The House in tha Wood, near The Hague, in which the Pesce delegates, have begun their sittings, is an admirably chosen spot for such an assembly. It was built just over two hundred. and fifty years ago by the grandmother of our King William IIT in memory of her husband; and the Great Orange Hall in which the conference meets is a magnificent apartment adorned with the finest works of the great Dutch painters of the seventeenth century. The utch President of the Conference, M. de Beaufort, in his inaugural address, called the attention of the delegates to a great victare of Peace closing the Temple of anus, painted in celebration of the Peace of Westphalia; but it cannot be said that the approach of the Conference has inspired us in this country with higher hopes of any great practical results in. the cause of Peace and the Reduction of Armaments; and the recent action of Russia in China has done not a little to damp the enthusiasm of the hopeful.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.