.

Dr.

see the proprietor. The rev. gentleman was then very cool and collected, and upon Mr. Turner making his appearance he said to him: "I want you to make a large chest for me, and I want it done sharp; and it must be air and water tight, for I want to send it by rail. The box was afterwards countermanded, but a measurement of the crouched body of Mrs. Watson, showed that it would have gone into such a one as was ordered. On Tuesday he went to a chemist's shop, where he was well known, and asked for some prussic acid. This was refused him, but he must have obtained some kind of mixture, for on his return home he told the girl that if anything happened to him in the night she was to send at once to Dr. Rugg. On the morning of the 11th he rose as usual, and wrote some letters, which he left upon the dressing-table, one of them being addressed "To the Surgeon." He then went to bed again, and about eleven o'clock the servant heard him making a moaning noise, and she immediately went to Dr. Rugg, stating that her master was in a fit of apoplexy. Rugg went to the house, where the servant put the following letter into his hand :-" In a fit of fury I have killed my wife. Often and often have I endeavoured to restrain myself, but my rage overcame me, and I struck her down. Her body will be found in the little room off the library. I hope that she will be buried as becomes a lady of birth and position. She is an Irish lady, and her name is Anne. The key is in a letter on the table." Rugg immediately went upstairs to Mr. Watson, whom he found very weak and speechless, apparently suffering from some violent poison. As the result of medical treatment he recovered, and was removed to the police station. The body of Mrs. Watson had in the meantime been found. Both temples were beaten in, and there was a deep wound in the forehead. A document in the prisoner's handwriting explained his wishes in the event of his death, but gave no clue to 2 motive for the crime. "I know not," he wrote, "whose business it will be to look to property left, as my little possessions will be my books and furniture. My only brother was living when I last heard of him five or six years ago in America, at 82, Grand Street, Williamsburgh, and a niece with him. my heir if he is still alive. I know not if I have any other surviving relatives. One quarter's wages will soon be due to my servant, and I should wish the sum to be more than doubled for her on account of the trouble which she will have at the present time, and the patience with which she has borne other troubles. In my purse will be found 57. 10s. I leave a number of letters, many of them very old, with which I hope that those who handle them will deal tenderly."

Dr.

He is

8.-Burning of the city of Chicago, founded in 1832, and having now a population of over 300,000. This overwhelming disaster was at first

Fire

reported to have been caused by a cow kicking over a kerosene oil lamp in a stable, and so setting fire to the straw litter gathered there; but the official report of the Fire Commissioners appointed to investigate its origin did not favour this surmise as to the cause of the calamity. All that could be established by evidence was that a drayman named Sullivan observed the fire after it had made some progress in a two-storey frame barn, in the rear of premises No. 137, Dekoren Street, owned by Patrick Leary. This was about half-past nine P.M., when the whole of the inmates were in bed and asleep. Witnesses living near the site of the outbreak, thought that from ten to fifteen minutes elapsed between the alarm and the arrival of the first engine. On reaching the fire, three or four buildings in the block were burning fiercely, favoured by a strong breeze from the south-west, which spread the flames rapidly among the old wooden buildings in that part of the city. Early in the evening, indeed, it was seen that the entire Department, though working with the utmost energy, could do little to counteract the progress of the flames. A little after ten o'clock a sudden gust carried the fire across the river, between Van Buren and Adams Streets, by means of flying brands, and set fire to Powell's roofing establishment, adjoining the gasworks. Before this time, the watchman in the Court House cupola had twice extinguished the fire caught from brands carried by the wind into the Court House balcony from the west side, a distance of a mile. At II o'clock the keeper of the crib of the lake tunnel, two miles from the shore and three miles from the fire, found the sky full of sparks and burning brands, and from 11.30 till morning, he testified, wrought with all his might to prevent the wooden roof of the crib from burning up and destroying himself and wife. From Powell's roofing establishment the progress of the fire was rapid and terrific, sweeping everything in its course. The engines had all been working on the west side, and they could not reel 600 feet of hose each, cross the river and get to work soon enough to prevent its spreading, literally, on the wings of the wind. Blowing up buildings in the face of the breeze was tried, and without any benefit. The Court House and waterworks, though a mile apart, were burning at the same time. Gunpowder, however, was used for blowing up buildings next day, with good effect, in cutting off the fire at the extreme south end. After the waterworks fell, the firemen could do little good with their engines, except on the banks of the river. peared at one time as if the flames no sooner reached a wall than they passed quite through it. A few minutes sufficed to destroy the most elaborately built structure; the walls melted, and the very bricks were consumed. The wooden pavement took fire, making a continuous sheet of flame two miles long by a mile wide. No human being could possibly survive

