war rolled into a Northern State, and broke in the great billow of Gettysburg. Of the above, 17 were naval engagements.

66

2. Died at his residence, Suffolk-street, aged 60, Richard Cobden, M. P., an apostle of Free Trade in its early and unpopular days, and a zealous labourer in later times for its extension to other countries. "The two great achievements of Mr. Cobden's life," said Lord Palmerston, when referring to the loss which the House had sustained, were, in the first place, the abrogation of those laws which regulated the importation of corn, and the great development which that gave to the industry of the country; and, in the second place, those commercial arrangements which he negotiated with France, and which have largely tended to improve the trade and extend the commercial intercourse of the two countries. When this last achievement was accomplished it was my lot to offer to Mr. Cobden those honours which the Crown could bestow for such important services, and which were not derogatory for him to accept; but that same disinterested spirit which regulated all his private and pub. lic conduct led him to decline those honours which might most properly have recognised and acknowledged his public services. I can only say that the country has sustained a loss, and every man in it." Speaking for the Opposition, Mr. Disraeli said, "There were some men who, although they were not present, were still members of the House-independent of dissolutions or the caprices of constituencies, and even of the course of time. I think that Mr. Cobden is one of those men; and I believe that when the verdict of posterity shall be recorded upon his life and conduct, it will be said of him that he was, without doubt, the greatest politician that the upper-middle class of this country has as yet produced, and that he was not only an ornament to the House of Commons, but an honour to England." Mr. Bright (who was most deeply affected, and hardly audible) said: "I am utterly unable to address the House, but the sympathy shown on all sides for my departed friend has deeply gratified me. I cannot now attempt to utter the feelings with which I am overwhelmed. At some calmer moment, when I may have the opportunity of addressing my countrymen, I will endeavour to show the lesson which I think may be learned from the life and character of my friend. I can only say that, after many years of most intimate and most brotherly friendship with him, I little knew how much I loved him until I found that I had lost him." The funeral of the deceased statesman took place at Laving

ton

on the 7th, and was attended by all his old friends of the League, with Mr. Gladstone and about one-twelfth of the entire House of Commons. The French Government and press also paid the highest tributes to the memory of Mr. Cobden,"

3.-Addressing a meeting at Rochdale called

for the purpose of selecting a successor to Mr. Cobden in the representation of the borough, Mr. Bright thus touched upon Mr. Brett, the Conservative candidate :-"These men are all in favour of the good that has been done by men who have given years of their lives-(loud cheers) men you have encouraged from youth to manhood, in the spread of just principles and the establishment of wise laws, and who have done all this in the teeth of the combined opposition-of all the Mr. Bretts in England. Then the Mr. Bretts come forward, and say that the repeal of the Corn-laws was a good thing and the French treaty a valuable measure, and the freedom of the press a great blessing; but still Mr. Brett stands with Lord Derby--and if you will ask him about any one single question, not of the past, but of the future of the next twenty years, you will have to fight as great a fight for every future good against the Mr. Bretts, just as you have fought against his class and order of mind during the last twenty years." (Cheers.) At the close of the poll the numbers were-Potter, 646; Brett, 496.

3. The chief magistrates of the burghs or Scotland entertain the Lord Provost of Edinburgh (Lawson) to dinner in the new hall of the Douglas Hotel.

4. The great southern section of the Main Drainage Works of the Metropolis opened by the Prince of Wales. The length of this Cloaca Maxima is ten miles, with a sewer of four feet diameter at the upper end and two huge culverts at the lower, seven feet both ways, and of which a section was exhibited above ground this day at Crossness. luncheon prepared for the large company of Royal and distinguished visitors who witnessed the opening ceremony, the Prince of Wales wished success to the great undertaking.

At a

5. The lock-out in South Staffordshire terminated, the masters opening their works on condition that the men did not subscribe for the maintenance of those out on strike in the northern part of the county.

