the security they enjoy." In an after-dinner speech given in his honour a few days later at Blairgowrie, Perthshire, his Lordship expressed an opinion that, so far as Reform was concerned, we were at the present time entitled 66 to rest and be thankful."

10.-The Queen disembarks at Woolwich, on her return from Germany.

11.-Four men executed in front of Kirkdale Gaol, Liverpool - Alvarez, a Spanish seaman, for stabbing James Harrison, in Oldhall-street, on the 12th May; Benjamin Thomas, a Welsh sailor, for beating the woman with whom he lodged to death, with a potato-masher, on the same day; Job Hughes, for murdering his wife by trampling on her, on April 30; and James O'Brien, an Irish sailor, for stabbing Elizabeth O'Callaghan, in a brothel in Spitalfields.

17.—Died, aged 74, Edward Ellice, Esq., M. P. for Coventry, the Nestor of the Whig party.

20. Died, aged 79, Jacob Grimm, philologist and antiquarian.

23. A coroner's inquest held at the vestryroom of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, on the body of George Beamire, an eccentric person of property, a barrister, who had been found dead in his room, to which for years no one had been admitted. The walls were covered with pictures of value, and in various corners of his apartments piles of clothing were found mixed up with silver plate, and rare booksall thickly covered with dust. A verdict was returned that death was caused by exhaustion from low fever, accelerated by neglect.

The Ionian Assembly declare in favour of uniting the Islands to the kingdom of Greece, and thank Great Britain and the joint protecting Powers. The Assembly declining the pecuniary stipulations, was afterwards prorogued.

25.-Inquiry before the Castle Hedingham magistrates into the death of an old Frenchman commonly called "Dummy," who practised fortune-telling to a little extent, and had incurred, in consequence, the evil reputation of being a wizard. Aggrieved by his refusing to heal their imaginary ailments, and determined at the same time to rid the parish of a person of such baleful influence, a mob, composed for the most part of small shopkeepers and women, fell upon the old man on the 3d August last, and, besides half-suffocating him in a ditch, otherwise maltreated him so severely, that he died in a few days from the injuries received. Emma Smith, and Samuel Stammers, ringleaders in the outrage, were now committed to take their trial at the Chelmsford Spring Assizes.

October 3.-The Archduke Maximilian consents to accept the crown of Mexico, provided his election be ratified by a free vote of the whole Mexican people.

(502)

6.-Earthquake shocks felt in the central and western parts of England, the shocks being nearly simultaneous from Milford Haven to Burton-on-Trent, and from the Mersey to Plymouth.

Discourteous treatment of the LordLieutenant of Ireland, by the Earl of Leitrim. In his progress through the western parts of the Island, Lord Carlisle and his party were refused accommodation at the little Inn of Maam, in Connemara, in consequence of the following letter written to his tenant, the innkeeper, by the Earl of Leitrim :— -"King, I will be obliged to you to fill the hotel with my tenants forthwith. Let every room be occupied immediately, and continue to be occupied ; and when so occupied you will refuse admittance to Lord Carlisle and his party. If there should be the slightest difficulty as to filling the hotel, the occupation of the rooms, my desire is that you will fill each room with the workmen; but you must not admit Lord Carlisle, and consequently the rooms should be filled previous to his coming there. Any orders you may have received notwithstanding, I rely on your observing my wishes to the letter.LEITRIM. P.S.-I will pay for the tenants using the rooms." Lord Leitrim was afterwards removed from the Commission of the Peace.

Died, aged 55, Mrs. Frances Trollope,

novelist.

8.-Died, aged 76, Richard Whately, D.D. Archbishop of Dublin, a theologian who com bined zeal with discretion and learning, and a political economist who added a practical sympathy with the people, to a thorough understanding of their habits.

12.-Died, aged 91, J. S. Copley, Lord Lyndhurst, born a British citizen in Massachusetts when it was a loyal colony, and a great English lawyer and statesman.

