20 MAY 1871, Page 3

The Queen has conferred a peerage on Miss Burdett-Coutts, who

will henceforward be styled the Baroness Burdett-Coutts. As far as we can remember, no other woman throughout English history has received a peerage for her own services to the State ; and no unmarried woman has ever received one at all, except for being concubine to a king. The title will add nothing to Miss Burdett-Coutta' popularity, and little to her rank in society ; but it will serve to show that benevolence, sympathy in action, is at last accounted among the virtues recognizable by the State. "God loveth a cheerful giver,"—why should not the Queen ?