7.-Close of the Southern struggle for independence. General Grant writes to General Lee:-"The result of the last week must convince you of the hopelessness of further resistance on the part of the army of Northern Virginia in this struggle. I feel that it is so, and regard it as my duty to shift from myself the responsibility of any further effusion of blood, by asking of you the surrender of that portion of the Confederate States army known as the Army of Northern Virginia." Lee answered: "Though not entirely of the opinion you express of the hopelessness of further resistance on the part of the Army of Northern Virginia, I reciprocate your desire to avoid useless effusion of blood, and therefore, before considering your proposition, ask the terms you will offer on condition of its surrender." After the exchange of certain other

notes, Grant wrote on the 9th :-"Rolls of all the officers and men to be made in duplicateone copy to be given to an officer designated by me, the other to be retained by such officer as you may designate. The officers to give their individual paroles not to take arms against the Government of the United States until properly exchanged, and each company or regimental commander to sign a like parole for the men of his command. The arms, artillery, and public property to be parked and stacked, and turned over to the officers appointed by me to receive them. This will not embrace the side-arms of the officers, nor their private horses or baggage. This done, each officer and man will be allowed to return to their homes, not to be disturbed by the United States authority, so long as they observe their parole, and the laws in force where they may reside." Lee at once replied that the terms were accepted, and that he would proceed to designate the proper officers to carry the stipulation into effect.

10. "Tattersall's" removed from the old familiar spot at St. George's Corner, Hyde-park, to new premises at Knightsbridge-green.

The Emperor of Mexico promulgates an Imperial Constitution.

11.-Captain Colborne tried at the Central Criminal Court for a libel on Mr. Davis, attorney, contained in a pamphlet purporting to give a description of money-lenders who obtained their living by preying upon young men of fortune. -Fined 201.

13. Outbreak of disturbances between Paraguay and the Argentine Republic. Today the Paraguayans seize two war-steamers. War was declared on the 16th.

14. An unlooked-for and terrible calamity befel the American nation this day in the assassination of President Lincoln. "It has become my distressing duty," writes Mr. Stanton to the American Minister in London, "to announce to you, that last night his Excellency Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, was assassinated about the hour of halfpast ten o'clock, in his private box at Lord's Theatre in the city [of Washington]. The President about nine o'clock accompanied Mrs. Lincoln to the theatre. Another lady and gentleman were within the box. About half-past ten, during a pause in the performance, the assassin entered the box, the door of which was unguarded. He hastily approached the President from behind, discharging a pistol at his head. bullet entered the back of his head, and penetrated nearly through. The assassin then leaped from the box on to the stage, brandishing a large knife or dagger, and exclaiming 'Sic semper tyrannus,' and escaped in the rear of the theatre. Immediately upon the discharge the President fell to the floor insensible, and continued in that state till twenty minutes past seven this morning, when he breathed his last. About the same time the murder was being committed at the theatre,

The

By

another assassin presented himself at the door of Mr. Seward's residence, gained admission by representing he had a prescription from Mr. Seward's physician which he was directed to see administered, and hurried up to the third storey chamber, where Mr. Seward was lying. He here discovered Mr. Frederick Seward, and struck him over the head, inflicting severe and, it is feared, mortal wounds, and fracturing the skull in two places. He then rushed into the room where Mr. Seward was in bed, attended by a young daughter and a male nurse. The male attendant was stabbed through the lungs, and it is believed will die. The assassin then struck Mr. Seward with a knife or dagger twice in the throat and twice in the face, inflicting terrible wounds. this time Major Seward, eldest son of the Secretary, and another attendant, reached the room, and rushed to the rescue of the Secretary. They were also wounded in the conflict, and the assassin escaped. No artery or important blood-vessel was severed by any of the wounds inflicted upon him, but he was for a long time insensible from the loss of blood. A spectator near the President's box records still more graphically the details of this, probably the most exciting and dramatic occurrence of modern times. "I remember that a man passed me and inquired of one sitting near who the President's messenger was, and learning, exhibited to him an envelope having a printed heading, and superscribed in a bold hand. Soon after I was disturbed in my seat by the approach of a man who desired to pass up on the aisle in which I was sitting. Giving him room by bending my chair forward, he passed me, and stepped one step down upon the level below me. Standing there, he was almost in my line of sight, and I saw him while watching the play. He stood, as I remember, one step above the messenger, and remained perhaps one minute apparently looking at the stage and orchestra below. Then he drew a number of visiting cards from his pocket, from which, with some attention, he drew or selected These things I saw distinctly. I saw him stoop, and, I think, descend to the level with the messenger, and by his right side. He showed the card to the messenger, and as my attention was then more closely fixed upon the play, I do not know whether the card was carried in by the messenger, or his consent given to the entrance of the man who presented it. I saw, a few moments after, the same man entering the door of the lobby leading to the box and the door closing behind him. This was seen because I could not fail from my position to observe it; the door-side of the prosceniumbox and stage were all within the direct and oblique lines of my sight. How long I watched the play after his entering I do not know. was, perhaps, two or three minutes, possibly four. The house was perfectly still, the large audience listening to the dialogue between 'Florence Trenchard' and 'May Meredith,' when the sharp report of a pistol rang through

one.

