27.-Earl Kimberley lays on the table of the House of Lords a Bill to repress illegal combinations in Westmeath, by providing that in certain circumstances the districts named in the Bill are to be proclaimed, and this being done, the Lord Lieutenant is empowered to suspend the Habeas Corpus Act for two years, and arrests may be effected by Viceregal warrants in any portion of the United Kingdom.

:

Speaking in the Assembly on the plea for clemency put forward, M. Thiers said :"Our rigour will vanish when the insurgents lay down their arms, excepting against those persons who have been guilty of crime, and they are not numerous. When I give orders, not cruel ones, but orders such as would be dictated by a state of war, I feel under the necessity of asking myself, of asking you, whether right is on my side. (M. Thiers was here interrupted by various exclamations, but he appealed to the Assembly to listen to him, and continued): I give these orders with sorrow; but was there ever a time when right was more evident than at the present? Everyone knows the truth of what I say. In Paris the abstentions from voting at the recent elections show the isolation of the insurgents, while, on the other hand, the whole of France is with us, and with you, who are the free expression of her suffrages."

Died at Naples, aged 59, M. Sigismund Thalberg, pianist and composer.

28.—Came on in the Court of Queen's Bench, the case of Tomline v. Lowe, raised to test the question whether the Queen's subjects are not entitled to have gold and silver bullion converted into coin of the realm, on application at the Mint. The matter came before the Court on demurrer to the plaintiff's declaration, and the substantial question was, whether the old common law of the realm had been set aside by a Royal proclamation. On the part of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the SolicitorGeneral conceded the right to have gold bullion coined. The Act of 1870 contained this clause:"That where any person brings to the Mint any gold bullion such bullion shall be coined and delivered out to such person without any charge for the coining." That was clear and specific, and therefore the right as to gold could not be disputed. But as to silver, the Act of Charles II. was expressly repealed by the Act of George III., which required a proclamation. The contention on the part of Mr. Tomline was that a proclamation issued in 1817 was still in force, and that under it the same right exists with respect to silver as with respect to gold. This was now decided against the plaintiff, and so the

judgment affirmed that the public had a right to take gold to the Mint and have it coined for nothing, but that they had no such right in the case of silver.

28.-Mr. Cowper Temple submits a resolution in the Commons to secure the preservation of the unenclosed parts of Epping Forest as an open space for the enjoyment of the people of the metropolis. Mr. Lowe and Mr. Gladstone opposed the motion, on the ground that the land was the property of the Crown. The Premier stated that the Government had secured 1,000 acres of the forest as a recreation ground for the people; but the House was not satisfied, and the resolution was carried by a large majority.

M. Thiers telegraphs to the Prefects from Versailles :-" Our troops are proceeding with the works of approach towards Issy. The batteries on the left have been worked with powerful effect against the Parc d'Issy, which is no longer habitable by those who dwelt there. Fort Issy fires no longer. On the right our cavalry, scouring the country, came upon a band of insurgents. The éclaireurs of the 70th Regiment, commanded by Captain Santolini, routed this band, and brought in prisoners the captain, lieutenant, quartermaster, and ten men. Thirty or forty men were killed or wounded. The remaining insurgents were pursued almost to Hautes Bruyères. Notwithstanding the heavy fusillade, we have no losses to deplore.

-

Virulent outbreak of small-pox in Hampstead district; the report presented to the Vestry to-da, showing 92 births against 210 deaths, 171 of which were attributable to the disease named.

29.-The Freemasons of Paris muster in force in the Louvre, and march first to the Column of the Bastille and then along the boulevards towards Versailles, where they intended to seek an audience of M. Thiers to ask his mediation in favour of the Commune. Shells falling heavily at the moment in the Champs Elysées the procession got broken up, and only a few reached Versailles. They were there told that France could not yield to insurgents.

29.-Party riot at Whitehaven, the lecturer Murphy, announced to speak on the "Confessional," being attacked by Catholic miners, and seriously injured.

30.-General Cluseret arrested by order of the Commune on the charge of mismanaging the supply of arms and ammunition along the line of the forts.