13.-Inauguration of the Albert Memorial at Aberdeen, in presence of the Queen and several members of the Royal Family. Her Majesty (through Sir George Grey) said :"I could not reconcile it to myself to remain at Balmoral, while such a tribute was being paid to his memory, without making an exertion to assure you personally of the deep and heartfelt sense I entertain of your kindness and affection; and, at the same time, to proclaim in public the unbounded reverence and admiration, the devoted love that fills my heart for him whose loss must throw a lasting gloom over all my future life."

17.-Explosion at Morfa Colliery, Glamorganshire, causing the death of thirty-nine work. men, being almost the entire labourers in the pit at the time.

19. Lord Palmerston entered as a corespondent in the Divorce Court. A person named O'Kane filed a petition this day alleging his marriage with Matilda Margaret Augustus Morris, on the 2d of October, 1851, at St.

George's-in-the-East, London. He then stated cohabitation at 2, John-street, Commercialroad; Gravesend; Tralee; and 2, Grove Place, Brighton, and the birth of a son and four daughters. There was next an allegation to the effect that on the 16th June, 1863, at Cambridge House, and at other times and places, the respondent committed adultery with the co-respondent, Viscount Palmerston, in consideration of which damages were claimed for 20,000/. The respondent, Mrs. O'Kane, answered this petition on the 1st day of November, by a denial both of the adultery and the marriage. The noble co-respondent did not answer, but instead of doing so-and as a preliminary step-he, on the 17th of November last, obtained in chambers an order that the petitioner should specify more precisely the place and mode in which the marriage was celebrated, and also the places and times at which the adultery was committed. With this order the petitioner did not comply, and took no further steps in the suit. At a subsequent stage of the proceedings the petition was removed from the file, an affidavit being sworn to that the petition was presented, filed, and served for the purpose of extortion only, and that the petitioner had no case on its merits.

22.-The Prince of Wales elected President of the Society of Arts.

24.-Middling New Orleans cotton sold in Liverpool at 294d. per lb. This was the highest point it reached, the market for ten days previously being more excited than at any other period during the famine. Throughout 1861 the same quality was quoted at 11ď., and in 1862 at 244d. In 1854 the current rate was 5d. per lb.

26.-The Japanese Government removes its recent restrictions on foreign commerce at all the ports except Yokohama.

-

27. The Russian Government forbid mourning to be worn by Poles in Warsaw in memory of those who had fallen in the insurrection.

28. Sarah Emily Mitchell tried at the Central Criminal Court, for stabbing her infant child with a dagger, and attempting afterwards to commit suicide. She was acquitted on the ground of insanity.

30.-King George I. arrives at Athens.

November 3.-Inquiry at the Marylebone Police-court into the charges made against Jane Henderson, lady's maid to Miss Domville, Connaught-place, of procuring in a fraudulent manner jewellery to the amount of over 2,000/. from Mr. Hancock and other jewellers in London. There were found in her room ornaments to the value of 800l., 200 pairs of gloves, and 2737. in money. She was committed for trial, and convicted at the Central Criminal Court.

