and unfettered, and prevent them from rushing hastily into a question with which they were constitutionally incompetent to deal. Lord Cranborne denounced the Government for acting as if they meant to betray the Irish Church, and described their policy as unworthy and ambiguous. On the second night of the debate Mr. Hardy treated the resolutions as an attack upon the rights of property, and objected entirely to the principle of disestablishment. He also taunted Mr. Gladstone with hastily changing his views on the Irish Church, and quoted in corroboration a portion of the letter addressed by him to Dr. Hannah in 1865 (see p. 554). On the third night Mr. Lowe made a fierce attack on the Government as well as on the Irish Church. The former, he said, came before the House with two different lines of policy, as explained by Lord Stanley and Mr. Hunt, and generally was entrapping members in a manner calculated to lower the character of public men. Of the Church he said, "You may call it sacred, you may unite it by Acts of Parliament to the English Church, you may, like Mezentius, link the dead with the living. His object was to kill, for he knew that coupling with a dead body would be death to the living. Your object is to save, and yet you adopt the same process. You see the living Church of England, the dying Church of Ireland. Why are you so anxious to unite them, seeing how much they are different? You put machinery in motion which may destroy the Irish Church, and which may involve the English Church also. Rely on it all your efforts are in vain. You may do your utmost, but you will not save the Irish Church, nor will the country give you the power of having the pleasure of destroying her. You will not be able to play over again your game of last year. The net of the fowler will not again ensnare the birds. The Irish Church is founded on injustice, on the dominant rights of the few over the many, and it shall not stand. (Cheers.) You call it a missionary Church: if so, its mission is unfulfilled. It has utterly failed. It is like some exotic brought from a far country, tended with infinite pains and useless trouble. It is kept alive with the greatest difficulty and at great expense in an ungenial climate and an ungrateful soil. The curse of barenness is upon it. It has no leaves, puts forth no blossom, and yields no fruit. Cut it down; why cumbereth it the ground?" The debate was concluded on the night of the 3d April, the fourth night of discussion, in the course of which Mr. Disraeli defended himself and his colleagues, and replied also with some severity to Mr. Lowe. "The High Church Ritualists (he declared) and the followers of the Pope have been long in secret combination, and are now in open confederacy." In reply to the taunting laughter with which the statement was received, the Premier further alleged that the proposals of Mr. Gladstone were not confined to mere political arrangements, but attacked the

Crown itself. Mr. Gladstone wound up the debate, remarking, in the course of his speech, that there were some portions of the Premier's statement of which he failed to see the relevancy, and other portions apparently due to the influence of a heated imagination. The division showed-for the resolutions, 331; against. 270 majority against Ministers, 61. maining members of the House were thus accounted for-Speaker, 1; tellers, 4; vacant seats, 6; pairs and absentees, 46.

The re

30.-The impeachment of President Johnson opened before the Senate by General Butler.

31.-The negotiations of the Governmen: with the Irish Roman Catholic prelates were thus described by Lord Mayo in reply to a communication of this day's date received from Archbishop Leahy and Bishop Derry :"With great clearness and frankness you set forth the alterations which you recommended should be made in the framework of the new institution, as it was described in a memorandum which I had the honour of placing in your hands. The alterations which you said that you considered necessary were principally based on the assumption that there was not sufficient scope given in the constitution of the University and its governing body for the exercise by the Roman Catholic prelates of their authority in matters appertaining to faith and morals, or over the books that were to be used by the students. In order, therefore, fully to provide for the exercise of that episcopal control which you appear to deem essential, you said that it was not competent for laymen or even clergymen of the second order, however learned, to judge authoritatively of matters relating to faith and morality, and that the very least power that could be claimed for the bishops or the senate would be that of an absolute negative on the use of all books that might be deemed objectionable, and a power of veto on the first nomination of the professors of the University, as well as an authority for their dismissal. You also made propositions with regard to the election of the chancellor and the cally have put an end to anything like a system members of the senate, which would practiof free election on the part of the general body of the University. I apprised you in my letter of the 11th May, delayed, as I then informed you, by my unavoidable detention in Ireland, and my consequent inability to consult my colleagues, that these proposals could not be entertained; and on the 17th I received from you a note, which was but a simple acknow ledgment of my letter. As no intimation was afterwards given of your desire to continue the correspondence, and as no notice beyond formal acknowledgment was taken of my last letter, I could come to no other conclusion than that the communications were at an end."