It ap

many minutes. Block after block fell, and the red-hot coals shot higher and higher and spread further and further, to the north side of Lake Street. It was a vast mountain of flame from the river to the lake. At one time so hemmed in were the people that it was expected thousands must perish. Sherman, Tremont, and other hotels were emptied of their guests, and a remarkable sight presented itself in the hurrying throngs with trucks, sacks, or bags on their shoulders, fleeing amid flames for their lives. Thousands of persons and horses inextricably commingled; poor people of all colours and shades and of every nationality, from Europe, China, and Africa, in the excitement, struggled with each other to get away. Hundreds were trampled under foot.

Men and women loaded

with bundles and household goods, and to whose skirts hung tender infants, half-dressed and barefooted, all rushed to a place of safety. Hours afterwards these might have been seen in vacant lots, or in the streets far out in the suburbs, stretched in the dust. The area over which the fire swept was put down at 2,050 acres, divided thus among the three divisions of the city :-About 160 acres in the west division, 500 acres in the south, and 1,400 acres in the north. The total loss of property, 200,000,000 dollars; number of buildings burned, between 17,000 and 18,000; and lives lost about 200, although not more than 117 were reported to the coroner. A calamity like this, unparalleled in magnitude, and demanding instant relief, naturally excited sympathy in every country to which the intelligence was wafted, and relief in clothing, food and money commenced to flow towards the 100,000 homeless and destitute sufferers on a most gigantic scale, the United States, Canada, and Great Britain rivalling each other in the work of benevolence. Before the flames had been subdued in several quarters, the work of rebuilding was begun.

a

America. "The forest fires," it was given out, "have desolated the St. Clair, Huron, Tuscola, and Sanilac counties of Michigan. Huron City, Forestville, Whiterock, and many other villages have been destroyed. Many persons have perished in the flames, and great losses in cattle, horses, and winter stores have been sustained. News comes from Toronto that a large portion of the flourishing Canadian town of Windsor, opposite Detroit, was burned down yesterday morning.' Another telegram, a fe hours later, made public the startling news:→ "The entire town of Mainstre, in Michigan, has been destroyed by fire. Two hundred houses and six mills have been burned, and the loss is estimated at 1,250,000 dols. In Wisconsin also four villages on the Green Bay River have been burned, with a fearful loss of life. The inhabitants were surrounded by the flames and 150 fugitives burnt alive in a barn. Hundreds of persons were driven into the river, and altogether 500 people are said to have perished." The worst of all was at Peshtego, a place of 2,000 inhabitants, which was reached by the fire soon after the people returned from the evening service at church. An ominous roaring sound was first heard; then flakes of fire like meteors fell in different parts of the town, igniting whatever they touched. A fierce wind arose, and everything beca...e enveloped in fire, smoke, hot sand, and cinders. Numbers who fled in affright were suffocated and burned before they could advance many steps. The storm lasted only half an hour, but the buildings and the woods burned all night. The forest surrounding the village was in a blaze; and the flames being driven into the village, it presented one mass of fire. The people living close to the river reached it and walked in up to their necks. They remained in the water from two to four hours, and endured the heat only by wetting their heads. Many who lived one or two streets from the river were overtaken by the flames and burned to death. Whole families were thus Next morning the streets were strewn with burned bodies; in one case eighty or ninety being found together.

Fenian raid into Canada under General O'Neill, who seized the Custom House at Manitoba and the Hudson's Bay Port. He was seized by American troops, and his followers scattered.

12.-Free Library at Derby opened by the Mayor and Corporation.

Convention signed by Prince Bismarck, Count Arnim, and M. Pouyer-Quertier, concerning the annexation of the French Departments, and the position to be occupied by Alsace and Lorraine in regard to import and export duties.

