England can easily be overpowered by prudential considerations not to act, but no one ever yet cowed her into compliment.

On Count von Bismark's return from Vienna it is said that his friends gave him an almost triumphal entry into Berlin. It is certain that the Government journals are hoping that the Lower Chamber may condone Von Bismark's offences in consideration of his successful violence to Danmark. One of the semi-official journals of Thursday says that the Government "does not abandon the hope of reconciliation, because it does not think it possible that the successes obtained by the war should not have essentially contributed to weaken the opposition against the re- organization of the army." It may be so. Conquest may well cover that multitude of sins iu the eyes of the German, which a somewhat different virtue has been said to cover in the eyes of God.

Dr. Pusey and Mr. Keble are charging the Times simultaneously. Dr. Pusey, however, though the more tenacious of the two, spends so much strength in reiterating obstinately his own opinions that he does not touch his adversary. Mr. Keble shows more address. He makes a list of some rather remarkable " assumptions " made, according to Mr. Keble, by those who object to spiritual tribunals, —some of which are not, we think, very often made by intelligent men,—but which undoubtedly exhibit Mr. Keble's case in a neat and telling form. As a climax, he says that "it is assumed that the Privy Council judgment is but a step in an inevitable process which shall rid ns of dogma altogether." If dogma means " divine truth divinely declared," the assumption is certainly a very strange and exceedingly arbitrary one. But if it means, as we suspect Mr. Keble thinks, "divine truth defined and expounded as a systematic whole by men," we trust it may. There never was a completer non-conducting medium between the human mind and divine truth than logical systematic divinity.

The evidence against Mailer has been twice produced this week in the presence of the prisoner,—both in the examination at Bow Street and at the sitting of the inquest on Mr. Briggs. The only important point was that Mr. Briggs, 's son was evilently doubtful as to the i1entity of the hat found in Miiller's box with the one worn by his father, stating that he thought it an inch and a half shorter. It is said, however, that one of the shopmen at Digauce's, where the hat was bought, can identify it by some alteration in the lining made expressly at Mr. Briggs's request. The cabman Matthews was severely cross-examined by Mr. Beard, and seemed to have some difficulty in accounting for his time between the public announcement of the murder and his own steps in the matter. There was also a sharp cross-examination about the hat which he said he had bought for himself at the shop (Walker's) at whichhe afterwards bought Miller's ; but it did not come to much. Milller's own hat (found in the carriage) was far too big for the cabman, and it seemed evident that he could never have worn it.

The Athenzeum of last week gives a very good letter of Sir John Herschel's in reply to one of those impertinent applications, now circulating, to sign a declaration that science and Scripture cannot clash, and that it is the duty of any scientific student who sees a superficial contradiction between them to " leave the two side by side till it shall please God to allow us to see the manner in which they may be reconciled." Sir John Herschel very properly says that these sorts of demands are " an infringement of that social forbearance which guards the freedom of religious opinion in this country with especial sanctity." Some check certainly must be put on the declaration-nuisance now growing up. It is especially hard, moreover, to force a declaration on the students of science. There might be more point in exhorting the students of religious newspapers like the British Banner or Record to let all contradictions they may find there between them and the teaching of Scripture lie "aide by side with Scripture till it shall please God to teach us to see the manner in which the two may be recocciled." There would be a great deal more need for faith and patience in that religious exercise than in the one proposed.

The " great " lecture before the British Association was Pro- fessor Roscoe's, of Manchester, on " Light," and especially on the blue or chemical rays of light. Of the yellow rays which only enlighten, and do not work chemically to decompose the carbonic acid of the air, the Professor spoke rather depreciatingly and with a certain pity. He explained a curious , little machine for measuring the chemical intensity of light, and proved by it that on the 4th July the chemical intensity of sunlight measured by his colleague Professor Bunsen at Heidelberg (only 4 degs. south of Man- chester) was three times as great as at Manchester, where he Yell- s& is so unfortunate as to reside, The Professor much extolled magnesium wire for the large number of chemical rays which it gives off in a state of combustion,—and he took a likeness of the President, Sir Charles Lyell, by the help of its "ultra-violet rays." These " ultra-violet " rays are due " to the extremely heated magnesia formed by the combustion." This is soothing intelli- gence. To know that we are absorbing ultra-violet rays under cover of a dose of magnesia will in itself tend to compose indigestion. The likeness of Sir Charles Lyell was very successful, and both the magnesium wire and the Professor were loudly cheered.