ten miles from the Jidda river. 2d Brigade twelve miles in rear, with elephant batteries, will concentrate at Sindary on the left bank of the Jidda, while the road across is being repaired. Distance from River Bashilo, 20 miles; from Magdala, 30 miles. Latest news from prisoners, 25th March, all well; troops all well." Received here 21st April.

1. The Chancellor of the Exchequer obtains leave to introduce a bill enabling the Postmaster-General to acquire and maintain the electric telegraphs within the kingdom.

6.-News received in Washington of the murderous outrages perpetrated in Georgia by a new organized band of desperadoes known as the Ku-Klux-Klan.

The Duke of Edinburgh leaves Sydney in the Galatea, being escorted to the Heads by a fleet of steamers and small boats.

---

The Dresden Second Chamber sanction the abolition of capital punishment by a majority of two-thirds.

7.- Darcy M'Ghee, a prominent statesman in the New Dominions, shot on the steps of his residence in Ottawa. The victim in this case was said to have incurred bitter dislike by the zeal he had shown in the prosecution of disloyal Irishmen in Canada.

8. Letters received in London from Dr Livingstone, dated from a district greatly beyond where he was said to have been murdered, and announcing that the traveller was in good health.

9. With the view of excluding President Johnson from office, Mr. Sumner introduces a bill into the Senate, providing that no person should be eligible to the Presidency or VicePresidency for a second time.

Sir Harry Parkes, British Minister at Jeddo, attacked by Japanese on his return to the Residency, after a visit to the Mikado.

In a letter dated "Hughenden Manor, Maundy Thursday," the Prime Minister writes to the Vicar of Addington (Rev. A. Baker) :"Reverend Sir, I have just received your letter, in which, as one of my constituents, you justify your right to ask for some explanation of my alleged assertion that the High Church Ritualists had been long in secret combination, and were now in open confederacy, with Irish Romanists for the destruction of the union between Church and State. I acknowledge your right to make this inquiry; and if I do not notice in detail the various suggestions in your letter, it is from no want of courtesy, but from the necessity of not needlessly involving myself in literary controversy. You are under a misapprehension if you suppose that I intended to cast any slur upon the High Church party. I have the highest respect for the High Church party; I believe there is no body of men in this country to which we have been more indebted, from the days of Queen Anne to the days of Queen Victoria, for the maintenance of the orthodox faith, the rights of the Crown, and the liberties of the people. In

saying this I had no wish to intimate that the obligations of the country to the other great party in the Church are not equally significant. I have never looked upon the existence of parties in our Church as a calamity; I look upon them as a necessity, and a beneficent necessity. They are the natural and inevitable consequences of the mild and liberal principles of our ecclesiastical polity, and of the varying and opposite elements of the human mind and character. When I spoke, I referred to an extreme faction in the Church, of very modern date, that does not conceal its ambition to destroy the connexion between Church and State, and which I have reason to believe has been for some time in secret combination, and is now in open confederacy, with the Irish Romanists for the purpose. The Liberation Society, with its shallow and short-sighted fanaticism, is a mere instrument in the hands of this confederacy, and will probably be the first victim of the spiritual despotism the Liberation Society is now blindly working to establish. As I hold that the dissolution of the union between Church and State will cause permanently a greater revolution in this country than foreign conquest, I shall use my utmost energies to defeat these fatal machinations. Believe me, Rev. Sir, your faithful member and servant,-B. DISRAELI."