May 1.-After a debate protracted till near 2 A.M., Mr. Smith's motion, "That it is inexpedient that the income-tax should be increased to the extent contemplated in the financial proposals of the Government," was negatived by 335 votes to 250. In pleading against interference with the "ancestral system" of reducing debts by "terminable annuities," Mr. Gladstone warned the House that Government had reached the end of their concessions. Mr. Disraeli described the income-tax as a third line of defence to the country in case of war, and said it should not be lightly meddled with, especially as it pressed severely on particular classes.

Michael Torpey convicted of the diamond robbery in Berkeley Street, and sentenced to eight years' penal servitude.

Versailles troops attack and carry the insurgent position embraced within the railway station at Clamart, dominating the Fort of Issy. This was amongst the sharpest encounters which had yet taken place, as many, it was said, as 300 being bayonetted in the enclosure.

2.-The Westmeath Peace Preservation Bill read a second time in the House of Lords, Lord Salisbury describing the main error of the Executive Government as the application of a system of judicature formed for a civilized nation to a Celtic nation, part of which was in the depths of barbarism. He would invest the Viceroy with adequate powers to deal with this population as if he had to deal with Indians.

Speaking in the German Parliament on the Bill for the incorporation of Alsace and Lorraine, Prince Bismarck said that on the 6th of August, 1866, "the French Ambassador handed me an ultimatum demanding the cession of Mayence to France, and telling us, in the alternative, to expect an immediate declaration of war. It was only the illness of the Emperor Napoleon which then prevented the outbreak of war. During the late war neutral Powers made mediatory proposals. In the first instance we were asked to content ourselves with the costs of the war and the razing of a fortress. This did not satisfy us. necessary that the bulwark from which France could sally forth for attack should be farther pushed back. Another proposal was to neutralize Alsace and Lorraine. But that neutral State would have possessed neither the power nor the will to preserve its neutrality in case of

war.

It was

We were obliged to incorporate Alsace with the territory of Germany in order to ensure the peace of Europe. It is true the aversion of

Versailles troops under General Lacretelle carry the redoubt of Moulin Saquet in the evening, killing 150 Communists and making over 300 prisoners.

4.-A motion submitted in the Commons by Mr. Torrens to fix the income-tax at 5d. instead of 6d. rejected by 294 to 248 votes.

5.-Died at his residence, Devonshire-place, aged 86, George Thomas John Nugent, Marquis of Westmeath, an Irish representative peer, and the last survivor, it was thought, of the expedition to Egypt against Napoleon I.

6.-Vice-Chancellor Malins gives judgment in the case of Macbryde v. Eykyn, a suit heard to recover from the defendant, Mr. Roger Eykyn, M.P. for Windsor, 10, 2007. Spanish Passive Bonds, and two sums of 400/. and 500/., which, according to the defendant's statement, had been lost in the course of transactions with the plaintiff's husband, Mr. C. Wilson Macbryde, in speculations on the Stock Fxchange. Bill dismissed with costs.

Collision off Tynemouth between the steamer David Burn, out on a trial trip, and the Earl Percy. The former sank soon after

The High Joint Commissioners at New York, having met thirty-seven times, conclude their labours by signing a treaty providing for the establishment of two boards of arbitrationone to consider the Alabama and similar claims which will be recognized as national, and be settled on the principle of responsibility for depredations where Government has not exercised the utmost possible diligence and precaution to prevent the fitting out of privateers; the other will consider miscellaneous claims of both sides, confined principally to those arising out of the civil war. No claims arising out of the Fenian invasion of Canada will be admitted. All legitimate cotton claims will be considered, except those of British subjects domiciled in the South. The

C*

San Juan boundary question to be arbitrated upon by the Emperor of Brazil. American vessels to navigate the St. Lawrence free, and the Canadian canals on payment of the regular tolls.

6. On the motion for going into committee on the Army Regulation Bill, Colonel Anson submits a resolution-" That in any scheme for the abolition of purchase in the army, the State, as well as the officers, must forego the advantages hitherto derived from that system; and in order to give the State that unrestricted power over the officers of the army which it is desirable it should possess, and also in justice to the officers of the army themselves, the regulation value of their commissions shall be at once returned to them."

8.-M. Thiers entreats the Parisians to aid the troops outside the walls. "The Government," he declared, "will not bombard Paris, as the Commune tells you. A bombardment threatens the entire city and renders it uninhabitable, and has for its object to intimidate citizens and to force them to surrender.

