A deputation from the National Education Union wait upon Mr. Gladstone to urge "that compulsory education should be made general, but that in districts where no school boards have been elected, and where, owing to there being sufficient school accommodation, it is not desirable that any should be elected, the compulsory provisions should be carried out by the boards of guardians; and, lastly and chiefly, that the right of parents to select the school to which their children shall be sent, as embodied in the 25th section of the Education Act, shall be maintained.' Mr. Gladstone thanked the deputation, and promised consideration of their requests.

26.—Died, at Lisbon, the Dowager Empress Amelia of Brazil, widow of Pedro I.

Died, at Florence, Miss Jane Blagden, authoress, the faithful companion and nurse of Mrs. Browning.

27.-Died, at Trinity College, Cambridge, aged 87, Adam Sedgwick, LL.D., an eminent geologist and Woodwardian Professor, who had graduated at Trinity as far back as 1808, when he was fifth Wrangler, the late Lord Langdale being senior, and the late Bishop of London, Dr. Blomfield, third. Professor Sedgwick was senior of his college at death.

Sir George Honyman takes his seat in the Court of Common Pleas.

Died, aged 86, the Dowager Lady Bridport, Duchess of Brontë, niece of Lord Nelson.

A deputation complaining of the Civil Service Stores to-day waiting upon Mr. Lowe ; he said the Clubs themselves were co-operating, "and I am told that persons find they save 30 per cent. by co-operation. I say you should meet this state of things in the only way you can meet it-by competing with the stores. you have not enough capital, let several of you combine, and unless you meet these circum.

If

The Duke of Cambridge issues a circular disapproving of officers petitioning Parliament for redress of grievances.

"I am

Intimation made that Government would be prepared, under the exceptional circumstances of the apprehension and examination of Dr. Hessel, to defray the reasonable costs incurred in his defence, and also to provide the necessary funds for the passage fares to Brazil of Dr. and Mrs. Hessel. further," writes Mr. Cavendish, of the Treasury, "desired by Mr. Gladstone to request you to express to Dr. Hessel his sympathy for the painful position in which he has been placed." The doctor was afterwards presented with a public testimonial of over 1000l. as a mark of sympathy under the unmerited indignities to which he had been subjected.

4.-The London coal merchants advance the price of coals from 37s. to 45s. per ton.

Mrs. Knowles, widow of the captain of the Northfleet, awarded a pension of 50%. per annum from the Civil List.

5.-Robert C. M. Bowles, banker, acquitted at the Central Criminal Court of the charge of unlawfully pledging and converting to his own use and that of his firm 200 Lombardo-Venetian Railway Bonds which had been deposited with the firm for a particular purpose.

The Hawaiian Legislature proclaim Prince Lunalilo as King of the Sandwich Islands.

Extradition Treaty concluded between Great Britain and Italy.

5.-The Burmese mission take leave of her Majesty at Osborne.

6.-Parliament opened by Commission, the Royal Speech making reference to Sir Bartle Frere's mission to Zanzibar, the decision of the German Emperor on the San Juan reference, the Geneva arbitration, and the French Com. mercial Treaty. On the Central Asian question it was said:"It has been for some years felt by the Governments of Russia and the United Kingdom respectively, that it would be conducive to the tranquillity, of Central Asia if the two Governments should arrive at an identity of view regarding the line, which describes the northern frontier of the dominions of Affghanistan. Accordingly a correspondence has passed, of which this is the main subject. Its tenor, no less than its object, will, I trust, be approved by the public opinion of both nations." Bills were promised for settling the question of University Education in Ireland, and for the promotion of a Supreme Court of Judicature, including provision for the trial of appeals. Address agreed to without a division.

"Hoax" attempted upon Dr. Cumming at Brighton, a telegram intimating that the Pope had died this morning being put into his hand as he was stepping on the platform to deliver a lecture on The Pope and his work in England."