It

the house. It was apparently fired behind the scenes on the right of the stage. Looking towards it and behind the Presidential box, while it startled all, it was evidently accepted by every one in the theatre as an introduction to some new passage, several of which had been interpolated in the early part of the play. A moment after a man leaped from the front of the box directly down nine feet on the stage and ran rapidly across it, bare-headed, holding an unsheathed dagger in his right hand, the blade of which flashed brightly in the gas-light as he came within ten feet of the opposite rear exit." The report of the pistol did not appear to excite much attention. The screams of Mrs. Lincoln first disclosed the fact to the audience that the President had been shot, when all present rose to their feet and rushed towards the stage, many exclaiming, "Hang him! hang him!" The excitement was of the wildest description, and of course there was an abrupt termination of the theatrical performance. The 'leading lady" of the theatre, Miss Laura Keene, who stood at the side of the stage when the assassin sprang from the box, endeavoured in vain to restore consciousness

to the dying President. "It was a strange spectacle," says a reporter of the scene, "the head and ruler of thirty millions of people lying insensible in the lap of an actress, the mingled blood and brain oozing out and staining her gaudy robe." In a few minutes there was a rush towards the President's box, when cries were heard of "Stand back and give him air! Has any one stimulants ?" On a hasty examination it was found that the President was shot through the head, above and below the temporal bone, and that some of the brain was oozing out. He was removed to a private house opposite the theatre, and the SurgeonGeneral of the Army, and other surgeons, sent for to attend to his condition.

On an

examination of the private box, blood was discovered on the back of the cushioned rockingchair on which the President had been sitting, also on the partition; and a common singlebarrelled pocket-pistol was found on the carpet. M. B. Field saw the President in his last moments:-"I proceeded at once to the room in which the President was lying, which was a bedroom in an extension, on the first or parlour floor of the house. The room was small, and ornamented with prints a very familiar one of Landseer's, a white horse, being prominently over the bed. The bed was a double one, and I found the President lying diagonally across it, with his head at the outside. pillows were saturated with blood, and there was considerable blood on the floor immediately under him. There was a patchwork coverlid thrown over the President, which was only so far removed, from time to time, as to enable the physicians in attendance to feel the arteries of the neck or the heart, and he appeared to have been divested of all clothing. His eyes were closed and injected with blood; both the lids, and the portion surrounding the

The

eyes, being as black as if they had been bruised by violence. He was breathing regularly, but with effort, and did not seem to be struggling or suffering. For several hours the breathing continued regularly, and apparently without pain or consciousness. But about seven o'clock a change occurred, and the breathing which had been continuous, was interrupted at intervals. These intervals became more frequent and of longer duration, and the breathing more feeble. Several times the interval was so long that we thought him dead; and the surgeon applied his finger to the pulse, evidently to ascertain if such was the fact. But it was not till twentytwo minutes past seven o'clock in the morning that the flame flickered out." The assassin of the President was recognised on the spot to be a person named John Wilkes Booth (the son of an actor once well known in England as a rival of Edmund Kean), and it was soon learned that he had an associate named Harrold.

In spite of the vigilance of a large force of police, they contrived to effect their escape on horseback from the capital. Booth was known to have engaged a horse to be ready for mounting near the theatre when the deed was perpetrated. They were traced, on the 26th, to a barn near Port Royal, in Maryland, where Booth was seen supporting himself on crutches; it was then known, he had broken his ankle in the leap from the President's box to the stage, his spur, it was said, having caught in the folds of the Union flag. After some little parley, Harrold surrendered, but Booth steadily refusing to do so, and being well armed, the barn was fired; and whilst the unhappy man was endeavouring to extinguish the flames he was shot dead by a cavalry sergeant of the name of Corbett. Harrold was conveyed to Washington, and afterwards put on his trial along with the assailant of Mr. Seward, and some others. The body of Booth, it is said, was cut into pieces and sunk in the Potomac. Every possible honour was paid to the remains of President Lincoln; the body was embalmed, and, after solemn funeral ceremonies, especially in Washington and New York, removed to Springfield, in Illinois, for interment. news of the assassination called forth expressions of sincere sympathy from every part of Europe; innumerable addresses from public bodies, and miscellaneous meetings were forwarded, through the American Minister, to the people of the United States; besides which, Queen Victoria and the Empress Eugénie addressed autograph letters of condolence to the widow of the President. The Queen's was addressed, "From a widow to a widow." Any acknowledgment that may have been received was not made public. Addresses of condolence were voted in both Houses of Parliament, Mr. Disraeli remarking in the Commons, that assassination had never changed the history of the world."I will not refer," he said, "to the remote past, though an accident has made the most memorable