10.-Discovered in an empty house at Hackney Wick the body of a lunatic named Heaseman, who had committed suicide under circumstances leading to the belief that another mysterious and frightful murder was brought to light.

now

Release of the Abyssinian prisoners. Defeated in an engagement on the heights of Islamgie, King Theodore now began negotiations for the delivery of the European captives, though not till he had slain in the most remorseless manner a large number of his native prisoners. Lieutenant Prideaux and Mr. Flad were the parties fixed upon by the King to carry out the final negotiations. "We were dismissed," writes the former, "with the message, 'I had thought before this that I was a strong man, but I have now discovered that there are stronger now reconcile me.' We then left him, accompanied by Dejaj Alame, his son-inlaw, for the British camp at Aroge, where we arrived after a two hours' ride, and were warmly greeted by the many friends I had not seen for so long a time, and had scarcely expected ever to see again. After breakfast and a short stay in the camp, we returned to his Majesty, bearing a letter from Sir Robert Napier, couched in firm but conciliatory terms, and assuring the King that, provided he submitted to the Queen of England and brought all his prisoners and the other Europeans to the British camp, honourable treatment would be accorded to himself and to all his family. When we arrived, he was sitting on the brow of Selasse, overlooking the British camp, and apparently in anything but a pleasant humour,

having been previously joined by Mr. Waldmeier. We presented ourselves before him, and delivered to him a letter, which was twice translated to him. At the conclusion of the second reading he asked in a deliberate manner, 'What does honourable treatment mean; does it mean that the English will help me to subdue my enemies, or does it mean honourable treatment as a prisoner?' I replied to him that on the first point the Commander-inChief had said nothing, that all his wishes were contained in his letter, and that the English army had simply come into the country to rescue their fellow-countrymen, and, that' object effected, they would then return. This answer evidently pleased him but little. All his hopes of re-establishing himself by British aid were dashed to the ground, and he had thenceforward to lead the precarious life of a brigand chief. His lips, always as thin as a sword-blade, quivered nervously; the horseshoe on his forehead grew deeper: but controlling himself, he motioned us to seat ourselves at a little distance from him, while he dictated an answer to his chief scribe, and when it was finished, called us forward, delivered it over to us, and bade us depart. The pith of this incoherent epistle was simply that he had hitherto surrendered himself to no man, and was not prepared to do so now. Our second stay in the British camp lasted about a couple of hours, at the expiration of which time the Commander-in-Chief felt himself called upon to despatch us, however reluctantly, to the fortress. We took our depar ture hoping for the best, but fearing the worst. This time no letter was handed to us, but simply a verbal communication of the same purport as the former note. It was growing dusk as we neared Selasse for the second time; and we were beginning to make the last ascent, when we encountered a European, accompanied by several Abyssinians. This proved to be Meyer, one of the German artisans, who communicated to us the welcome intelligence that the King had liberated Mr. Rassam, Dr. Blanc, Consul Cameron, with the remaining Magdala prisoners, and that they were now descending the hill-news which was corroborated by the accompanying natives. On receipt of these tidings, we turned the heads of our mules, and, in company with Mr. Meyer, arrived in the camp as the bearers of good news, not only to ourselves, but to every one of those who surrounded us. Shortly afterwards, Mr. Rassam and his party arrived; and it was with heartfelt gratitude that we laid our heads on the pillow that night, secure at last after so many dangers. In the course of the following morning the remainder of the Europeans, accompanied by their families, arrived. The King also, as it was Easter Sunday, sent a present of 1,000 cows and 500 sheep to the Commander-in-Chief, who, seeing that his Majesty had avoided complying with, perhaps, the most important terms of the communication addressed to him-namely, his own sub

mission-had no option left but to decline them."

