DE OMNIBUS REBUS.

Globe, Volume II, Issue 199, 28 January 1875, Page 4

DE OMNIBUS REBUS.

The Academy states that Mr Swinburne's Essay on Chapman, originally written to preface a collected edition of that poet's works in three volumes, has grown under his hands, and now presents suvh dimensions that he proposes to publish it in a separate form. Among other things the -poet announces, and with no uncertain sound, his opinion of the labours of the latest school of Shakspearian commentators. As soon as this book is out, and before Christmas, Mr Swinburne will bring out a volume of " Critical Studies," reprinted from the Fortnightly Review, and this may be followed by another set of essays. Meanwhile he is steadily working at his long-projected epic of " Tristram and Tseult," which progresses somewhat rapidly. The following telegram with reference to the reputed conspiracy in Russia is taken from a London paper of November 14th.— Berlin, November 13th—No fewer than 3000 persons, many of them ladies, have been already arrested in connection with a plot the existence of which has recently been discovered in Russia, and, through the extraordinary activity of the New Director of the Secret Police, fresh apprehensions are continually being made. A commission has been appointed to investigate the" conspiracy —the exact character and object of which are still unknown ; but many of the members nominated have refused to serve, and have been reprimanded in consequence. I hear that traces have been found implicating several persons in exalted positions with the plot, and that a vast amount of money was at (he disposition of the conspirators. In some parts of the country—as at Sevsk, for instance—arrests have been so numerous that an absolute reign of terror prevails ; and it has actually been proposed that on someone night the police shall make a search in every house in St Petersburg." The careless manner in which gunpowder is frequently transported from.place to place in the colony, has often been made the subject of remark. Another instance of this truth is recorded by the Grey River Argus, which says :—" It has just been discovered that the town of Ahaura and every living thing in it had a narrow escape from total obliteration. A waggoner named Lardi passed through it the other day with his team, and shortly afterwards the children playing about the main street began picking up fragments of a black glittering substance which turned out to be blasting powder. The waggon was followed, and the powder train was distinctly traced to about a mile from the town, where the driver had stopped. It was then found, and the finders obtained the information with hair standing on end, that there were over 50 barrels of blasting powder among the cargo in the waggon, and that one of them had been broken, scattering its contents in all directions." Speaking of the trade of Tasmania with the other colonies, the Sobart Town Mercury says:—"The attempt to secure intercolonial reciprocity, and the admission duty free, or on modified terms, of each other's products into the respective colonies, is such a modified form of protection that it is virtually the first stage of intercolonial, if not universal, free trade. A completed arrangement between Tasmania and New Zealand remains still a thing of the future; little to the credit of the New Zealand Government's sincerity and good faith, if indeed, of its statesmanship. New Zealand ought to have pondered ere going so far. Having gone the length it did, New Zealand becomes lowered in its character in not carrying out its engagements. Our Government might attempt a reciprocity arrangement with Queensland, with more prospect of benefitiug the two colonies, and with more assurance of straightforward dealing on the part of the Queensland Government. New Zealand and Tasmania produce pretty much the same articles. An interchange of commodities is simply a question of profit. Queensland and Tasmania differ in products as in climate ; the one grows what the other cannot produce, at any rate, in any perfeotiou ; and an interchange of commodities is, therefore, a matter of necessity, at pres< nt very much affected by tariff restrictions. Remove these, and an important sal prof %• able trade is a matter of course,"