4.-The Emperor of the French issues an

invitation to the Sovereigns of Europe to assemble in Congress at Paris for the settlement of various international difficulties:-"Called to the throne," he wrote to her Majesty, "by Providence, and the will of the French people, but trained in the school of adversity, it is perhaps less allowable for me than for others to ignore the rights of sovereigns and the legitimate aspirations of the people. Thus I am ready, without any preconceived system, to bring to an International Council a spirit of moderation and justice, the ordinary portion of those who have undergone so many different trials. If I take the initiative in such an overture, I do not yield to an impulse of vanity, but because I am the sovereign to whom ambitious projects have mostly been attributed. I have it at heart to prove, by this frank and loyal overture, that my sole object is to arrive, without convulsion, at the pacification of Europe. If this proposal be agreed to, I beg your Majesty to accept Paris as the place of meeting. If the princes, allies, and friends of France should think fit to enhance by their presence the authority of the deliberations, I shall be proud to offer them cordial hospitality. Europe will, perhaps, see some advantage in the capital whence the signal of confusion has so often arisen, becoming the seat of conferences destined to lay the basis of a general pacification. I take this opportu nity of renewing to you the assurances of the high esteem and inviolable friendship with which I am, Madam my Sister, your Majesty's good brother-NAPOLEON." Earl Russell entered at length into the question in a despatch, dated 25th November. He concluded:-"If the mere expression of opinions and wishes would accomplish no positive results, it appears certain that the deliberations of a Congress would consist of demands and pretensions put forward by some and resisted by others; and, there being no supreme authority in such an assembly to enforce the decision of the majority, the Congress would probably separate leaving many of its members on worse terms with each other than they had been when they met. But if this would be the probable result, it follows that no decrease of armaments is likely to be effected by the proposed Congress. M. Drouyn de Lhuys refers to a proposal made by Lord Clarendon in one of the last sittings of the Congress of Paris. her Majesty's Government understand that proposal to have reference to a dispute between two Powers to be referred to the good offices of a friendly Power, but in no way to the assembling of a General Congress. Not being able, therefore, to discern the likelihood of those beneficial consequences which the Emperor of the French promised himself when proposing a Congress, her Majesty's Government, following their own strong convictions, after mature deliberation, feel themselves unable to accept his Imperial Majesty's invitation."

But

5.-The Attorney-General moves for a rule for a new trial in the case of the Alexandra, on

the ground of misdirection by Lord Chief Baron Pollock, and also upon the ground that the verdict was against the evidence. When the rule came to be argued, two of the judges thought it should be made absolute, and two that it should be discharged. By the withdrawal, as is the custom in such cases, of the judgment of the junior judge, a decision was entered that the rule should be discharged. An appeal on behalf of the Crown was made to the Court of Error, Exchequer Chamber (February 6), but Sir Hugh Cairns there stated the objection, that the Court of Exchequer had no power by law to make the rule under which the appeal had been brought. He contended that the only power given by the 26th Section of the Queen's Remembrancer's Act to the Court of Exchequer was to regulate the internal arrangements within their own court, and not to create new courts. They could not go outside their own court and give to suitors rights external to their court, or give them power of appeal from their decision to the Privy Council or the House of Lords. Four of the judges were of opinion that the Court had no jurisdiction, and three that it had. The case was ultimately carried to the House of Lords, the point argued with much subtilty on both sides being the technical question of the jurisdiction of the Court of Exchequer Chamber. The House pronounced a decision on the 6th of April, showing a great diversity of opinion among the law lords, but deciding by a majority in favour of the Lord Chancellor's opinion, that the appeal should be dismissed with costs.

6.-Czuchowski, the last of the Polish leaders of any eminence, defeated at Radom, and taken prisoner, wounded and dying.

7.-William Samuel Hunt poisons his wife and two children in a cab by administering prussic acid to them, which he mixed with beer called for at a public-house in Bishopsgate-street, while being driven to Westbourne Grove. Hunt left the cab himself in Holborn, instructing the driver to proceed to the address originally given, when the occupants were found to have been dead for some time. Two days afterwards he poisoned himself with aconite while the police were endeavouring to effect an entrance into his house.

9.-The new Prussian Chamber of Deputies opened by the King, who expressed a wish to act in harmony with the representatives if they would carry out his measures.

10. The splendid new war-vessel, Prince Consort, narrowly escapes foundering in a gale in the Irish Channel. While vast quantities of water were shipped on deck, an undetected leak below permitted her engine-room to be flooded within a few inches of the fires. The engines, however, were powerful enough to drive the huge mass through the storm till a safe anchorage was reached off Kingstown.

