17 FEBRUARY 1877, Page 3

The Universities of Oxford and Cambridge Bill, the second read*

of which will be moved on Monday night, has been printed, and is, in effect, an amalgamation of the two Bills introduced last year by the Government, with a few not very remarkable changes. The personnel of the Cam- bridge Commission remains unchanged, except that the Lord Chief Justice of England is now to be the President of the Commission, instead of the Bishop of Worcester (Dr. Philpott), -who was then named as chief Commissioner, and is now only one of the Commissioners. In the Orford Bill two names are new. .Sir H. S. Maine and Dean Burgon have disappeared, and in their places we find Professor Henry Smith (the Savilian Professor of (ieometry, and one of the ablest and most Liberal of the Oxford scholars), and Dr. Bellamy, the President of St. John's College. No doubt the change is, on the whole, one for the better. The most important new feature in the Bill is the appointment of a special Universities Committee of the Privy Council, to hear appeals against the statutes of the Com- raissioners,—the Committee including the Lord President, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lord Chancellor, the Chancellors of the two Universities (if otherwise members of the Privy Council), and any other member or couple of members of the Privy Council, whom the Queen may appoint, and of whom one at least must be a member of the Judicial Committee.