The

Be

Government will only use cannon to force in one of your gates, and will endeavour to limit to one point of attack the ravages of a war of which it is not the author. As soon as the soldiers shall have passed the enceinte you will rally round the national flag to aid our valiant army in destroying this sanguinary and cruel tyranny. It depends upon you to prevent those disasters which are inseparable from an assault. You are a hundred times more numerous than the partisans of the Commune. united, and open the gates which they close to law and order, and to your prosperity, as well as to that of France. When once those gates are open the sound of the cannons will cease, tranquillity, order, abundance, and peace will reappear within your walls. The Germans will evacuate our territory, and the traces of our misfortune will rapidly disappear. But if you do not act, the Government will be obliged to take the most energetic and certain means to deliver you."

In Committee on the University Tests Bill, the Marquis of Salisbury carries by a majority of five votes, a new test in the form of a resolution:-"That no person shall be appointed to the office of tutor, assistant tutor, dean, censor, or lecturer in divinity, in any college now subsisting in the said universities, until he shall have made and subscribed the following declaration in the presence of the Vice-Chancellor, or in the University of Durham of the Warden-that is to say: 'I, A. B., do solemnly declare that while holding the office of [here name the office] I will not teach anything contrary to the teaching or Divine authority of the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments."""

The Count de Chambord writes to a friend that he only asked to be allowed to devote every moment of his life to the security and

happiness of France, and to share her distresses before sharing her honours:-"It is asserted that the independence of the Papacy is dear to me, and that I am determined to obtain efficacious guarantees for it. That is true. The liberty of the Church is the first condition of spiritual peace and of order in the State. To protect the Holy See was ever the honourable duty of our country, and the most indisputable cause of its greatness among nations. Only in the periods of its greatest misfortunes has France abandoned this glorious protectorate. Rest assured if I am called it will be, not only because I represent right, but because I am order, reform-because I am the essential bas's of that authority which is required to restore that which has perished, and to govern justly and according to law with the view of remedying the evils of the past, and of paving the way for the future. I shall be told that I hold the ancient sword of France in my hand, and in my breast the heart of a king and a father which recognizes no party. I am of no party, and I do not desire to return or to reign by means of party. I have no injury to avenge, no enemy to exile, no fortune to retrieve, except that of France. It is in my power to select from every .quarter the men who are anxious to associate themselves with this grand undertaking. only bring back religion, concord, and peace. I desire to exercise no dictatorship but that of clemency, because in my hands, and in my hands alone, clemency is still justice. Thus it is, my dear friend, that I despair not of my country, and that I do not shrink from the magnitude of the task. 'La parole est à la France et l'heure à Dieu.'"

I

8. Mr. Gladstone announces that Government proposed to abandon for this session Mr. Goschen's Local Rating and Local Government Bills, and also the licensing clause of the Home Secretary's Licensing Bill. It was still their intention, he said, to press forward the police clauses of that measure.

9.-Came on for trial in the Court of Queen's Bench, Westminster, before the Lord Chief Justice and a special jury, the case of the Queen v. Boulton, Park, and others, charged with conspiring to induce others to commit felony. The examination of witnesses and speeches of counsel protracted the case to the 15th, when a verdict of Not Guilty was entered for all the defendants. In summing up, the Lord Chief Justice expressed his disapprobation of the form in which the case had been brought before the Court. "We are trying the defendants," he said, "for conspiring to commit felonious crime, and the proof of it, if it amounts anything, amounts to proof of the actual commission of crime; and I am clearly of opinion that where the proof intended to be submitted to a jury is proof of the actual commission of crime, it is not the proper course to charge the parties with conspiring to commit it.' Coming to the actual facts of the case, the learned judge remarked

to

that what had been proved against the defendants Boulton and Park was sufficient to stamp them with the deepest disgrace, although they might not have had any felonious intention. Their going, for example, to the ladies' rooms at theatres and other public places was an offence which the Legislature might justly visit with corporal punishment. His lordship subsequently remarked that Hurt and Fiske should have been tried in Scotland, if at all. "It is easy, however," he continued, "to see how all this happened. The police had taken up the case, and the whole course and conduct of it confirm the opinion I have always entertained as to the necessity for a public prosecutor to control and to conduct criminal prosecutions. The police seized the prisoners' letters, and found those of Hurt and Fiske; they then went to Edinburgh, and, without any authority, searched their lodgings, arrested them and put them on their trial here along with Park and Boulton, without taking them before a magistrate at all; and thus they are tried with the two other defendants for an alleged offence having no connection whatever with their conduct. A second indictment against the defendants for outraging decency by going about dressed as women was allowed to stand over, and in the meantime they were liberated on their own recognizances.