Dr. Liebig, in his " Lois Naturelles de PAgriculture," vehe- mently accuses England of having in the last fifty years purchased from other countries phosphate enough for 130,000,000 people, while

shehas allowed her own phosphate to run into the sea. The depopula- tion of Europe must take place, says the great chemist, if this is allowed to continue. A writer in the siade improves the occasion by declaring that the height of Frenchmen and Germans has di- minished in the same period from the want of the phosphoric acid of which " perfide Albion" has deprived them. We have, it seems, even ransacked the fields of Liepsic, Waterloo, and the Crimea for bones. May not our Government get a hint as to national defences from these wailings ? If we can weaken all other nations and therefore strengthen ourselves by buying phosphate, may it not turn out a cheaper method than building iron-clads ? At least to the ardent patriot and agriculturist the groans of Liebig and the Sieele may be taken as some set-off against the pollution of our rivers and waste of our sewage manure.

On Monday last the Himalaya brought to Southampton the battalion of the Coldstreams and three companies of the Scots Fusiliers who have been for the last three years in Canada. The bands of the brigade received them at the Waterloo Station playing 411-Iome, Sweet Home," and we trust that this foreign service will be found to have had a good influence on the brigade by convincing those highborn young gentlemen that the Guards' Club is not the -centre of Mr. Thackeray's " Paradise," which was bounded on the north by Oxford Street, on the south by the 11911, on the east by Regent Street, and on the west by Hyde Park.

" An Old Abolitionist" asks for the reference to the article on Mr. Pierce's report on the " Free Labour Cotton Plantations at Port Royal." It was in the Spectator of the 15th March, 1862, p. 294. We have since learned that Colonel McKaye has published a report to the Federal Secretary of War, Mr. Stanton, on the state of the Louisiana plantations under General Banks's system. This we have as yet been unable to procure ; but it is described to us as showing that General Banks's system has not worked well, and is a retro- grade step on the system of General Butler.

Mr. Percy Ff reach forwards to the Times of Tuesday an account received by him from his father-indaw, a Russian noble, of a con- flagration at Simbirsk, the capital of the Government of the same name. A city of 30,000 people, containing many great public buildings and palaces of the nobility, has been burnt to the ground by a fire which raged for an entire week. All the appliances for its extinction were destroyed on the third day, there was consider- able loss of life, and scarcely anything seems to have been rescued from destruction. As the prosperity of the place chiefly depended on the resident nobles, and as they, already reduced in wealth by recent reforms, will scarcely be able to rebuild, it is doubtful whether the town is not finally destroyed. According to the letter in question the fire would seem to be the result of a deep-laid plot. The cathedral and public buildings were all mined, and the .explosions were tremendous. The Poles quartered in the city were suspected by the populace, and two officers and several soldiers massacred, while further disturbances were threatened. No further accounts of this extraordinary affair have been received, and it seems difficult to believe that a plot of such vast dimensions could have been carried out under a Russian regime. The story of the mines may possibly have been raised by the frenzied and despairing victims, as in great calamities the first impulse of an unreasoning crowd is often to seek an object for revenge. But Poles have had an "education in conspiracy," and the destruction of the Are- engines seems suspicious.

On Wednesday last the annual grand file of the Wilts Rifle Association was- held in Wilton Park, and Lord Palmerston, who was on a visit at the time to _Lady Herbert of Lea, gave away the prizes. In presenting the challenge cup to Serjeant Jeffries, Lord Palmerston spoke at some length on the duties and progress of the volunteer force, and gracefully referred to the commencement of the work by the late Lord Herbert of Lea, and the great measure of its success which was owing to the following out of his plans. He impressed upon his hearers the necessity of good shooting, with a quaint mixture of undeniable sense and dry humour- '" to move to meet an enemy without being able to bring him down is only getting nearer danger yourselves." lie praised the volun- teers at large for their devotion of their time and labour to becom- ing acquainted with the duties of their profession, and concluded by congratulating Wiltshire volunteers on enjoying the local and personal encouragement of a house so longhonourably distinguished in the county as the Pembroke family.