8. The Count de Chambord writes to Bishop Dupanloup :- "Believe me, notwithstanding all its failings, France has not so far lost the sentiment of honour. It no more understands the head of the House of Bourbon denying the standard of Algiers than it would have understood the Bishop of Orleans consenting to occupy a seat in the French Academy in company of sceptics and atheists. I have not learned with less pleasure than the true friends of the country the presence of the Princes, my cousins, at the Chapelle Expiatoire on January 20; for, in appearing there to pray publicly in that monument consecrated to the memory of the Martyr King, they must have felt the full influence of a place so propitious to great teaching and generous inspirations. I have, then, neither sacrifices to make nor conditions to receive. I expect little from the ability of man, and much from the justice of God. When I am too bitterly tried, a glance at the Vatican re-animates my courage and strengthens my hopes. It is at this school of the illustrious captive that one acquires the spirit of firmness, resignation, and peace-of that peace which is assured to everyone who takes his conscience as his guide, and Pius IX. as his model."

8.-The French Committee of Thirty appoint the Duc de Broglie as their reporter.

9.-Died, at Vienna, aged 83, the Dowager Empress Caroline Augusta, widow of the Emperor Francis.

10. Mr. Charles Reade obtains 200/. damages in an action against the Morning Advertiser for a criticism judged to be libellous on the plaintiff's dramatic piece "Shilly Shally."

The Home Secretary submits to the Commons the new rules framed under the Parks Regulation Act, superseding those previously put in force by Mr. Ayrton. The new regulations provided that no public address of an unlawful character, or for an unlawful purpose, could be delivered in the Park, nor any assembly of persons permitted unless conducted in a decent and orderly manner.

11.-King Amadeus of Spain announces to the Cortes his intention to abdicate. It was a great honour, he said, to preside over the destinies of a country, however profoundly disturbed it might be, and he had resolved to keep his oath and respect the Constitution, believing that his loyalty would compensate for the errors due to his inexperience. "My good wishes," adds the King, "have deceived me, for Spain lives in the midst of a perpetual conflict. If my enemies had been foreigners, I would not abandon the task, but they are Spaniards. I wish neither to be the King of a party nor to act illegally; but believing all my efforts to be sterile, I renounce the Crown for myself, my sons, and heirs." The President then proposed that the King's message should be sent to the Senate, and that both Chambers should unite and assume the sovereignty. The abdication of the King was unanimously accepted, and the Cortes appointed a commission to draw up a reply to his Majesty's message. It was therein declared that "if any human forces could restrain the inevitable course of events, your Majesty, by your constitutional education and your respect for constituted right, would have completely and absolutely averted them. Penetrated with this truth, the Cortes, if it had been in their power, would have made the utmost sacrifice to persuade your Majesty to desist from your resolution and withdraw your abdication. But the knowledge they have of the unbending character of your Majesty, the justice they do to the maturity of your ideas and to your perseverance in your resolutions, impede the Cortes from asking your Majesty to reconsider your determination, and bind them to notify you that they have assumed to themselves the supreme power and sovereignty of the nation, in order, under circumstances so critical, to provide, with the rapidity counselled by the gravity of the danger and the supreme crisis for the salvation of the democracy, the basis of our politics; of liberty, the soul of our rights; and of the nation, which is our mother, immortal and beloved."

11.-Convocation of the Province of Canterbury meet in the Jerusalem Chamber, Westminster, the Upper House engaging in a debate on an increase of the Episcopate, and the Lower on the Rubrics, the Burial Service, and Athanasian Creed. On the latter question, a Synodal Declaration was agreed upon after a long debate.

12.-Suspension announced of Peter Lawson and Sons, seedsmen, established in Edinburgh over a century.

Sir T. Chambers' Marriage with a Deceased Wife's Sister Bill read a second time in the Commons by 126 to 87 votes.

The Spanish Assembly elect a government of Republicans and Radicals under the presidency of Señor Figueras.

King Amadeus and the Queen with their children leave Madrid for Lisbon, escorted by a guard of honour as far as the frontier.

