The Week.

maintained that her influence had m no way been lowered . by the foreign policy of the present Government . Lord Stanley attended the annual meeting of the Liverpool Chamber of Commerce last week , and spoke at some length on the various subjects referred to in the report of the Council . On the question of the Indian import duties the noble lord said he objected to those charges on the broad principle of free

trade , but practically be did not think that tiiey acted so seriously upon English manufactures as might at first sight appear . He looked forward to their early repeal ; but it must he borne in mind that in the remission of taxation , the first duty of the India Government was to deal with the income-tax , which was avowedly imposed as a temporary expedient . In his

closing remarks he expressed his deep satisfaction that England had not been dragged into a war , ancl avowed himself an advocate of peace , and of abstinence from the propaga tion of "ideas" by means of the sword . The corner-stone of the new tower of Manchester Cathedral was laid last week by the Bishop of the diocese in the presence of a large assemblage of

the clergy and laity . Tlie proceedings were opened by a service at the Cathedral , the Avchhiship of York being the preacher . At a meeting of the Metropolitan Board of Works , Mr . Bazalgette read a detailed statement of the condition of the sewage works , from which it appeared that fair progress had been made . Some conversation took place on the

subject of the Thames Embankment , and it was stated that the progress of the work is somewhat impeded from the want of proper material to make the bank . . Unfavourable reports are , we regret' to observe , once more current respecting the state of Lord Carlisle ' s health ; and it is now affirmed that the government of Ireland will be entrusted to the Marquis of Lansdowne . The first stone of the Irish memorial of O'C '

onnell was laid at Dublin , on Monday , by the Lord Mayor of that city . The affair assumed the form of a great national fete , and everything appears to bave been conducted in the most orderly manner . In the evening there was a banquet at the Rotunda , afc which the Lord Mayor presided . The mule and donkey show was opened at the Agricultural Hall , Islington , on Monday , and has already attracted numerous visitors . The prize

for foreign asses was carried off by a splendid animal ext . ibited by the Prince of AA * ales . The show of the English animals proves that all the mules and donkeys in the country are not ill-treated . At the Guildford assizes on Monday , a Frenchman named Direy brought an action against six gentlemen residing in the neighbourhood of Dulwich , for conspiring to

drive him from his employment there , and so accomplishing his ruin . The case was of a very disagreeable character ; several obscene letters having been sent to young ladies in the place , which the defendants charged hiin- with writing , and his pupils were in consequence withdrawn from him . The plaintiff conducted his own case , and of course

in the most rambling mianner , the judge bearing with his irrelevancies in consequence of his being a foreigner . Among other unusual proceedings he called all the defendants as witnesses to prove his case , and put very offensive questions to them , to which they gave positive and indignant replies . AVhen he hacl concluded both judge and jury agreed that there was

not a tittle of evidence to support the charges he had made , and a verdict was given for the defendants . The inquest into the murder of Mr . Briggs was resumed on Monday at the Town'Hall , Hackney , before the coroner , Mr . Humphreys . Mrs . Blvthe , landlady of the house in which Muller lodged , was examined at considerable length , and also the wife of Matthews , the cabman . The tendency of the whole evidence , coupled with everal incidents ferretted out by the police , is rather to

strengthen the case against Muller . A woman died suddenly at Limehouse on Friday , and it was supposed thafc the death was caused by the violence of her husband . But at the inquest it was shown that though the husband and wife did not live happily together , the woman's death had unquestionably arisen from her own intemperate habits . An inquest was held on AVednesday at Mill wall on the body of a workman at some

engineering works there . A travelling crane was employed to lift a boiler into its place , but from some cause the boiler dragged the crane out of its place , ancl jerked tliree men off the stage to the ground . They were all injured , but one , named Smith , hacl his skull fractured . Tlie jury returned a verdict of accidental death . An inquest was held on Tuesday

on the body of a woman who was found in an insensible state in the City , and was taken in a cab to the City of London Union AVorkhouse at Bow , where she remained insensible , without any doctor being called in to see her . The inquest was adjourned to give an opportunity to the officers of the Union to explain their apparent neglect . A brutal outrage , ending

in death , was committed in Kingsland on Saturday night last . A man named East , in the employment of the Independent Gas Company , sat down to rest himself in a passage iu one of the streets off Kingsland-road . Another man , entering the passage , kicked him as he passed . East remonstrated , on which his assailant turned round and felled him by a blow on

the side of the head . The man was taken up insensible , and died on AVednesday night . The ruffian has not yet been traced . On Saturday evening a man was attacked in the Liverpool-road , Manchester , by a number of Irish ruffians , who inflicted such injuries upon him thafc he died in about three hours . Three of his assailants are in custody . The poor fellow Cooper , the Guardsman , who was wounded while

acting as marker at the recent volunteer meeting on Wimbledon Common , expired on Tuesday morning . AA'illiam-Stevens has been executed at Aylesbury , for the murder of Annie Leeson , at Buckingham , on February 27 th . The poor girl had rejected his offered addresses , and the prisoner manifested the sincerity and depth of his professed affection for her by brutally cutting her throat with a razor . The

young [ man Parker , who was convicted at the last assizes of the murder of his mother by shooting her with a gun , was executed on AVednesday morning at Nottingham in front of the county jail . The condemned man was very penitent , but to the last he denied thafc he intended to clo harm to either of his parents . There was a large crowd of persons present to

witness the execution , and their behaviour was , upon the whole , creditable to them . —»—A number of non-commissioned officers and privates of the Royal Artillery have been apprehended afc Woolwich , on a charge of having boon concerned in a wholesale ' robbery of the Government Clothing Stores , which has just been brought to light . The Liverpool Magistrates have

committed another person—an engineer , named Buchanan—for trial , on a charge of hiring men for service on board the Confederate steamer , Rappahannoch . A terrible accident occurred at Gravesend afc an early hour on Saturday morning .. Some men were engaged in cleaning out a cesspool when the pestiferous fumes suffocated one of them , and he fell off the

ladder on which he was standing . Another man went clown to recover him when he too was suffocated with the stench and fell in . The police were sent for and a sergeant tried to recover the bodies , when , shocking to tell , he became tlie third victim of the pestilential vapours . The foul air was afc last expelled by means of a "fire annihilator , " when , the three men were got out , but life was extinct in all of them . A narrative has ap .-peared which shows in a striking light the dangers to which