The Week.

Queen ' s taxes in the district , and whom they charge with making illegal distraints . Certainly , if half what was stated to the magistrate be true , the ratepayers have good cause of complaint . The magistrate said fie could give them no redress , and advised them to apply to the Inland Revenue Commissioners . They said they should do so . There

ought to bo au inquiry into the ehrrges made . ——The clanger of a newly invented firework was fatally demonstrated on Tuesday . Some time ago two men took rooms at the top of a house in Mitre Court , Mitre Street , Aldgate , professing at the time to be cigarette makers . It seems they were really dealers

in a new chemical compound called Chinese Li ght . Soon after a customer called to buy some of this stuff , and went up to their room . Shortly afterwards an explosion took place , and soon the whole of the top storey of tho house was ablaze . When the fire was extinguished , two men , one of the traders and the customer , were found frightfully burnt and dead in the room .

Tne other trader had been blown out of the window , ancl was found senseless on the flags in a backyard . He died soon afterwards . An action of rather an unusual character was tried in the Court of Queen ' s Bench on Tuesday . It was brought by Mr . Turner , of Wilderness Row , to recover £ 250 , the reward offered by Mr . Walker , of Cornhill , for information which

might lead to the apprehension of the burglar or burglars who broke into bis shop and stole jewelleryworth £ 6 , 000 . Mr . Turner also sought to obtain part of a further reward of £ 750 for tho recovery of the property stolen . The question really was whether the information given by Mr . Turner led to the apprehension of the burghy-s and the recovery of part of the property . Evidence was called ou both sides , and the jury found for the plaintiff . Cambridge had a public meeting on the Jamaica question on Tuesday evening . A .

placard had been issued calling on Englishmen to attend the meeting tq oppose the object of its promoters and to support Governor Eyre . The response to this was the attendance of a great number of persons , who appear to havo answered to tho calls of the Conservative leader of the place . They cheered all allusions to the cruelties practised ) on the negroes , and

expressly approved the execution of Mr . Gordon , and the shooting , and hanging , and flogging of the black people . Eventually an amendment was carried , declaring it to be unjust to Governor Eyre to pass any opinion upon his conduct pending inquiry . An extraordinary action wag tried iu the Court of Exchequer on Wednesday . Messrs . Peaice and

Countze , coach-builders , of Long Acre , sued a woman named Brooks for a sum of money on account of a brougham , which they said they had sold to her . The defence was that the brougham had been hired , and , further , that it was lent b y the plaintiffs , as they well knew , to enable the defendant to carry on her vocation as a prostitute . Tho evidence ivas of a

conflicting character , and strangely significant . Finally the jury returned a verdict for the defendant , on tho ground that the plaintiff ; supplied the vehicle to her as a prostitute . -In the Court of Queen's Bench on Wednesday a Miss Saunders sued a Mr . Short , a money-lender , for breach of promise of marriage . Letters about as absurd as are usually reed in such

cases were put in , and the jury found a verdict for the plaintiff for £ 200 . A fearful colliery explosion is reported to have taken place near Merthyr Tydvil ou Wednesday . It is said that twenty-nine men were killed and three injured . FoREiex I NTEI > EICI « CE . —The funeral of the late King of the Belgians took place on Saturday . The body was removed from Brussels to Laeken , where it was interred in the family vault . In Brussels and along the route of the funeral procession great crowds gathered , and there were marks of the

The Week.

deepest mourning . On Sunday King Leopold II . took the oath to the constitution before both Houses of the Belgian Parliament . On their way from Laeken to the Houses of Parliament both he and the Queen were loudly cheered . He made a short speech to the Houses , in tbe course of which he declared he would be a Belgian King from bis heart and soul .

He loved , he said , the institutions of the country , and would do all he could to foster them . The speech , says the telegram , excited great enthusiasm . A Vienna telegram snys that a supplementary convention to the Treaty of Gastein has been concluded between Austria and Prussia , relating to the garrison arrangements at Rendsburg . The Queea of Spain is

said to be improving in health , and it is probable she will open the Cortes in person . It seems the Council of State have approved the report of the commission condemning the bishops who protested against the recognition of Italy . We ( says a morning contemporary ) think the British public , little as they care in general for Prussian politics , will be sorry to hear of

the death of Bockum-Dolfi ' s , Vice-President of the Berlin Lower Chamber . Bockum-Dolll' s died in Berlin on Saturday . Few people can have forgotten the famous scene in which , rather than allow the House to be bullied by the War Minister , he called for his hat and brought the debate peremptorily to a close . Bockum-Dolff ' s hat thus became for a time a sort of emblem of freedom —a cap of liberty . The hat of Frederick the Great is , if we remember rightly , enshrined

in the Berlin Museum . Bockum-Dolff ' s hat would be , to our thinking , a far more interesting relic——A telegram from Berlin brings the welcome , news that Herr Bockum Dolffs , the Vice-President of the Prussian Chamber of Deputies , is not dead . Some person of the same name , a Government official , committed suicide , it seems , and hence the

mistake . It appears that Bisho ]) Colenso will be met at Natal with an address expressing " the singular pleasure , " which his return to his diocese occasions to the subscribers , and hailing him as a . courageous representative of the rights of free inquiry . But the three other Anglican bishops are determined if possible to prevent him from exercising his

episcopal functions , and have called upon the clergy to elect another bishop . It is stated that Lord A . Hervey , the Hon . Mr . Strurt , and Mr . Corre have been seized by brigands in Greece . £ 1 , 000 ransom was demanded , and the brigands allowed Lord A . Hervey and Mr . Strutt to go at liberty to look after the money , ' while Mr . Corre was held as a hostage for its payment . After the Prince of Wales had attended

the funeral of King Leopold , ho proceeded on a tour in Germany . He visited " Darmstadt , and doubtless made calls on various of his German cousins . At last there is good reason to believe that Count Eulenburg has been sentenced to a term of imprisonment for his connection with the affray in which M . Ott was killed . It is now announced that this fire-eating young nobleman has been sentenced to imprisonment in a fortress for five months and a half .

To Correspondents.

TO CORRESPONDENTS .

* ... * All communications to be addressed to 19 , Salisbury-street , Strand , London , W . C . NOTICE TO SUBSCI . II . ERS IX ARREARS . — Subscribers who are iu arrears are requested to forward without delay the amounts due from them bv Post-ofiico Order , payable to the Proprietor , Bro . Willi . im Smith , C . E ., 19 , Salisbury-street , Strand , London , W . C . J—Address the Grand Secretary the subject referred to

upon It is not within our province to interfere . We are sure that Bro . White will , with bis usual courtesy and promptness , reply to the points raised by you . R . — The English translation of Bro . Findell ' s work will be readv , we are informed , early in the new year .