10.-King Theodore writes to Sir R. Napier :-"In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, one God: the King of Kings, Theodorus! May it reach the beloved servant of the great Queen of England. I am writing to you without being able to address you by name, because our intercourse has arisen so unexpectedly. I am grieved at having sent you my writing of yesterday, and at hav ing quarrelled with you, my friend. When I saw your manner of fighting, and the discipline of your army, and when my people failed to execute my orders, then I was consumed with sorrow to think that although I killed and punished my soldiers, yet they would not return to the battle. Whilst the fires of jealousy burned within me, Satan came to me in the night, and tempted me to kill myself with my own pistol; but reflecting that God would be angry with me if I were to go in this manner, and leave my army without a protector, I sent to you in a hurry, lest I might die and all things be in confusion before my messenger would reach you. After my messenger had gone, I cocked my pistol, and putting it in my mouth, pulled the trigger. Though I pulled and pulled, it would not go off. But when my people rushed upon me, and laid hold of the pistol, it was discharged just as they had drawn it from my mouth. God having thus signified to me that I should not die but live, I sent to you Mr. Rassam that same evening, that your heart might be made easy. To-day is Easter; be pleased to let me send a few cows to you.

You require from me all the Europeans, even to my best friend, Mr. Waldmeier. Well, be it so; they shall go. But, now that we are friends, you must not leave me without artisans, as I am a lover of the mechanical arts."

13. Capture of Magdala. "By three o'clock," writes Sir Robert Napier, "the Abyssinians having nearly all cleared away from Islamgie, I ordered the attack of Magdala to be commenced at once. The attacking force consisted of the 2d Brigade, led by the 33d Regiment, accompanied by detachments of the Royal Engineers and Madras and Bombay Sappers and Miners, to clear away obstacles-the ist Brigade to be a close support. The enemy carefully concealed themselves from view, so that the place seemed almost deserted; although when entered by our troops it was found to be thronged with soldiers who had thrown away their arms. The attack was ably conducted by Sir Charles Staveley, and gallantly carried out by the troops. The Royal Engineers and Sappers, and leading sections of the 33d Regiment, were long before they could force an entrance; and during this time nine officers and men received wounds. At length an entrance was effected by means of the ladders near the gate, and by the leading men of the 33d, who scaled a rock and turned the defence of the gateway. The enemy were driven to the second barricade,

and when that was carried all resistance ceased. Amongst the dead near the outer gate were found several of Theodore's most devoted chiefs-one of whom had urged Theodore to murder all the captives, a course from which he was dissuaded by others. At the moment when the barricade was forced by the 33d Theodore fell-as we have since learned, by his own hands. His troops fled immediately-some by the Kaffir Burr gate, which we found choked with arms that had been cast away in their flight. The command of Magdala was entrusted to Brigadier-General Walby, who held it with the 33d and wing of the 45th Regiments. So thickly was the fortress inhabited, and so great was the crowd of people, that it was no easy matter to establish order. Guards were placed at the gates and such places as required protection. The family of Theodore were committed to the care of Mr. Rassam, who was requested to do all that was in his power for their comfort and protection."

14.-Engagement between Turkish troops and the Cretan insurgents at Apocorona.

The Prince and Princess of Wales leave London on a visit to Ireland.

15. The Prince and Princess of Wales arrive at Kingston, and proceed by road in an open carriage to Dublin, which was entered amid great enthusiasm. The address presented by the Corporation congratulated the Prince on becoming a Knight of St. Patrick, and on his intention of unveiling the statue of Edmund Burke. It also expressed a hope that the Queen would command a suitable residence to be prepared for her in Ireland, and would take an opportunity to dwell as frequently as possible among her subjects there. The Princess was separately addressed, as having justified the welcome which greeted her on landing by her deeds of charity and kindness in the country of her birth as well as in England. On the 16th, the Royal visitors attended Punchestown Races; on the 18th, the installation took place in St. Patrick's Cathedral, followed by a banquet; from the 20th to the 24th, the Prince and Princess were engaged in a round of visits and entertainments. They left Dublin on the evening of the last-mentioned day, and returned by way of Wales, a visit of considerable interest and ceremony being made to Caernarvon.