13.-The Lord Chancellor introduces a measure for the establishment of a Supreme Court of Judicature and a Court of Appeal. The Lord Chief Justice, he explained, was to preside over the High Court, composed of four divisions, representing respectively the Court of Queen's Bench, the Court of Chancery, the Court of Common Pleas, and the Court of Exchequer. Each of these subordinate Courts was to have, in a general way, jurisdiction in all cases; and there would, therefore, be commenced a fusion of Law and Equity. The House of Lords was to cease from its judicial functions in English appeals, which were to be transferred to the Court of Appeal, consisting exclusively of Judges under the presidency of the Lord Chancellor./ But the existing procedure was still to apply to appeals from Scotland and Ireland; and Lord Selborne abstained from touching the subject of ecclesiastical jurisdiction, this being, as he observed, sui generis, and interfering with it at present would only diminish the prospect of passing any measure whatever.

Mr. Gladstone submits to the Commons his scheme for dealing with Irish University Education. He proposed to separate Trinity College, Dublin, from the Dublin University, and the Theological Faculty from Trinity College, Dublin. The precedent of England was to be followed in drawing a distinction, not merely theoretical, between the University and the College or Colleges in union with it; and the Theological Faculty was to be handed over to the Representative Body of the disestablished Irish Church, with a fund to be administered in trust to the purposes for which the Faculty had hitherto existed. The newly constituted Dublin University was to be a teaching as well as an examining body, though, on account of the unduly sensitive state of the Irish mind, neither theology, modern history, nor moral and metaphysical philosophy were to have a recognized place in the curriculum. The

Governing Body of the University would contain twenty-eight ordinary members, to be nominated in the first place by Parliament; but it was hoped that in ten years' time the University itself would be in a fit state to take its share in appointing its own governors. The University funds were to come in different proportions from the revenues of Trinity College, Dublin, from the Consolidated Fund, from the fees of students, and from the surplus of Irish ecclesiastical property. Trinity College, the Colleges at Cork and Belfast, and, if the rulers of those voluntary bodies thought fit, Magee College, and the so-called Roman Catholic University, would at once become members of the new University, which might hereafter be made still more comprehensive. The scheme was favourably received at first, but latterly gave rise to much hostile criticism both in and out of the House.

He

17.-Monsignor Mermillod expelled from Swiss territory by the Federal Council. afterwards explained that the Holy See had appointed him to the office of Apostolic Vicariat because the Catholics had no longer a spiritual head, and because the form was one always used by the Holy See whenever there was a conflict of jurisdiction and it was desired to pave the way to an agreement. Monsignor Mermillod further declared that the Apostolic Vicariat was in no way identical with the erection of a diocesan see. Secondly, that the temporary and provisional. Thirdly, that it attempted nothing against the rights of the State. Fourthly, that far from closing the pending negotiations between Church and State in Switzerland, it left the door open to every attempt at a treatment of the matters in dispute. The Bishop further added, that there were only three practical solutions of the problem of the relations of Church and State-viz., complete liberty, as in England and America; an agreement in the nature of a Concordat; or oppression. M. Mermillod was afterwards arrested and removed to Ferney.

measure was

18.-Joseph Xavier de Lizardi, of Lancaster Gate, examined at the Mansion House on a charge of obtaining 12,000l. by false pretences from Messrs. Glyn, Mills, Currie and Co., in so far as he had handed over as part security a bill of lading for 1,300 quarters of wheat sold some

days previously to another firm. Lizardi afterwards absconded.

18.-Explosion at Talke Colliery, causing the death of twenty workmen, all engaged in the seam where the accident occurred.

19.-Dr. Duggan, Bishop of Clonfert, acquitted on the charge of inciting certain Galway electors to attack Captain Trench. This being the third acquittal in connection with the Galway election, the remaining prosecutions were abandoned.

Army Estimates for the current year issued, showing the net charge to be 13,231,400/., and the total number of men 128,968.

The four hundredth anniversary of the birthday of Copernicus celebrated at Thorn in Prussia.

20.--The Earl of Rosebery moves, but withdraws after debate, a motion for the appointment of a Royal Commission to inquire into the alleged scarcity and deterioration of English horses. Earl Granville suggested a Select Committee as the proper tribunal for making the necessary inquiries, a suggestion afterwards carried into effect.

