2 DECEMBER 1865

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We rejoice to report that the Queen has officially announced

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her intention to open the new Parliament in person, if her state of health at the time permits—of which we trust there is every reasonable hope. The duty of leading society must...

The Fenian trials are going on, and terribly dreading they -

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are, but the great Fenian has escaped. On Friday week Stephens, with the assistance, it is presumed, of a warder named Daniel Byrne, opened the doors of Richmond gaol, walked...

Mr. Bright's speech at Blackburn—which as regards its in- vective

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against the Tories we have discussed elsewhere—was so studiously conciliatory towards the Liberal Government, and so flavoured with a prescriptive tinge of feeling almost worthy...

Mr. Gordon's letter to his wife, written within an hour

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of his execution, has been transmitted to this country, and published by Mr. Chamerovzow, the secretary to the Anti-Slavery Society. It ia very temperate and manly, and has all...

NEWS OF THE WEEK.

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T HE Globe of Friday contains the official announcement of a new Reform Bill. Her Majesty's Ministers have finally decided that it shall be introduced next Session, and, we...

It is announced se m i-officially that the Princess Helena, now nearly

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twenty, is about to be betrothed to Prince Christian of Augustenburg, younger brother of the pretender to Schleswig- Holstein. This gentleman, who is the younger son of a...

The Jamaica news is too painful and too shameful for

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English- men to recount without bitterness. The slaughter seems to have been stayed on the 7th ult., but the previous twenty-eight days were days of unresisted carnage,...

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Another British ship has burnt another town, this time. we

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are happy to say blamelessly. A person named Senave, leading a rebellion against President Geffrard, perhaps the ablest negro alive, has obtained possession of Cape Ilaytien,...

The Jamaica Assembly was opened by Governor Eyre on the

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7th ult., in a very excited address, in which he repeats his belief that there was a wide-spread conspiracy to murder every white and coloured person in the island—[of course...

There is one point in politics upon which we entirely

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fail to comprehend the Daily News. That journal stood as firmly as our- selves throughout the war by the cause of American freedom, and yet it now upholds the policy of...

The Manchester meeting on Jamaica was held before the last

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news arrived. Mr. T. B. Potter, M.P. for Rochdale, made a very temperate speech, in which, however, he was not followed by Mr. Jacob Bright, and on the whole the meeting though...

The returns of the cattle plague are becoming more gloomy.

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The number attacked during the week ending November .18, was 2,669, and in the following week 3,610,—an increase of nearly 40 per cent. Half this increase is in Scotland, and it...

Dr. Temple has addressed a letter to the Times, in

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which he argues in favour of admitting students to Oxford without obliging them to reside in any college. They would then, like the students of Edinburgh, live where they...

Mr. W. E. Forster accepted the Under-Secretaryship to the Colonies

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yesterday week, and his appointment has been received with general approbation by all the Liberal party and most of the Liberal journals, the Times alone excepted, which...

The dispute between Captain Jervis and the majority of the

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Directors of the Great Eastern Railway has broken out in a new place. The majority sent down a clerk named Beck to collect some facts at the Railway Hotel, Harwich, or, as...

One curious little bit of evidence bearing on Mr. Eyre's

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feelings towards the late Mr. Gordon was brought out in an otherwise very unintelligible and confused letter from Mr. George Price, senior member of the Legislative Council of...

The papers have this week been full of cases in

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which "casuals" have torn up their clothes, and of suggestions for the prevention of the ,practice. The difficulty is, that as English decency will not permit the casuals to...

Napoleon, it is known, never blunders. It is presumed.there- fore

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that the French like long accounts of little plays acted before and by the French Court, in which the great people act grotesque parts—the Princess Metternich, for example,...

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This mutiny at Martinique may produce consequences. French soldiers do

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not like being shot down by their comrades, and if all we hear is true, the Zouaves were badly used. According to the official account, 1,050 Zouaves landed in Port de France on...

The Atlantic and Great Western Railway Company invite applications for

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the issue of 2,771,600/. sterling mortgage bonds, having 25 years to run, and bearing interest at the rate of 7 per cent. per annum. The bonds are of 100/. each, and the...

We have good news for the pre-Raffaelites. There is some

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chance of their being able to establish an illustrated organ, a daily paper if they please, which shall popularize their views by reproducing whatever sketches they may...

The following figures show the closing prices of the leading

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foreign securities yesterday and on Friday week :— Friday, Nov-24. Friday, Dee. 1. 171 .. 171 • • • • 14 74 7 46 1 48 Greek Do. Coupons .. Mexican Spanish Passive •• Do....

On Saturday last Consols left off at 891 for money,

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and 88.1 for account. