20 JANUARY 1877

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NEWS OF THE WEEK.

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T HE Turks have sent the Ambassadors of Europe home again. The final reply has not yet been given, but the Grand 'Council, to which the Sultan had referred the question, met on...

Thereupon Lord Penzance, in an exceedingly temperate and weighty judgment,

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after insisting on the fact that no attempt had been made to enforce Mr. Tooth's obedience to the prin- ciple laid down in the Purchas Judgment, and that on the other points...

On Sunday there were three services, two of them being

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early- communion services, at St. James's, Hatcham, after which, soon after nine o'clock, the church was closed, by the order of the Bishop of Rochester, and also,—as the...

The Joint Committee of the American Congress has reported in

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favour of a compromise which it is believed both Houses and the country will accept. The members advise that both Houses shall meet on the second Wednesday in February, when the...

-0 * * The Editors cannot undertake to return Manuscript in any

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case.

On this day week, Dr. Stephens applied to the Dean

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of the Court of Arches, Lord Penzance, to ask that the Rev. Arthur Tooth might be declared contumacious, for having defied the notice of suspension pronounced by the Court, and...

The blow to the existing Government of Great Britain is

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very :severe. Supposing the Cabinet to be a unit, as Sir Stafford Northcote asserts, and Lord Beaconsfield to have approved and supported Lord Salisbury, a great effort to...

The Rev. C. L. Prince, Fellow of the Royal Astro-

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nomical Society, writes to the Times of Wednesday, from the Observatory, Crewborough Beacon, Tunbridge Wells, that there are records of disastrous floods caused by the Thames...

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The School Board of London have carried, by a majority

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of 32 to 10— or, to speak more strictly, that was the majority against the amendment to refer back the report to the Committee for reconsideration—a report in favour of...

The news from the Cape is not pleasing. The Zulu

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King re- fuses altogether to make up the quarrel forced on him by the Transvaal Republic, and declares that he and his 50,000 warriors will destroy President Burgers and all his...

We see with pleasure that at the same conference a

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very strong objection was raised to the principle that the examination and inspection of schools should be carried on entirely by external examiners and inspectors. That the...

A very curious statement reaches the Times from Delhi. It

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is said that the Viceroy's salute, formerly one of twenty-one guns, has been raised to thirty-one guns. The great chiefs, therefore, who have been honoured with twenty-one guns...

The accounts from Southern India are very bad indeed. Lord

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Carnarvon, in a despatch dated January 12, and intended to- recapitulate all the facts, declares that the drought covers a terri- tory of 80,000 miles in Madras and 54,000 in...

The exact results of the German Elections are still unknown,

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as sixty-six second ballots are necessary, but it is certain, as stated elsewhere, that three-quarters of a million of electors have voted for Socialists, that the Ultramontanes...

A sketch of the Constitution of China has been forwarded

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to us, obviously by some very well-informed hand, which contains something quite new—an estimate of the actual revenue of China. It is believed to amount to £25,000,000, raised...

Yesterday week was opened a Teachers' Conference, in the- theatre

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of the Merchant Taylors' School, Charterhouse Square, and the conference was addressed on the first day by Dr. Lyme Playfair, who exhorted the teachers to organise their...

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The School Board, we are glad to see, have not

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been fortunate in relation to their somewhat ridiculous proposal to get a Royal Commission appointed to carry a reform of the principles of English spelling. While twenty-one...

We hope the Islington Gazette of last Wednesday may have

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been taken in, much as the Daily Telegraph was apparently taken in a year or two ago, in its account of the dwarf-and-dog fight in the Potteries. The Islington Gazette is...

Mr. J. R. Ware, a literary man, occupies the third

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floor of 50 Lincoln's Inn Fields, and Mr. S. Corpe occupies the second. Mr. Corpe is musical, and recently put up an organ twelve feet high, ten feet wide, and four feet deep in...

Mr. E. J. Reed, formerly Constructor of the Navy, in

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a very important letter to Friday's Times, puts his finger, as we believe, on the real source of the greater number of our worst naval dis- asters, when he points out how...

Consols were on Friday 95f for money and account.

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Sir William Harcourt publishes a powerful letter in the Times

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of Wednesday, in which he quotes textually the account of the Bulgarian atrocities read by Safvet Pasha to the European Con- ference. The Foreign Minister of Turkey, after...

Mr. Knowles, for some years back one of the editors

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of the Contemporary Review, and for the last few months its sole manager, having severed his connection with that Review, in consequence apparently of the sale of Mr. Strahan's...

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TOPICS OF TIIE DAY.

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THE FAILURE OF THE CONFERENCE. T HIS Conference, now virtually ended, has been a humilia- tion alike for Europe and for her Diplomatic Ser- vices. Europe has recoiled before a...

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LORD PENZANCE ON MB. TOOTH.

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L ORD PENZANCE'S judgment on Mr. Tooth clears up many points on which it is very important that the public should not be misinformed, and we may admit at once that it sets us...

THE IMMEDIATE FUTURE.

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I T is of little use to discuss the reasons which have impelled the Turks to assume an attitude of open defiance to all Europe. It is sufficient that the ring of Pashas who in...

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THE FAMINE IN SOUTH INDIA.

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THE Famine in Southern India is even more serious than we believed, so serious that grave blame may attach to the authorities of the Southern Presidencies for their con-...

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THE RADICALS AND THE COLONIES.

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T HE Liberal Members for Maidstone have been delivering their annual addresses to their constituents, and very ex- cellent and useful addresses they are. We confess, however, to...

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THE SOCIALISTS AT THE GERMAN ELECTIONS.