13. In the height of the consternation caused by the Chicago fire, additional calamities of the same kind continue to be reported from

13.-M. Léon Say, Prefect of the Seine, and M. Vautrein, President of the Municipal Council of Paris, attend a meeting of the Common Council at Guildhall to present an address expressive of the thankfulness of the citizens of Paris for the sympathy and material aid sent from London on the raising of the siege.

Died, aged 75, Sir Francis Graham Moon, Bart., fine art publisher, and Lord Mayor of London in 1855.

14.-Public funeral of the escape-conductor, Joseph Ford, who died from injuries received at a fire in Gray's Inn Road, after rescuing six of the inmates.

15. Collision in Shields harbour, the Providence of Sunderland sinking with five of

her crew.

16.-The brigantine Ruth blown up off Erith. She had on board 2,000 barrels of petroleum and 100 barrels of resin.

- In opening the German Parliament, the Emperor William explained at some length the recent friendly negotiations with Austria. "The German Empire," he said, "and the Austro-Hungarian Imperial State are, by their geographical position and their historical development, so forcibly and in so manifold a manner called upon to entertain friendly and neighbourly relations with each other, that the fact of these relations having ceased to be troubled by the reminiscence of conflicts which were the undesirable inheritance of the last thousand years, will be received by the entire German nation with sincere satisfaction. hearty reception which I, as representative of this Empire, received in every part of the great Fatherland, and which has filled me with joyful satisfaction, but, above all, with thanks to God for the blessings which will in future not fail to our constant and honest endeavours, is a pledge that such satisfaction will, in view of the complete development of the German Empire, be felt by the great majority of the nation."

The

17.-Unveiling of the statue erected to the memory of Dean Alford in a niche of the west front of Canterbury Cathedral.

Archbishop Sumner's Memorial Schools at Lambeth opened by the Archbishop of Can'erbury.

18.-Died at his residence, Manchester Square, aged 79, Charles Babbage, F.R.S., mathematician, and inventor of the "calculating machine.”

Total destruction by fire of Ashton Brothers' cotton mill at Hayfield, Derbyshire. A few hours later a similar building in Glasgow, Delonging to Houston and Co., was also destroyed.

19.-Reform banquet in the Free Trade Hall, Manchester, presided over by Earl Granville. Regarding the new social movement, the Foreign Secretary said it was perfectly clear "there is a mistake and inaccuracy with regard to certain peers and distinguished commoners having signed in private certain resolutions; but we are in the dark, on the other hand, as to what was the character of those negotiations which Lord Salisbury informed the public through the press had been confidentially communicated to him. All I can say is, that whatever their character may be, I feel no alarm. I shall, on the contrary, rejoice if those who hitherto have shown too much opposition until the very last moment to the Parliamentary rights of the working classes -those who offered a consistent opposition to those great principles of freedom of trade which nowhere come so alive to one's under

19.--Various pretended biographies of Mr. Disraeli making reference to his early connection with the press, he causes his solicitors tc make intimation that he had never at any time edited any newspaper, review, magazine, or other periodical publication, and rarely contributed to any, nor has he at any time received or required any remuneration for any. thing he has ever written, except for those works which bear his name.' ""

21.-A jury sitting in Salt Lake City, Utah, return a verdict of guilty against a Mormon named Hawkins charged with polygamy. The announcement created much excitement. Counsel for the plaintiff moved that the defendant be taken into custody, and the motion was resisted by the defendant's attorney. The prosecution, however, were firm in their demand that the case should take the ordinary course, and the United States marshal was accordingly directed to hold Hawkins a prisoner. Time was allowed to prepare a motion for a new trial and arrest of judgment. The penalty prescribed by the Utah statute for the crime of adultery is im prisonment for not over twenty years nor less than three years, or a fine of not over 1,000 dols., or both fine and imprisonment, at the discretion of the court.

22.-Died in his 80th year, Sir Roderick Murchison, for many years the esteemed President of the Geological and Geographical Societies.

