15 OCTOBER 1892, Page 2

The great festivals in honour of Columbus and the fourth

centenary of the discovery of America,. have been going on in- Huelva (Spain) and New York all the week. The functions in Huelva have been solemnly ceremonious, and, it is said, tedious, the little King presiding with a dignity which must make him very sleepy, but which must also accustom him to his future duties ; and those in New York have been marked by the attendance of enormous multitudes. It is said that on the 12th inst. two millions of people watched the unveiling, of the statue of Columbus, and though that must be an exaggera- tion, New York seems for the occasion to have doubled its population. The Queen Regent of Spain and the little King have been formally invited to Chicago to be present at the opening of the World's Fair, and, should the invitation be accepted, they will be most cordially received, the American imagination being touched with the idea of a representation of the conquerors of both Americas. We all forget too much the immense space to which Spain is entitled in any history of the New World. It is her language and her ideas which still prevail over two-thirds of it.