15.- Death of Frederick VII., King of Denmark, and accession of Christian IX., father of the Princess of Wales. The following day Frederick, Duke of Augustenburg, issued a proclamation in which he claimed the succession to Schleswig-Holstein.

17.-Commenced, at Aldershot, the Courtmartial on Lieutenant-Colonel Crawley, charged "(1) with conduct unbecoming an officer, and to the prejudice of good order and military discipline, in having at Mhow, during the month of May, A.D. 1862, when the Regimental Sergeant-Major Lilley was confined in close arrest, caused the orders under which he was so confined to be carried into effect with unnecessary and undue severity, whereby the said Regimental Sergeant-Major Lilley and his wife were subjected to great and grievous hardships and suffering; (2) for conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman, and to the prejudice of good order and military discipline, in having at Mhow, on or about the 7th June, A. D. 1862, in the course of an address made by him before the general Court-martial which was then being held for the trial of Paymaster T. Smales, 6th Enniskillen Dragoons, expressed himself in the following language, or words to the like effect :-'Close arrest necessarily implies a sentry over a prisoner, but it does not necessitate his being placed over a prisoner's wife or family, and I can assure the court that no person could be more shocked than I was when I learned from the evidence of Sergeant-Major Lilley that his wife had been incommoded or annoyed by the precaution taken for his safe custody. It was Lieutenant and Adjutant Fitzsimon's fault if any such thing occurred, for it was his duty as Adjutant to have seen the post assigned to the sentry, and to have taken care that no such improper interference with the privacy of the SergeantMajor's wife could have taken place. As it was, immediately I became acquainted with the statement of Sergeant-Major Lilley, I sent off orders to have the sentry removed to a post where he could perform his duty equally well without annoying or interfering with Mrs. Lilley thereby representing that the said Lieutenant and Adjutant Fitzsimon was in fault for what had occurred, whereas in truth, and in fact, Lieut.-Colonel Crawley then well knew that the said Lieutenant and Adjutant Fitzsimon had acted in the said matter by the express order and direction of the said Lieut.Colonel Crawley." The examination of witnesses was continued till the 17th of December, when Colonel Crawley addressed the Court in defence, and claimed a complete acquittal. The Court found him Not guilty on both counts, and restored him the command of the regiment. Several witnesses who seemed to be actuated by an animus against Colonel Crawley, and had given their evidence in a hesitating, unsatisfactory way, were draughted to other regiments or dismissed the service.

19. The inhabitants of Kiel petition the

German Diet in favour of the claim of the Duke of Augustenburg to the succession. Two days afterwards the States of Holstein refused to swear allegiance to the new King of Denmark.

19. The Common Council of London vote a portion of land in Victoria Street, and a sum of 20,000l. for the construction of dwellings for the poorer classes.

20.-Died at Dhurumsala, valley of Cashmere, aged 52, James Bruce, 8th Earl of Elgin, Governor-General of India. On the 19th the Viceroy was quite conscious of his critical state and perfectly composed. He then made his will, directed Colonel Strachey to design a tomb for his remains; approved of the design when submitted to him; dictated the words of the telegram to England expressing his duty to the Queen, and requesting her to appoint a successor; gave instructions respecting the return of his family to England, took an affectionate leave of all present, and waited calmly till the end came.