23. Mr. Gladstone writes to Sir George Pollock that, if it was agreeable to him to accept the office of Constable of the Tower, vacant by the death of Sir John Burgoyne :-"I shall be very happy to submit your name for her Majesty's approval. And I beg that you will consider the proposal I now make as one due solely to your public services and dis. tinction. I have not yet forgotten the descrip tion given of those services by Sir Robert Peel when head of the Government, at the climax of your military career, after the catastrophe in Affghanistan had been covered, through your exertions, with a merited and conspicuous success. But it is a great pleasure to me to have an opportunity, after the lapse of so many years, of again tendering to you a mark of honour which I feel confident will have, if accepted by you, the gracious sanction of her Majesty, and the cordial approbation of the country." The appointment was accepted, and gazetted Nov. 14.

24.-Newcastle College of Physical Science, in connection with the University of Durham, opened by the Dean of Durham.

25. The Mansion House Fund for the relief of the Chicago sufferers reported to have reached 41, 1897.

Colliery explosion at Seaham, Durham, causing the death of thirty men.

28. Mr. Gladstone addresses his constituents in an open-air meeting at Blackheath, dwelling chiefly on the important measures of the past session abolition of purchase, education, and the ballot. In criticizing the new social movement the Prime Minister admitted that much still remained to be done, though he was of opinion that law could not do all that was promised. "Let the Government labour to its utmost; let the Legislature labour days and nights in your service; but, after the very best has been attained and achieved, the question whether the English father is to be the father of a happy family and the centre of a united home is a question which must depend mainly upon himself. And those who propose to you-whoever they may be-schemes like those seven points of which I have spoken; those who promise to the dwellers in towns that every one of them shall have a house and garden in free air, with ample space; those who tell you that there shall be markets for selling at wholesale prices retail quantities—I won't say are impostors, because I have no doubt they are sincere ; but I will say they are quacks.'

on the expense of Royalty, in which he severely criticized the expenditure of the Royal household, and declared that the Queen, in spite of a promise given to Parliament, had not been in the habit of paying Income-tax. This statement was afterwards disproved by Mr. Lowe. A few days later Sir Charles, in a speech at Bristol, declared himself a Republican.

6.--The Master of the Rolls delivers judgment in the suit Peek v. Gurney and others, in which the plaintiff sought to render the surviving directors of that company and the executors of a deceased director jointly and severally liable for the amount of the loss sustained by him through his purchase of shares to the amount of about 100,000l. in

the company. After an elaborate summing up his Lordship dismissed the bill, but without costs, owing to the gross misconduct of the directors in issuing a false prospectus as to the state of the bank.

7.-Legal changes. Sir Robert Collier gazetted a Justice of the Court of Common Pleas, preparatory to his removal to the Judicial Committee of Privy Council. He was succeeded as Attorney-General by Sir John Coleridge, Mr. Jessel stepping into the office thus vacant of Solicitor-General.

Lord Dufferin gazetted a peer of the United Kingdom, by the title of Viscount Clandeboye, of Clandeboye, in the county of Down, and Earl of Dufferin, in the county of Down.

8.-The "fall" elections in the United States announced to have resulted in large Republican gains. The Tammany candidates in New York were defeated by large majorities.

Count Beust resigns his position as Chancellor of Austria, and accepts the London Embassy. Other changes took place in the Austrian Cabinet at this time, chiefly in connection with the refusal of the Emperor to concede the demands made by the Czechs of Bohemia, for a separate Parliament on the Hungarian model. Count Hohenwart, who favoured the Bohemian claim, resigned his position as Prime Minister in favour of Prince Udolf Auersperg, a leader of the old Liberal party. Count Beust was succeeded by Count Andrassy, and Count Lonyay became Prime Minister of Hungary.

9.-Commenced at Portsmouth, on board the Duke of Wellington, a court-martial on Captain Thrupp and officers of the Megara. The inquiry was continued till the 17th, when the Court found the captain was "fully justified in beaching the ship, and that he would not

lave been justified in continuing his course to Australia, and doth therefore acquit him of all blame in respect to it. The Court is further of opinion that no blame whatever is attributable to her officers and men under trial, hereinbefore named, for the stranding and loss of her Majesty's ship Megara, and doth therefore acquit them of all blame, and the said captain and other officers and men are hereby acquitted accordingly."