Howard Featherstonhaugh, a Deputylieutenant of Westmeath, shot when driving home with his servant from Killacan station. He was one of the largest proprietors in the county, and there had recently been several evictions on his estate. The assassins stopped the vehicle in a secluded part of the road at Knocksheban, dragged their victim to the ground, and then fired at him so closely as to scorch the clothes he had on. Mr. Featherstonhaugh was returning from Dublin, whither he had gone to join in the welcome to the Prince of Wales.

16. Decided in the Exchequer Court the action raised by the Duke of Buccleuch against

the Metropolitan Board of Works. Some time since his Grace obtained a verdict for upwards of 8,000l. for the loss of a pier which the Board of Works had taken away from his new house at Whitehall when they made the Embankment. The Board brought an action into the Exchequer Court to set aside this verdict, on the ground that the lease of the land from the Crown to the Duke made no mention of a pier. It was proved, however, that the pier had always been there. Baron Martin pleasantly referred to the mention made of it in Sir Walter Scott's novel of the "Fortunes of Nigel," and the Court held that the lease, though it made no mention of a pier, must be supposed to convey it and everything else that belonged to the property at the time the lease was made. They therefore confirmed the verdict in favou of the Duke.

16.- Meeting in St. James's Hall, London, to express sympathy with the agitation now being carried on for the disestablishment of the Irish Church. Earl Russell, who presided, said, so far as the question of disendowment was concerned, the great point was to secure equality. "I think the people of Ireland are entitled to demand that all her Majesty's subjects in that country should be placed upon a footing of equality, and it is rather a secondary question whether that equality should be obtained by endowment of all the different communions, or by the disendowment of them all. (Loud cries of disendowment.') I do not disguise my preferences on that subject; but I say, at once, that as I perceive that the Protestant people in general of England and Scotland do not wish to endow all these communions, and on the other hand that the Roman Catholics in Ireland do not wish to accept any endowment, I at once discard any preferences of my own, and seek for general disendowment." The meeting was large, enthusiastic, and orderly.

17.--Another meeting on the Irish Church question held in St. James's Hall, by "The United Protestant Defence Committee." The meeting was not so large as the one held under the auspices of the disendowment party, and the confusion was observed to be more violent and frequent.

18. The North German Parliament adopts a resolution calling upon the Chancellor of the Confederation to open negotiations with foreign Powers for the purpose of establishing it as a fundamental principle of international law that private property at sea should not be considered liable to capture in time of war.

Charles Dickens entertained at dinner at Delmonico's, New York, by the Press of the United States.

Died at Harringer, Bury St. Edmunds, aged 76, General Simpson, a Peninsular veteran, who succeeded Lord Raglan as Commander-in-Chief in the Crimea.

The Abyssinian expedition commences its return march from Magdala.