The

instance of antiquity fresh in the minds and memory of all around me. But even the costly sacrifice of a Cæsar did not propitiate the inexorable destiny of his country. If we look to modern times, to times at least with the feelings of which we are familiar, and the people of which were animated and influenced by the same interests as ourselves, the violent deaths of two heroic men-Henry IV. of France, and the Prince of Orange-are conspicuous illustrations of this truth. In expressing our unaffected and profound sympathy with the citizens of the United States, on this untimely end of their elected chief, let us not therefore sanction any feelings of depression, but rather let us express a fervent hope that from out of the awful trials of the last four years, of which this violent demise is not the least, the various populations of North America may issue elevated and chastened, rich with the accumulated wisdom, and strong in the disciplined energy which a young nation can only acquire in a protracted and perilous struggle. Then they will be enabled, not merely to renew their career of power and prosperity, but they will renew it to contribute to the general happiness of mankind." Intimation of the calamity was at once made to Vice-President Johnson, who took the necessary oaths as President Lincoln's successor on the following day.

19.-Barned's Banking Company at Liverpool stop payment.

24. Died at Nice, aged 21, the Czarewitch Nicholas, heir-apparent to the Emperor of Russia.

25.-Great excitement caused in London by a statement in the evening papers that the mystery of the Road murder (see June 29, 1860) was at length solved, and that Miss Constance Kent had given herself up as the murderess. Shortly before four o'clock two inspectors conducted the prisoner to the private room of Sir Thomas Henry, Bow-street. Miss Kent was attired in deep mourning, and wore a thick veil which almost screened her face from view. She was said to be slenderer and much taller than when formerly in custody. She was attended by the Lady Superior of St. Mary's Hospital, Brighton, in which establishment she had been a "visitor" during the last two years, and by the Rev. A. D. Wagner, of St. Paul's, Brighton, to whom she had confessed her guilt. He detailed the circumstances under which the confession was made; and in answer to questions put in various forms, said the act was entirely spontaneous on her part; he held out no inducement to her, and was merely a passive agent in the matter. He understood it not as a private but an open public confession. Again warned by the presiding magistrate as to the serious character of the step she was taking, Miss Kent handed to the clerk a written confession :-"I Constance Emilie Kent, alone and unaided, on the night of the 29th of June, 1860, murdered at Road

Hill House, Wiltshire, one Francis Saville Kent. Before the act was done no one knew of my intention, nor afterwards of my guilt. No one assisted me in the crime nor in the evasion of discovery.' She spoke firmly though sadly, and was accommodated with a seat during the inquiry. She was then given into the custody of an inspector, who, in company with Mr. Wagner and Miss Graem, conveyed her to Trowbridge for examination by the Wilts magistrates, and by whom she was ultimately committed for trial.

26. In anticipation of the efforts being made to organize measures for ejecting Mr. Gladstone from the representation of Oxford University, the Rev. E. B. Pusey writes to the Times, that "knowing his high principles, firm belief, and religious character, I have perfect confidence in his future course. Amid the troublous times in which our lot is cast, and looking on to a future of our Church which on earth I may never see, I have more confidence in his high-principled sagacity and farsightedness than I have (however much I may respect some) in any other statesman." Sir J. T. Coleridge and others also addressed the electors on Mr. Gladstone's claims on their support.

27.-Lord Chelmsford calls the attention of the House of Lords to the treatment which certain British subjects were receiving in Abyssinia. Earl Russell, in reply, said the delay in answering the King's letter, which was said to be the immediate cause of the arrest, was owing in a great measure to the disturbed state of Abyssinia.

In introducing a bill for regulating the police force in Belfast, Sir Robert Peel said that during the late riots, 316 people were seriously injured, 146 were arrested, and 13 were killed. The loss caused by the stoppage of mills and other works was 50,000l.; and in order to put an end to the strife it was neces sary during the three worst days, August 15-17, to introduce into the town, in addition to the local police, a constabulary force of 978 men, 12 officers and 252 cavalry; 57 officers and 1,045 infantry; 3 officers and 36 men of the artillery, with two guns. He proposed to increase the police force from 161, its present number, to 450, one-half to be paid out of the Consolidated Fund.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer introduces his annual financial statement, being the seventh he had presented to the House since the commencement of the present Parliament. The revenue for the year was calculated at 70,170,000!., and the expenditure at 66,139,000/. The relief given by the proposed reduction was on tea, 2,300,000/.; Income-tax (reduced from 6d. to 4d.), 2,600,000/.; fire-insurance duty, 520,000/-in all 5,420,000.