9.-Mr. Miall's motion, "That it is expedient, at the earliest practicable period, to apply the policy initiated by the disestablishment of the Irish Church, by the Act of 1869, to the other Churches established by law in the United Kingdom," rejected by 374 to 89 votes. In the course of the discussion, Mr. Disraeli admitted that the disestablishment of the Church in Ireland involved the disestablishment of the Church in Scotland and in England. But, fortunately, the country was not governed by logic. It was governed by rhetoric, and not by logic, or otherwise it would have been erased long ago from the list of leading communities. No form of religion represented more fully the national sentiment than the Established Church. For his own part, he had always believed that, organically, the English were a religious people. We had partially educated them, we were now going to educate them completely. And when they were educated they would not fly to the conventicle; they would appreciate a learned clergy, a refined ritual, and the consolation of the beautiful offices of the Church. If the Church conducted itself with wisdom and discretion, he believed that every year this motion, if it were made, would be made under worse auspices and with less prospect of success. Let the Church remain tolerant, temperate, and comprehensive, and it would then be truly national. In conclusion, he expressed a strong conviction that the time had come when, in matters of great change, the country required repose, and appealed to the Government to remove the impression created by the Home Secretary, that they opposed the motion only because they did not yet see their way to carry

ing it. In closing the debate, Mr. Gladstone assured the House that the Government, in opposing the motion, did not limit that opposition to the present moment or base it on merely temporary grounds. If the movement represented by the Liberation Society had received any recent impulse, it was partly from embittered controversies in the Church, and partly also from the unfortunate error of those who insisted upon treating the case of the Church of Ireland entirely with reference to the theory of establishments, and not with reference to the broad, substantial arguments and facts upon which the Church of England was so strong. The Church of England was not a foreign Church-it was not a Church which, like the Church of Ireland, was imposed upon Ireland and maintained there by extrinsic power, but it was, whatever else it might be, the growth of the history and traditions of the country; it had existed from a period shortly after the Christian era, and for 1,300 years had never ceased to be the Church of the country; it had been in every age, as it was still, deeply rooted in the heart of the people, and intertwined with the local habits and feelings.

9.- The cases of small-pox in London during the past week rose to 288, the highest weekly number during the present epidemic, and almost three times as high as in any of the preceding epidemics during thirty-one years.

Eliza Jane Cook, a young married woman in straitened circumstances, throws two of her children and herself into the Lea at Clapton. A little girl was rescued, but the mother and boy were drowned.

10. Dissension among the Communist leaders, the first Committee of Public Safety being dismissed to-day, and another appointed in its place. Commander Rossel, charged with the provisional title of Delegate of War, wrote that he felt himself incapable of continuing the responsibility of a commandant where everyone wished to deliberate, and no one to obey. Delescluze succeeded to the post of Delegate of War.

Professor Huxley carries a motion at the London School Board, "That measures be taken to ascertain whether any, and if so, what charitable or other endowments in the London school district ought to be applied, wholly or in part, to the augmentation of the school fund." The Professor took occasion to censure the management of Christ's Hospital in having so far departed from the wishes of those who founded the charity as to make it an educational institution for children belonging to the middle classes and neglecting the children of the poor.

Found dead in his bed, Major-Ge" eral Sir John Douglas, C. B., commanding the

Cavalry Brigade at Aldershot, and who had seen much service in the Crimea.