10.--After a trial extending over eleven days Robert Kelly is acquitted by the jury of the murder of Head-Constable Talbot in the open street, and after a threat that he intended to take the life of his victim, in retaliation for having acted the part of an informer against the Fenians. An elaborate attempt was made to show that death did not result directly from the wound, but from unskilful surgical treat

ment.

"I

Lord Chief Justice Cockburn _remonstrates, in the name of the Bench and Bar, with Mr. Gladstone on the contemplated removal of the Attorney-General first to the Common Pleas and then to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, as a subterfuge and evasion of the Act of Parliament passed last August, regulating the appointment. Disowning any desire to disparage the personal merits of Sir R. Collier, the Lord Chief Justice described the obvious meaning of the Act in question, and pointed out that no exception was made therein in favour of any law officer of the Crown. cannot help thinking," he wrote, "what would have been the language in which the Court of Queen's Bench would have expressed its opinion if such an evasion of a statute had been attempted for the purpose of qualifying an individual for a municipal office, and the case had been brought before it on an information in the nature of quo warranto. In the present instance, the Legislature having settled the qualification for the newly-created office, momentarily to invest a party, otherwise not qualified, with a qualifying office, not that he shall hold the latter, but that he may be immediately transferred to the former, appears to me, I am bound to say, to be nothing less than the manufacture of a qualification, not very dissimilar in character to the manufacture of qualifications such as we have known practised in other instances in order to evade the law. . From every member of the legal profession with whom I have been brought into contact in the course of the last few days, I have met with but one expression of opinion as to the proposed stepan opinion, to use the mildest term I can select, of strong and unqualified condemnation. Such I can take upon myself to say is the unanimous opinion of the profession. I have never in my time known of so strong or universal an expression, I had almost said explosion, of opinion." Mr. Gladstone replied that as the transaction was a joint one, and the completed part of it the act of the Lord Chancellor, the letter had been sent to him. The Lord Chief Justice then

wrote:-"My objection to the present appointment of Sir Robert Collier is not an objection to the appointment in se, but as being intended to create a factitious qualification for a seat on the Judicial Committee. It was because its ulterior object was to be your act that I took the liberty of addressing myself to you. Had I objected to the part of the transaction already completed, I should have addressed my observations to the Lord Chancellor." The Lord Chancellor in reply defended the appointment as made with a full knowledge on his part of Mr. Gladstone's intention to promote the Attorney-General to the Judicial Committee. "I have thus acted advisedly, and with the conviction that the arrangement was justified as regards both its fitness and its legality. I take upon myself the responsibility of thus concurring with Mr. Gladstone, and am prepared to vindicate the course pursued. You will not, I trust, think that I am wanting in respect if I reserve my explanation for a more suitable opportunity than could be afforded by a correspondence with yourself, either directly or through the medium of Mr. Gladstone." Lord Chief Justice closed the correspondence with the remark that while he freely admitted he was 66 'not entitled to any explanation of the course you have determined to adopt, I must in candour say that I think I might have expected that grave objections to a proceeding connected with the administration of justice, coming from one holding the office I have the honour to fill, would have received somewhat more consideration, and would not have been dismissed in quite so summary a manner. Under the circumstances, while you reserve your explanation till a fitting opportunity shall arise, so I, on my part, must reserve to myself the right to make public, when I may deem it proper, the fact of my protest and the grounds on which it is founded, as stated in my letter to Mr. Gladstone."

The

10.-Henry M. Stanley, a travelling correspondent, sent out by the proprietor of the New York Herald, discovers Dr. Livingstone at Ujiji. As the procession of native guides and assistants entered the town, Mr. Stanley observed a group of Arabs on the right, in the centre of which was a pale-looking, greybearded, white man, whose fair skin contrasted with the sun-burnt visages of those by whom he was surrounded. Passing from the rear of the procession to the front, the American traveller noticed that the white man was clad in a red woollen jacket, and wore upon his head a naval cap, with a faded gilt band. instant he recognised the European as none other than Dr. Livingstone himself; but a dignified Arab chieftain, standing by, confirmed Mr. Stanley in a resolution to show no symptom of rejoicing or excitement. Slowly advancing towards the great traveller, he bowed, and said, "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?" to which address the latter, who was fully equal to the occasion, simply smiled and replied, "Yes."

In an