24. The Cobden-Delane dispute. In a speech at Rochdale to-night, Mr. Cobden said:"With regard to some things in foreign countries we don't compare favourably. You have no peasantry but that of England which is entirely divorced from the land. There is no other country in the world where you will not find men holding the plough and turning up the furrow upon their own freehold. I don't want any agrarian outrages by which we should change all this; but this I find, and it is quite consistent with human nature, that wherever I go the condition of the people is generally pretty good, in comparison with the power they have to take care of themselves; and if you have a class entirely divorced from political power, while in another country they possess it, they will be treated there with more consideration, they will have greater advantages, they will be better educated, and have a better chance of having property than in a country where they are deprived of the advantage of political power.' Commenting on this and other speeches delivered at the same meeting, the Times wrote:-"This language, so often repeated, and so calculated to excite discontent among the poor and half-informed, has really only one intelligible meaning-'Reduce the electoral franchise; for when you have done so you will obtain an Assembly which will seize on the estates of the proprietors of land, and divide them gratuitously among the poor.' . . . . It may be right to reduce the franchise, but certainly not as a step to spoliation." Cobden addressed himself direct to Mr. J. T. Delane, of the Times, who at once took upon himself personally the responsibility of the That interpretation put upon the speeches. interpretation Mr. Cobden described as a libellous outrage upon two members of the House of Commons, and an insult to millions of honest, industrious Englishmen. "Nobody," he wrote, "knows better than yourself, except

Mr.

the writer who actually penned the scandalous passage in question, that this accusation against Mr. Bright, of wishing to divide the land of the rich among the poor, is nothing but the resort to a stale rhetorical trick (this only aggravates the character of the libel). To draw away public attention from the real issue, and thus escape from the discussion of a serious but for the moment an inconvenient public topic, in order to trail a red herring across the true scent, the cry of spoliation was raised." Mr. Delane defended himself by alleging that he had been dragged into the correspondence entirely by the exaggerated intensity Mr. Cobden attached to the oft-quoted phrase,-"Mr. Bright's proposition for a division among the poor of the lands of the rich." "You seem to assume that I charged you with proposing that this division should be accomplished by violence. But your own words were there to prove to me that such was not your meaning, and to confute me instantly if I had attempted to attach that interpretation to it. There are, however, as no one knows better than yourself, other and more effective, because more enduring means than violence for the division of the land of the rich among the poor. You suggest so

obviously that it is by legislative measuresrendered possible by giving political power to the peasantry-you propose to amend the unequal distribution of the land between the rich and the poor,' that no one would think of charging you with endeavouring to effect this great change by violence. For myself," Mr. Delane concluded, "I can but repeat that certain passages in your speech will in my opinion bear no other interpretation than that ascribed to them; and you have yourself quoted the very passage upon which I rely to justify my opinion." Towards the close of the correspondence, Mr. Cobden wrote:-"In the teeth of all these proofs in plain unmistakeable English to the contrary, I should be sacrificing truth to courtesy were I to affect to concur in this new version of your language, which does not admit of two meanings. I note your recantation, but repel the attempt to raise a fresh issue to cover your retreat under a fire of minor accusations. I will conclude this correspondence with merely remarking that the blow which was aimed at the fame of Mr. Bright and myself has missed its mark. How far the recoil of the weapon may affect the hand that levelled it time will show."

25.-Suppression of the insurrection among the mountain tribes in the Punjaub, headed by Ram Singh.

First Fenian Convention assembles at Chicago.

December 1.-Opening of the new railway between Charing Cross and Greenwich.

2.-The Prussian Chambers, by a majority of 231 to 63, pass a resolution: "That the honour and interest of Germany demand that all the German States should preserve the rights of the

duchies of Schleswig and Holstein, that they should recognise the hereditary prince of Schleswig-Holstein - Sonderburg-Augustenburg, as Duke of Schleswig-Holstein, and they should lend him assistance in vindication of his rights." In reply to this the King of Denmark announced his intention of resisting all revolutionary movements in Holstein.

6.-Lady Blantyre recovers 5847. in name of "damages" from the St. James's Hotel Company, for loss sustained in money and jewels while staying at their premises in Piccadilly. Mr. Bovill contended that the company could not be liable, seeing they had hung up a notice in every room-"The company do not hold themselves responsible for property lost in the hotel unless placed in the special charge of the manager." Mr. Justice Byles ruled that the liability of a hotel-keeper was undoubted. was not only the law of England until modified by a recent Act of Parliament, but it was the law of every country in the world. With respect to the notice furnished on the card, it was of no value whatever, for it could not take away the responsibility of the defendants.