On the subject of the Athanasian Creed, the Lower House of Convocation of the North

ern Province, agree "That inasmuch as Holy Scriptures, in divers places, doth promise life to them that believe, and declare the condemnation of them that believe not, so doth the Church, in sundry clauses of this confession, declare the necessity of holding fast the Christian faith, and the great peril of rejecting the same. Nevertheless, the Church doth not therein pronounce judgment upon particular persons, the Great Judge of all being alone able to discern who they are who in this matter are guilty before Him. Moreover, the warnings contained in this creed are not otherwise to be understood than as the like warnings set forth in Holy Scripture.'

20.

Her Majesty visits the Empress Eugénie at Chiselhurst for the first time since the death of the Emperor.

21.-The Duc de Broglie reads to the Assembly the report of the Committee of Thirty. The document described the labours of the Commission, its relations with the Government, and the principal alternatives which have excited discussions. It dealt successively with the relations of the existing powers, Ministerial responsibility, the Second Chamber, electoral reforms, and the transmission of powers, and explained the patriotic reasons which induced the vote of the Commission. The report concluded with the projet de loi, and article 4, adopted at the last sitting of the Commission, in the following terms:-"1. The National Assembly will not separate until it has made provision respecting the organization and the mode of transinission of Legislative and Executive powers. 2. Respecting the creation and

the functions of a Second Chamber, which is not to come into operative existence until after the separation of the present Assembly. 3. Respecting the electoral law. The Government will submit to the Assembly bills upon the subjects above-mentioned."

22. In the case of the appeal of Mr. Edwin James to be reinstated as a member of the English bar, the judges decide that no adequate cause had been shown for reversing the decision of the benchers of the Inner Temple, and he could not therefore be re-admitted to practice at the bar.

The report of the Emma Silver Mining Company (Limited) states that there have been paid to the shareholders thirteen monthly dividends, amounting to 193,532/., while, on finally making up the accounts to the end of December, it turns out that the funds available amounted only to 185,6587., leaving a deficiency of 7,874. This result was attributed chiefly to the disastrous flooding of the mine in June, and the litigation consequent on the hostile action of the Illinois Tunnel Company.

23.-Died, aged 81, the Rev. Dr. Thomas Barclay, Principal of the University of Glasgow. He was succeeded by Dr. John Caird. 24. Mr. Cardwell introduces the Army Estimates for 1873-4.

The Japanese Government annuls the edict against the Christian religion, and liberates all Christians imprisoned under it since 1870.

Discussing the new frontier line to the north of Affghanistan at a meeting of the Royal Geographical Society, Sir Henry Rawlinson and Lord Lawrence highly approved of fixing the line of the Oxus, and were agreed that, although invasion from the Attrak valley by way of Persia might be possible enough, on the side of Badakshan it was quite impracticable. Lord Lawrence said it would be "insanity' on the part of Russia to think of the attempt. Sir Henry explained how the doubt had arisen as to whether Badakshan, geographically and politically, had always in reality been subject to Affghanistan. Russia had always believed, or professed to believe, in maps whose falsity has been proved to demonstration. They were based partly on forgeries by a German klaproth, who described, and circumstantially mapped out, a country he had never travelled, partly on charts done in squares by a Chinese expedition; and, as it happened, the particular squares comprising the country in dispute had been turned sideways in fitting them together. Thus a mountain range that actually runs from east to west had been represented as running from north to south.

