The Week.

Church of England would he very jealous of every sort of persecution for opinion , unless demanded by some overwhelming and inevitable necessity . " The right rev . prelate then referred to church rates and other questions affecting the well-being of the Establishment . We have to announce the death of the greatest English dramatist of the present century , Mr . Sheridan Knowles . He died at Torquay on Saturday , after a long and painful illness . Lord Derby made a most gratifying announcement at the meeting of the Central Committee for the Relief of the Lancashire distress . He said he had received a letter

from Sir C . Phipps , intimating that the Prince of AA'ales had directed £ 1000 to be forwarded to Manchester " as His Royal Highness ' s first aet on attaining his majority . " The Central Committee has now a balance at the bank of about £ 130 , 000 ; but , on the other hand ,, Mr . Farnall reports a further increase of 10 , 721 in the number of persons receiving parochial relief in the districts affected , hy the cotton , famine . On Tuesday an

important county meeting was held in Manchester . The Lord-Lieutenant ( Lord Sefton ) presided ; and among the speakers were Lord Derby , Lord Wilton , Lord Egerton of Tatton , and Stanley . The amount subscribed is estimated , from a hurried glance through the list , at about £ 70 , 000 , Lord Derby contributing the handsome sum of £ 5000 . Lord Stanley addressed a meeting held in St . James ' s , Westminster , on Saturday . The

noble lord defended Lancashire against the charge of having failed to do its duty in the present crisis , and expressed his warm admiration of the patience and fortitude with which the people are enduring their hard fate . He suggested that if all persons with an income of £ 100 and upwards were to contribute £ 1 per cent , of their income , a sum of £ 220 , 000 might be thus raised for the relief of the distress . Cardinal AViseman has issued a pastoral , in which he earnestly calls upon the Roman

Catholics under his direct charge to give a helping hand to the suffering operatives of Lancashire . An equally urgent appeal has been made by the Bishop of Kerry for the same object . The Duke of Cambridge , in the coarse of an after-dinner speech on Saturday evening , expressed his conviction—a conviction which was strengthened by the recent experiments—that in the contest between armour-plated , ships and rifled guns , the latter would carry the day . It would seem that a similar conclusion has heen arrived at by the French government . It is stated that our allies have decided not to proceed with any more iron frigates , as recent experiments , more especially with flat-headed

shell—the missile Mr . VVhitworth has emyloyed with such startling effect against armour-plated targets—have , it is alleged , satisfied them that the artillerists are more than a match for the shipbuilders . The military inquiry into the recent " turf scandals" has terminated , and the report , it is said , virtually leaves " the whole decision of the fate of Colonel Burnaby in the hands of the Commander-in-Chief . " It is further stated that " upon the chage of sharping at Mamhead a kind of

questionable verdict is pronounced , leaving matters in much the ' same state as the Stewards of the Jockey Club left the Tarragona affair . " In reply to the complaints sent to the Foreign Office from Liverpool , respecting the destruction of British property on board Federal vessels captured by the Confederate war steamer Alabama , Lord Russell states that the owners of uch property—not contraband of war , of course—must seek compensation in a Southern Prize Court . The cab-drivers of

London held a meeting on Wednesday night at the AVhitting-Club , with a view of taking steps to obtain redress of the grievances of ivhich they complain . Lord Henry Cholmondeley presided . A temperate report , drawn up by delegates who had been appointed from the various districts of the metropolis , was read . It recommended that there should be no hiring for less than a shilling ; that the metal badge snould be abolished and a cei-tificate substituted ; and that there should be a cheap

and easy appeal from the decisions of magistrates . The report ivas adopted , together with a petition to the House of Commons on the subject , ancl a committee was appointed to wait upon members of Parliament , with a view of interesting them in the discussion of the question . An action brought by Mr . Digby Seymour , M . P ., against the publisher of the Law Magazine for libel , terminated on Wednesday with a verdict of 40 s . for the plaintiff . Mr . Seymour was subjected to a searching cross-examination by Mr , Serjeant Shee . with