20.-Commenced at the Central Criminal Court, before Chief Justice Cockburn and Mr. Baron Bramwell, the trial of the Fenian prisoners, William Desmond, Timothy Desmond, English, O'Keefe, Barrett alias Jackson, and Ann Justice, charged with being concerned in the explosion at the Clerkenwell House of Detention in December last, and causing the death of Ann Hodgkinson and others. The first witnesses called were the approvers Mullady and Vaughan, who exposed the desperate schemes and needy condition of the conspirators. The latter stated in evidence :-"I was sworn in as a Fenian in 1865 by Timothy Desmond. I saw him on the day of the explosion, between half-past one and half-past two. I was at work at the time at Pugh's Place, near Golden-square. He came into my room and hollered out 'Ahoy.' I said, 'Halloa, Tim, have you been muddling it? He replied, "I have just seen my son off to sea this morning.' I could see he had been drinking, but I should not say he was drunk. He asked my wife if she had seen his wife. She told him she had not, and I said, 'You don't mean to say, Ned, your wife has hooked it from you.' He replied, 'Yes,' and added, 'She shall never lie beside me again.' He kissed my wife and bade her good-bye, and said he was going to take a jump. My wife told him not to be so foolish. He then leant over the door and whistled to me, and said in a whisper, 'The thing must be done.' I asked him what he meant, and he answered, 'They're going to blow up the House of Detention.' I asked him when, and he said, 'The thing must be done. We have found out from Ann Justice, by going in with Casey's dinner, the time at which they exercise in the yard, and the trick must be done between half-past three and four o'clock.' He then bade me good-bye, and said, 'Jemmy, when I am blasted into eternity, pray for me; or if I get off and am arrested, the next place will be Millbank.' He then kissed and shook hands with me and went away. I didn't see him again until he was a prisoner. English about seven o'clock on the evening of the explosion. He came to the door leading to my room, and said, ‘For God's sake, Jemmy, give me as much as you can, for we want to send them off." I asked him to whom he referred, and he answered, 'What! haven't you heard?' I said, 'No;' and he then said, The House of Detention is blown bang up.' I then gave him two shillings, and told him I could spare no more, as business was slack. He said, 'For God's sake, give me as much as you can-I want it badly.' The next morning I saw him reading the placard of a paper, and saying aloud the word 'diabolical.' I said, 'Halloa, Ned;' and then he added, 'We will burn the whole of London yet, and that will be a sight more diabolical.' I then wished him good-bye. I was at Bow-street at halfpast twelve that day."-At the close of the case for the prosecution on the 23d, the Lord Chief

(676)

I saw

news

Justice said he thought there was no case against the woman Justice, and proceedings were therefore withdrawn against her so far as the charge of murder was concerned. This was also done with reference to O'Keefe on the 24th. An alibi was set up in defence of Barrett, witnesses being produced in Court who swore that they had seen and spoken to him in Glasgow the day before, and also on the afternoon of the explosion. Mr. Murdoch, a shoemaker, stated that he saw Barrett on the 12th December, when he came to his house in company with a man named Mullan. "He asked me if I would sole and heel a pair of boots; and I told him I would, and promised to have them ready the next evening. Barrett came the next morning, and then I had not touched the boots. He returned the next day about three o'clock, but the boots had not yet been touched. He then abused me. Two shoemakers of mine came in, and I asked them to do me a favour to sole and heel a pair of boots. While the boots were being repaired Barrett sent out for an evening paper. At that time he had, to the best of my belief, about three or four days' beard on him. I've never seen him since." The alibi was but indifferently supported in Court, and broke down altogether under an extra-judicial inquiry which subsequently took place. The proceedings were protracted till Monday the 27th, when the jury returned a verdict of Not Guilty as regarded the two Desmonds and English, and Guilty as regarded Barrett. Previous to judgment the latter requested permission to address the Court, and entered at considerable length into the character of the evidence on which he had been convicted. He concluded by stating in an impo sing manner that he hoped God in His infinite mercy might make the sacrifice of his humble life a means of benefiting his unfortunate country, and he would mount the scaffold with confidence in that hope. The Lord Chief Justice announced his concurrence in the verdict of the jury, and then solemnly adjudged the prisoner to be executed. The prosecution against the other prisoners on the main charges was abandoned.

20. Sir Robert Napier issues an order of the day to the Abyssinian army:-"I congratulate you with all my heart on the noble way in which you have fulfilled the commands of our Sovereign. You have traversed, often under a tropical sun or storms of rain and sleet, 400 miles of mountainous and difficult country. You have crossed many steep and precipitous ranges of mountains more than 10,000 feet in altitude, where your supplies could not keep pace with you. When you arrived within reach of your enemy, though with scanty food, and some of you for many hours without either food or water, in four days you passed the formidable chasm of the Bashilo and defeated the army of Theodore, who poured down upon you from their lofty fortress, in the full confidence of victory. A host of many thousanda