Tus election of M. Marie-Francois-Sach Carnot to the Presidency of the French Republic must be a grave disappointment to those who hoped that the Republic was about to perish by its own excesses, and confirms the belief we expressed last week that the Republicans would unite to save the country, if necessary, from the complications predicted by M. Grévy. As we wrote, the popular favourites, M. Brisson, M. Ferry and M. de Freycinet, threw away their chances when they became Prime Ministers, while M. Floquet's unfortunate " Vive la Polugne" made it impossible for him to be elected President of a country that is anxious just now to be on the best tenns with Russia. The Right, though it in the minority in both Chambers, is a powerful factor in the National Assembly, composed of the two Chambers sitting together, and it has evidently stipulated that, while it must of necessity agree to a President chosen from the Left, the candidate proposed should be a moderate man, in whom all parties could have confidence. M. Carnot's father and grandfather were both republican Statesmen, his grandfather having been the celebrated Carnot of the Revolution, the " organiser of victory," whose heroic defence of Antwerp in 1814 is commemorate by a statue in that city, and who was Minister of War during the Hundred Days; while his father was Minister of Public Instruction under the Republic of 1848. M. Sach-Carnot is a comparatively young man. He is, like M. de Freycinet, an engineer by. profession, having' come out at the head of his class in the school des Ponts et Chaussées in 1863. In January 1871, having previously acted as Secretary of the School, he was appointed Prefect of the Seine-Inférieure, and charged with the organisation of the national defences in the three Departments of the Seine-Infé- rieure, Cure and Calvados. ° In Febrnary 1871 he was elected representative for Cote door in the National Assembly, and became Secretary of the group known as the Gauche Républicaine. In 1876 he was elected for the arrondiscment. of Beaune by a considerable majority over the official candidate, and was one of the 363 deputies of the United Left who refused the vote of confidence to the de Broglie Ministry. Public Works of all kinds, and especially railways, have been the department to which he has chiefly tuned his attention in the Chamber, and he has been various times reporter of the Committee on the Public Works' budget, Sub-Secretary of State in the Public Works Ministry, Minister of Public Works, and Minister of Finance. As a man of means, and of moderate views, his republicanism being of about the same shade as M. Grévy's, "he promises to make an excellent President acceptable to foreign Powers, as well as to all reasonable men in the two Chambers; and his election is probably as great a surprise to himself as to the prophets, who could see no farther than the " three F.
THE CANADIAN PACIFIC ROUTE, A cornesponvENT of the Times, wr under the signature of " Cautior into a comparison of the various routes from England to the East. He begins by questioning the accuracy of the table of distances on the Canadian Pacific route which a previous correspondent had given, and furnishes a table of his own construction, from which we take the portion that is applicable to this part of the world, the rest of it referring to the Australian colonies; the distances being given in geographical miles from England ete ta eet Quebec.
Quebec to Vancouver 2 Vanr, to Yokohatwa 4,28)! 9 Do,, rid Gitaltar and Suez 11, Darr via Hrindiet and Stee eid Gibraltar and Suez Do. eid Brindiet and Suez Do' tid thee Cape vesseese "Cantion " next says that the time allowed by the Candian Railway for the journey from Quebec to Vancouver is 5 days and 22 hours local time, or six days one hour real time, but that. the trains are often late, a fault that will
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.