25.-Opposition to Mr. Gladstone's Irish University Bill. At a meeting of the Senate of Dublin University, Sir Joseph Napier expressed an opinion that the governing scheme was one of the most astounding academic constitutions which it could ever have entered into the head of a man to devise. Mr. Gladstone's description of the University, as in a state of absolute servitude and bondage, from which he was anxious to deliver it, was rather a caricature to excite a laugh than a statement to form the basis of legislation. Dr. Hart proposed the adoption of a petition complaining that the proposal to substitute for the two existing Universities a single central body with a monopoly of granting degrees would lower the standard of Academic attainments, and declarng that the evil would be aggravated by the affiliation of small provincial schools or colleges. The Roman Catholic prelates also held meetings to oppose the scheme, joining in a declaration:- "That, viewing with alarm the widespread ruin caused by godless systems of education, and adhering to the declarations of the Holy See, we reiterate the condemnation of mixed education as fraught with danger to that divine faith which is to be prized above all earthly things. . . . . That the distinguished" proposer of this measure, proclaiming as he does in his opening speech that the condition of Roman Catholics in Ireland in regard to university education is 'miserably bad,' scandalously bad,' and professing to redress this admitted grievance, brings forward a measure singularly inconsistent with his professions, because, instead of redressing, it perpetuates that grievance, upholding two out of three of the Queen's Colleges, and planting in the metropolis two other great teaching institutions the same in principle with the Queen's Colleges. That, as the legal owners of the Catholic University, and at the same time acting on behalf of the Catholic people of Ireland, for whose advantage and by whose generosity it has been established, in the exercise of that right of ownership, we will not consent to the affiliation of the Catholic University to the new University, unless the proposed scheme be largely modified; and we have the same objection to the affiliation of other Catholic Colleges in Ireland."

...

Died, aged 81, Henry Lester Horn, the oldest midshipman in the Navy, having been present with the fleet at Corunna in 1809, and again on a perilous service in Quiberon Bay. His father, Lieutenant James Horn, when stationed at Gravesend, in charge of the pressgang, during the Mutiny at the Nore, performed the hazardous service of carrying a despatch from the Lords of the Admiralty to the admiral, which resulted in the termination of the mutiny, and the re-opening of the naviga tion of the Thames. For this he received a silver salver from the merchants of the City of London.

26. Died, aged 69, Sir William Fry

Channell, formerly a Baron of the Court of Exchequer.

27.-The House of Lords reject the Chelsea Waterworks Bill by 70 votes against 29, thus seeking to preserve the beauty of the Thames between Hampton Court and Ditton.

28. The first contested School Board election in Scotland takes place in the parish of Eastwood.

Died, aged 74, Robert Graves, the last member of the Associate Engravers of the old class of the Royal Academy. Mr. Graves was elected a member of the Royal Academy in 1836, at which election (the only time in one hundred years) a ballot was not necessary, the candidate having obtained the whole of the votes of the academicians present.

March 1.-Collision in the Irish Channel soon after midnight between the sailing vessel Chacabuco from San Francisco to Liverpool, and the steamer Torch from Liverpool to Dublin. The captain, pilot, and twenty-two of the crew went down with the sailing ship.

Discovery of extensive forgeries of bills on City houses, discounted by the Bank of England; and a reward issued for the apprehension of Frederick Albert Warren, one of the Bidwell gang.

3. Mr. Gladstone's motion for the second reading of the Irish University Bill met with an amendment by Mr. Bourke, expressing regret that the Government had not stated the names of the twenty-eight members of the governing body. In anticipation of this objection, the Prime Minister remarked that it would be the wish of the Government to select men of the greatest weight to serve on the governing body without reference to their political opinions or to the course they might have taken with regard to the bill, but it would be impossible to ask such men to undertake the duty until the bill had made some way in Committee. If, indeed, they were willing to serve before they knew what shape the bill would take, they would not be fit for the posi⚫ tion. That the refusal of the Government to take this course should be made the subject of a vote of censure was a fact worthy of commemoration in parliamentary history. Debate adjourned.

Died, Dr. Robert Buchanan, M. A., late Professor of Logic in Glasgow University.

4. Mr. Plimsoll moves for a Royal Commission to inquire into the condition of, and certain practices connected with, the commercial marine of the United Kingdom, mentioning in connection with his proposal that there had perished at sea in 1868, 2,488 men; 1869, 2,821; 1870, 3,411; 1871, 2, 206; making a total of 11,016, or an average of 2,754 lives per annum. Mr. Fortescue, on the part of the Government, assented to the appointment of a