Mr. Bailey and Mr. Bradlangh, charged with conspiring to suborn Gustave Steven to swear an affidavit falsely stating that Frankenheim, a diamond merchant, was about to leave the country to avoid arrest, have both been honourably discharged. Absence of complicity on their part was proved, suspicion having been excited only by the identity of interests between the accused and the two men who appear to have been the real parties to the subornation, and who are now " wanted."

Brother Ignatius has been lecturing at Newcastle in advocacy of the revival of monasteries in connection with the Church of England, and seems to have met with a considerable amount of sympathy. A Presbyterian minister named Thomson distinguished himself by leading the malcontent minority in the audience, but evidently had an uphill fight. After a few preliminary skirmishes the first encounter between the Brother and his opponent arose through the latter objecting to being called the minister of a " sect." Mr. Thomson persevered in his interruptions amidst hisses, cries of " Shut up!" and "Fetch the police!' and on being requested to take his hat off while a portion of Scripture was read retorted by telling the Brother to take off his wig. His most deci- sive defeat was when the Brother challenged him to give the deri- vation of the word " heretic." Evading the question he shouted at the top of his voice, with outstretched arms, " Now, master of all that is abominable." What would have followed this im- pressive exordium will never be known, as at this point he was overwhelmed with groans and hisses, Mr. Thomson's flank move- ment to avoid the definition of heretic was clever; but the audience would not let him escape even when a well-meaning friend sug- gested that he " was not expected to be a walking lexicon." Brother Ignatius might prosper in his work if ho had no more dangerous opponents than Mr. Thomson.

We are glad to see that the Working Men's Club and Institute Union feels strong enough to found a magazine. The magazine will probably react on their prosperity by informing those who have not yet got clubs and institutes of their own, of the success of their friends and acquaintances in other places.

The Maori leaders leave nothing undone that can in any way tend to keep up the confidence and fan the hatred to the English of their people. The Auckland Southern Cross of June 3 gives a remarkable account of the last device by which the chiefs hope to excite their followers to renewed efforts. The blood of Captain Lloyd, who was killed at Ahuahu, was drunk by the natives and his head cut off. Those who drank the blood assert that the Archangel Gabriel appeared to them on the following night, directing them to dry the head and carry it through the island as the standard of a new faith. The head is said to have spoken and laid down the new creed. All who had drunk water in which the head had been dipped would be invulnerable, and were to take an oath to exterminate every white. A sacred watchword was given, the Virgin and the Archangel Gabriel were to aid them in driving out the Pakeha, and mysterious ceremonies were revealed by means of which all English knowledge and skill could be acquired instantaneously from Heaven. All European creeds were to be proscribed, all Bibles destroyed, marriage and the obser- vance of Sunday abolished. Two out of the three apostles of this movement have been killed ; but as long as the other remains, ventriloquism and clever juggling may enable him to effect con- siderable mischief with the head in his possession. The Macaies are not yet quite the civilized race they are represented to be in some quarters.

On Saturday last Consols for money left off at 881, and for

account at 88k Yesterday the closing prices were :—For transfer, 88 to88k ; for time, 8811. The stock of bullion in the Bank of England has increased to the extent of 265,5961., the amount now held being 13,171,1071.

The following table shows the closing prices of the leading

Foreign Securities yesterday and on Friday week:— Friday, Sept. 16. Friday, Sept. N. Greek .. .. .. .. •• .. 241 .. 23/

Do. Coupons .. .. • • • • • • — — — Mexican .. .. .. .. .. .. 271 .. 27k Spanish Passive ..........32 .. 31/ Do. Certificates .. .. .. .. 14 .. 14 Turkish 6 per Ceuta., 1838.. .. .. .. 88 .. 60 1882.. .. .. .. 69 •• 70

'. Consogdes.. .. .. .. v. 60 .. 64

Yesterday and on Saturday week the leading British Railways left off at the annexed quotations:—

Caledonian ..

Great Eastern Great Northern .. Great Western.. ..

Lancashire and Yorkshire .. London and Brighton London and North-Western London and South•Wastern London, Chatham, and Dover .. Midland .. North•Essteru, Berwick ..

Do. York .. Wast.lildiand, Oxford ..

..

.. 128 .. 671 .. 114/ .. 1023 „ 111 .. 93 .. 40 .. 129 .. 1051 . • 93

.. 4.7j

.. 12 .. 113 102

l▪ d . 92

41

id 12s

▪ m5; en 4.7k

Friday, Sept. 10. Friday'. Sept OS:

124124 • • 44