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A T the first elections to the German Reichstag in 1871, there were 123,975 votes in all recorded for Socialiat candidatures throughout the Empire. At the second general...

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THE OLD-FASHIONED CHILDREN'S PICTURES.

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T HAT little friend of Lord Granville's who, on finding that the illustrations in his present to her were poorly executed, drop- ped her book, with a curtsey, into the...

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THE COST OF HOUSE-BUILDING.

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E suppose Dr. Richardson does some good by the lively chit-chat about healthy houses which he calls lectures, and delivers at the London Institution. There is nothing in the...

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LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.

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THE RITUALISTS AND THE LAW. [To IMF &mon. OF ass ..spaorma.1 Srn,—I shall be glad to be allowed to explain why I hold the Parches Judgment to be a conscious and deliberate...

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SIR CHARLES DILKE ON MR. GLADSTONE.

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(TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR.") share the satisfaction you express with Sir Charles Dilke's improved tone on the Eastern Question,--my only regret is that it did not come...

" TIMBER TO TIMBER."

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(To THE EDITOR OF TRH "SPECTATOR.") Srn,—In the notice of Rowland Hill's Life in the last Spectator, a story is quoted which the reviewer deems apocryphal. I sus- pect that it...

" A SUN IN FLAMES."

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(TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR.") SIR,—I have just read with much interest your account of the latest appearance of a Sun-star hitherto unseen, and whilst con- gratulating M....

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ART.

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THE OLD MASTERS AT BURLINGTON HOUSE. [SECOND NOTICE.] 'TERRE is a drawback in criticising the works of what may be called the Old Masters proper—i.e., those of the ancient...

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BOOKS.

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THE LIFE OF CHARLES KINGSLEY.* [SECOND NOTICE.] THE critic of these volumes is tempted, by a suggestion as illusory as it is obvious, to lament in them the loss of a great...

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CONDONED* Condoned is an exceedingly clever, and by fits and

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starts, a very powerful story, which, but for a certain flightiness shown both in * Condoned. By Anna C. Steele. In S vols. London : Chapman and Hall. want of grasp of the...

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FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS.*

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THE reader of Mr. Mackay's. Forty Years' Recollections will notice in them one blemish,—an egotism, which is none the less notable that it is essentially unconscious ; a...

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POETRY FOR CHILDREN.* IN a wise and thoughtful preface, Mr.

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Palgrave explains the pur- port of this selection. It is intended, he observes, for children between nine or ten and fifteen or sixteen years of age, and is meant for their own...

CURRENT LITERATURE.

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The British Quarterly Review. January. (Hodder and Stoughton.) —An interesting essay on the "Letters of Julian"—the tone of which con- trasts very strongly with what a religions...

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The Californians. By Walter Fisher. (Macmillan.)—This is a witty, cleverly

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rhetorical book. It would hardly be true to say that we should have liked it better if it had possessed less of these qualities, but we may venture to assert that we should have...

As the Shadows Fall. By J. E. Maddock. 3 vols.

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(Samuel Tinsley.) —Mr. Maddock not unnaturally anticipates that it will be urged against him " that the plot of the story is improbable," and he pleads in defence, with singular...

In Quest of a Creed (Elliot Stock.)—This little book deals

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briefly and in a popular way, on the aide of belief, with the evidences of Christianity. Atheism, materialism, pantheism, and theism are all passed under review. The late Mr....

An Unrequited Love: an Episode in the Life of Beethoven.

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By Ludwig Nohl. Translated by Annie Wood. (Bentley.)-About twenty years ago there were published some extracts from a young lady's diary relating to Beethoven—published, it will...

The Parvenu Family; or, Phabe, Girl and Wife. By Percy

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Fitz- gerald, 3 vole. (Bentley.)—It is not easy to see the purpose of this story. The real heroine of the story is neither one of the " Parvenu Family " nor Phoebe. It is the...

Curiosities of Travel; or, Glimpses of Nature. By Charles Armar

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Wilkins. 2 vols. (Tinsley Brothers.)—In these two volumes the author has cleverlyput together various descriptions of some of the most remark- able phenomena of the earth. The...

We have before us the second volume of The Poets

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and Poetry of Scot- land. By James Grant Wilson. (Blackie and Sons.)—It begins with Thomas Campbell and it ends with the Marquis of Lorne, and it con- tains extracts from the...

We have to acknowledge the second volume of The Globe

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(Wopcedia. Edited by John M. Rosa, LL.D. (Thomas C. Jack, Edinburgh.)—The volume includes from " CAN" down to the end of the letter "E." Its special claim is that there is no...

More than a Million; or, a Fight for a Fortune.

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2 vols. (Daldy, Isbiater, and Co.)—Mr. Brown acquires a great fortune, and wishing to make it work mischief to mankind after his death, bequeaths it to John Smith, adding no...

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NEW Entrions.—Chambers'sCyclopuedia of English Literature. Vol. IL Revised by R.

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Carrnthers,LL.D. (W. and R. Chambers.) This, though the "third edition " of a work published some years ago, is to a great extent a new work, Dr. Carruthers having carried it...

the old truth that " men's pleasant vices are made

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whips to scourge them with." It strikes us that the tale is too long. The progress of events between the wrong-doing of which we are told in the " prologue " and the denouement...

Old and New London : a Narrative of its History,

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its People, and its Places. Vol. IV. By Edward Walford. (Cassell and Co.)—Mr. Wal- ford continues to carry on with all success the work which Mr. Walter Thornbury began. "...

Our Trip to Burmah, with Notes on that Country. By

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Surgeon- General C. A. Gordon, M.D. (Bailliere, Tindal, and Cox.)—This is an entertaining volume, containing much lively description and many shrewd observations on men and...