_January 9th, 1857._--The old year ended and the new year began strangely. After three years of expensive war the balance-sheet exhibited such a state of wealth and prosperity as may well make us 'the envy of surrounding nations;' but while we have recovered the great blessing of peace, we have to look back upon a year stained beyond all precedent with frightful crimes of every sort and kind: horrible murders, enormous frauds, and scandalous robberies and defalcations. The whole attention of the country is now drawn to the social questions which press upon us with appalling urgency, and the next session of Parliament, which is rapidly advancing, must be principally engaged in the endeavour to find remedies for the evils and dangers incident to our corrupted population, and our erroneous and inadequate penal system, the evils and dangers of which threaten to become greater and more difficult to remedy every day. From this question it is impossible to dissever that of education, for at least we ought to make the experiment whether the diffusion of education will or will not be conducive to the diminution of crime, and we shall see whether the sectarian prejudices, the strength and obstinacy of which have hitherto erected impassable barriers to the progress of educating the people, will retain all their obstinacy in the face of the existing evil, or whether the bodily fear and the universal persuasion of the magnitude and imminence of the danger will not operate upon bigotry itself and render the masses more reasonable. Besides these important questions the new year opens with a most unpleasant prospect abroad, where everything seems to go wrong and our foreign relations, be the cause what, or the fault whose it may, to be in a very unhappy state. [Sidenote: PRUSSIA AND NEUFCHATEL.]