28.-Illness of Lord Palmerston. A rumour was generally circulated this evening that the Premier was lying dangerously ill at Brocket Hall, and not likely to recover.

3.-Mr. Baines' bill for reducing the borough franchise rejected by a majority of 288 to 214. Lord Elcho moved, and Mr. Adam Black seconded, the opposition to the measure. Mr. Lowe censured the proposal in severe terms. "The British Constitution," he said, "was the most complicated the world had ever seen. The number and variety of interests, and the manner in which these are entwined with each other, serve to make up a most curious piece of mechanism, but, in practice, well confirms the precept which Aristotle laid down two thousand years ago in the words, 'Happy and well governed are those states where the middle part is strong and the extreme weak.' (Cheers.) That description well embodies the leading merit of our Constitution. Are we prepared to do away with a system of such well-tried efficiency as no other country was ever happy enough to possess since the world was a world, and to substitute for it a form of government with which we are well acquainted—that of clear Democracy? In America it answers its purpose very well. In States like those of Greece it may have been desirable. But for England in its present state of development and civilization, to make a step in the direction of Democracy, appears to me the strangest and wildest proposition that was ever broached by man. The good government which America enjoys under her Democracy-whatever estimate hon. gentlemen may be disposed to place upon it-is absolutely unattainable by England under a Democracy; and for this reason, America in her boundless and fertile lands has a resource which removes and carries off all the peccant political humours of the body politic. Turbulent demagogues out there become contented cultivators of the land; there are no questions between landlord and tenant-every one can hold land if he chooses, and transmit it to his children. The wealth which America possesses is of a kind which America did not make, and which she cannot destroy. It is due to the boundless beneficence of the Giver, beside whose works those undertaken and executed by the human race sink into insignificance. The valleys even of the Nile, the Tigris, the Euphrates, seem ridiculously small when compared with the valley of the Mississippi, which it has been calculated would afford residence to 240,000,000 people without overcrowding. No tumult, no sedition can ever destroy these natural advantages. But what is our property here? It is the fabric of the labour of generations, raised slowly and with infinite toil, and to continue it it is indispensable that it should rest on secure foundations."

The Emperor Napoleon visits Algeria,

and issues a proclamation instructing the Arabs from the Koran in the path of duty and sub.

mission.

4. Treaty of alliance against Paraguay signed by the Argentine Republic, Brazil, and Uruguay.

9.-The Committee appointed to inquire into the "Edmunds scandal present their Report to the House of Lords. They found the first charge, that of purchasing stamps with the public money and appropriating the discount, fully established in evidence; the additional charges of retaining the public money in his own hands and employing the same to his own use they also found proven. With regard to the Lord Chancellor, the Committee, after a debate and division, reported that they could not coincide with the view taken by him of his public duty. In their opinion it was incumbent on him, who presented the petition of Mr. Edmunds to the House of Lords, in some manner to have apprised the Parliament-office Committee of the circumstances under which Mr. Edmunds's resignation of the clerkship had taken place, and with which the Lord Chancellor was officially acquainted, and not to have left them to decide the question of a pension with no clearer light than that which could be derived from vague and uncertain rumours. "The Committee have, however, no reason to believe that the Lord Chancellor was influenced by any unworthy or unbecoming motives in thus abstaining from giving any information to the Committee. . . .... All the witnesses concur in stating that these transactions took place without the slightest knowledge of them on the part of Lord Brougham; that he was no party to the arrangement for the appropriation of any part of the salary of the Clerk of the Patents in any other manner than for the sole benefit of Mr. Edmunds."

The Dublin International Exhibition opened by the Prince of Wales.

10. Mr. Jefferson Davis captured by a company of Federal cavalry near Irwinsville, Georgia. He was accompanied by his family and a few friends.

12. The Marquis of Westmeath draws the attention of the House of Lords to the conduct of the Rev. A. D. Wagner in refusing to answer a question put to him by the magistrates at Trowbridge, on the ground that what he knew was communicated to him under the seal of confession. The Lord Chancellor (Bethell) said he must congratulate the noble Marquis on the industry and success with which he had accomplished the understanding of the law in England on this subject; an understanding so complete that it was quite supererogatory to put any question to the Lord Chancellor. "The noble Marquis has very correctly stated the law, and with a much greater profusion of words than it would have been in the power of the Lord Chancellor to utter. . . . There can