It

Every

8.-Two thousand persons-mostly women -burned in the church of La Compania, Santiago, Chili, in the course of a festival in honour of the Immaculate Conception. corner of the building, from the ground to the ceiling, and especially about the altar, was a sea of muslin and drapery flooded with every variety of illumination. Not content with even this display, the chief priest of the church, a man named Ugarte, in one of his attempts to outstrip the Catholic world, invented a celestial post-office in the building, through which direct communication in writing was obtained with the Virgin, and in which offerings accompanying the letters were to be deposited. At half-past six, though the building was crammed to suffocation, the crowd outside clamoured for admittance and pressed against the closed doors. At a quarter to seven high mass began with all the pomp and splendour customary on such occasions, the perfume of the frankincense pervading the building, and the plaintive sounds of the organ seeming to inspire feelings of holy awe at the grand solemnity. The staff of acolytes engaged for hours in lighting the endless festoons of lamps now reached the precinct of the high altar; all the tapers were safely lit, and there remained but to ignite a silver crescent containing paraffin which had been placed at the foot of a large image of the Virgin. A careless acolyte, it was thought, mismanaged the lighting of this ornament, and the flame rising to an extraordinary height came in contact with the muslin and gold draperies round the altar. These, from their light and inflammable texture, communicated the fire to the cloth-of-gold canopy above, which in its turn was soon in a blaze with all the other decorations round the church. For the closely packed and excited crowd to escape (506)

from the building was impossible. The doors were few in number and closely blockaded outside. There were also many ladies who, in ignorance of the true state of affairs, did not rise from their knees as quickly as they might have done. The consequence was that those pressing from the centre of the church towards the doors stumbled over them, and in a few minutes great walls twelve feet high of fainting, trampled, and dying girls, entangled in each other's dresses, barricaded the only three exits which the church possessed, thus excluding from all outward help upwards of 1,800 ladies who now found themselves face to face with death. The inside of the great dome, composed mostly of timber, was soon in a blaze, and showers of molten lead fell upon the seething mass of humanity below. The flames at last reached the festoons on which thousands of paraffin lamps were hung, and, snapping the cords asunder, the coloured globes and their contents descended on the heads of the people, enveloping them in one sheet of liquid fire. From the windows of the opposite houses people could be seen rushing to and fro amid the flames in the body of the church; others stretching out their hands imploringly for help; and high above the din of even the swinging bell in the tower could be heard the piercing cries of agony. A few minutes after eight the roof fell, burying beneath it all whom the fury of the fire had spared. A few, disfigured by the flames or mangled by the crush, were dragged out and laid in the adjoining Senate-house, but it was thought that not fewer than two thousand- the rank and beauty of the city-perished in the calamity. The charred embers were gathered together and buried in a huge trench prepared for their reception, 1,500 blackened skulls being counted and acknowledged as received by the authorities of the burial-ground for interment. The priest Ugarte was believed to have escaped by a private door in the sacristy.

9.-Sir John Lawrence leaves England to assume the duties of Governor-General of India.

10.-Tom King defeats the American champion, Heenan, in a pugilistic encounter near Wadhurst, Sussex. At the twentieth round the ring was broken into by the excited spectators, and for five additional rounds the fight was carried on amid much confusion. Heenan was then unable to respond to the call of his second.

12.-Tried, at Derby Assizes, George Victor Townley, charged with murdering Miss Elizabeth Goodwin, a young lady who had contracted a marriage engagement with him, but afterwards broke it off for reasons satisfactory to herself and friends. The murder was committed on the evening of the 21st of August last in the grounds of Wigwell Hall, Derbyshire, in the course of an interview he had solicited for the purpose of ascertaining her final intentions." A witness (Reuben Conway) said:-"On the night in question,