a view of showing that he had used his parliamentary position to procure promotion in his profession . Mr . Windham , of Felbrigg Hall , has just appeared as defendant in the Court of Exchequer , where a livery-stable keeper sued him for a carriage and horses supplied to his wife while the memorable inquiry into his sanity was pending . Mr . Windham met this action by the averment that he was not answerable for goods of any kind supplied to his wife while she was living

in open adultery , which he called witnesses to prove she was at the time . It was true he had since condoned the offence , but the judge held that he did not affect the defence , and the jury found for the defendant . At the Bankruptcy Court , Mr . G . Stiff , late of the Morning Chronicle , & c , obtained his order of discharge . Ten of the Blackburn rioters were convicted at the Preston sessions , on Saturday . One of them was sentenced to three years' penal servitude ; five to twelve months'and

, four to five months' hard labour . Six men were apprehended at Blackburn , on Sunday , on the charge of having been concerned in the murder of Walne , of llibchester ; but , on the prisoners being brought before the local magistrates , one of them , a . gamekeeper named Bowling , was discharged and put into the witness-box , to give evidence for the prosecution . Bowling stated that one of the prisoners—Duncan M'Phail , a returned convict—admitted to him in the course of conversation , a few

days ago , that he and the four other men in the dock hacl committed the murder . M'Phail declared that he had never told the witness anything ofthe sort ; but the police superintendent who has charge of the case stated that he should be able to produce corroborative evidence . The prisoners were remanded . Hartley , one of the men in custody , has since made a "full confession , " which agrees in the main with the statement alleged to have heen made to the man Bowling bM'Phail .

y There is , therefore , a fair prospect ofthe conviction of the perpetrators of this cowardly crime . A scoundrel pointed a pistol at a woman at Lower Darwen lately , apparently because she did not at once comply with his demand for " bread . " AA'e are unwilling to believe that this ruffian belonged to the class who have not failed to appreciate the generosity with which their fellow-subjects in every corner of the globe are coming forward to mitigate , as far as possible , their sufferings .

It is stated that the Government intend next session to bring in a bill for the better prevention of those outrages which have rendered the streets of London unsafe . A fresh illustration of the almost incredible darings of the garotters is reported . At two o'clock on Thursday , the 27 th , a young lady was . seized round the throat in cue of the streets of the fashionable quarter of Tyburnia , and dragged under an archway where she was robbed by a women ancl two men , one of the men holding a

pistol to her head . They attempted to take her rings and her ear-rings , and even proceeded to cut off her hair , —which , as one of them said , " would fetch something "—but luckily at this moment the sound of wheels was heard , and the robbers disappeared . Baron Bramwell finished the trial of the garrotters yesterday week , and passed sentence on those that had been convicted . The public , we think , are not likely to exclaim against the over-severity of the sentences . Of 18 convicted

prisoners brought up in succession for judgment , only two were sentenced to penal servitude for life ; the others were awarded periods of service varying from twenty to four years . Mr . Justice Byles , at the Maidstone assizes , and Mr . Assistant Judge Bodkin , at the Middlesex sessions , referred , in their charges on Monday , to the question of the treatment of prisoners charged with grave offences—such , for example , as those with which Mr . Baron Bramwell had to deal with at the Central Criminal

Court . Both were of opinion that the present system of penal servitude has failed , and that the interests of society demand a recurrence to transportation . A case connected with garrotting was brought before the magistrates at Highate on Monday . About a week or ten days ago a inan was rudely assaulted by an ill-looking man in the Hampstead lanes , and , fancying he was a garrotter , he knocked him . Some other men then came up , struck and otherwise ill-used the man , and finally gave him into

the custody of the police . AVhen the case was brought hefore the magistrates the tables were turned : the man was acquitted , anp the prosecutor and his witnesses were put to the bar . There did not seem , however , to be any intention of robbery on either side . The first man knocked down was discharged as having received sufficient punishment from his antagonist ' s fists ; the others were fined in small sums . On the same day a women was brought up before the magistrates at Westminster , charged with abusing Mr . Murray , who was nearly murdered by some