11.- Came on in the Court of Common Pleas, before Lord Chief Justice Bovill and a jury, the gigantic case of Tichborne v. Lushington, occupying under one form or another the Courts at Westminster for the greater part of two years. Involving estates said to be worth 24,000l. a year, with a baronetcy attached, and depending mainly on evidence brought forward to identify the Claimant with the long-lost heir, the case excited the keenest public interest, and for a time in social circles put aside events of even national importance. The declaration stated that the plaintiff sued Franklin Lushington, as tenant of the trustees of the infant Alfred Joseph, to recover possession of the mansion known as Tichborne House, in the county of Southampton. He claimed to be the son of Sir James Doughty Tichborne, the youngest of three brothers, of whom the first died, the second took the estates and died, leaving a daughter, Miss Kate Doughty. The property was settled on the male line, and on the death of the second brother, without male issue, passed to the youngest brother James, who in August 1827, married Harriette Félicité Seymour, a French lady and a Roman Catholic, mother of Sir Roger Tichborne, born on the 5th of January, 1829. On the 4th of September, 1839, another son was born-James, who subsequently died, leaving a posthumous child, Alfred Joseph, who was the infant in possession of the estates. Sir Roger was brought up for several years in Paris, and received instruction principally from a tutor named Chatillon. In 1845 he went to Stonyhurst; was there for three years, and in October 1849, obtained a commission in the Carbineers, at that time in Ireland, and remained with his regiment three years and a half. At this time Sir Roger was fight and slim in form, and extremely narrow in the chest; his pleasures, manners, and pursuits were those of a gentleman; he was fond of music; he was connected with the Seymours and the Townleys, and he visited at Sir Clifford Constable's, at Lord Camoys', and Lord Arundel of Wardour's; he was acquainted with the Radcliffes and some of the best families in the kingdom. In 1850 and 1851 he was a good deal at Tichborne, visiting his uncle Sir Edward, who had taken the name of Doughty, and whose daughter, Kate, was about Roger's age. Roger became very much attached to his cousin, and during a visit at Christmas 1851 the attachment was discovered. It was disapproved by Sir Edward, and an angry scene ensued, which led to Roger suddenly leaving Tichborne, with a resolve to go abroad. In January 1852 he made his will, and deposited a sealed packet with a gentleman named Gosford, an intimate and confidential friend, containing certain private wishes and intentions to be carried out if he lived.

Roger

then went to Paris to visit his parents, and at their earnest entreaty postponed the carrying

out of his design. But in December 1852 he had made up his mind to go to South America for a year and a half, and wrote to his parents to that effect. He also wrote to his cousin Kate that he hoped in three years to be united to her, and to another cousin, Mrs. Greenwood (who lived near Tichborne), that he hoped she would write to him, and that he should be always happy to answer her letters. With these intentions Roger sailed for South America, having one Moore as his valet. He arrived at Valparaiso in June 1853, and spent some months in travelling about the country. Here he heard of the death of his uncle, Sir Edward; but being desirous of further travel he communicated with his mother and friends at Tichborne, and sent home two likenesses of himself, produced in evidence. About the 20th of April, 1854, he embarked at Rio in the Bella; on the 26th a part of the wreck of the vessel was picked up, and the ship was never heard of again, nor any of the crew. The agents of Messrs. Glyns, Roger's bankers at Rio, heard of the loss of the vessel, and wrote to his family that he had embarked on board of her. For thirteen years nothing more was heard of Roger Tichborne. The will was proved by Mr. Gosford, his executor, the sealed packet was opened and destroyed, and a suit was instituted in which legal proof was given of his loss and death. The underwriters paid a heavy insurance on the vessel, and the owner never heard anything of the crew. The story of the Claimant was that he was picked up, with eight of the crew, about the 26th of April, and carried to Melbourne, where, he said, they were landed on the 24th of July, 1854; that on the day he landed he went with the captain to the Custom-house, and that the next day, leaving the wrecked sailors on board the ship, he went into the interior, where he resided for thirteen years under the name of Castro, this being, it was contended in defence, an alias for Arthur Orton, a butcher belonging to Wapping, who was known to have been at Wagga Wagga at this time. Unwilling to believe in the loss of her son, the Dowager Lady Tichborne advertised rewards for his discovery in various quarters, and one of them coming under the notice of one Cubitt, at Sydney, a friend of Gibbs, an attorney at Wagga Wagga, then acting in the bankruptcy of Castro, word was sent home to the Dowager, in December 1866, that her son was alive and well, at a place 600 miles from Sydney. Through the intervention of Gibbs and Cubitt the Claimant raised funds to proceed to England at the close of the year. He went, however, not direct, but by way of New York, and not to Paris, where the Dowager was awaiting him, but to England. He arrived on Christmas Day 1866, and the first visit he made was to Wapping, for the purpose of making inquiry regarding the Orton family. He afterwards visited Tichborne secretly, and was taken over the house and grounds. At Paris the Dowager made affidavit, that she recognized the Claimant as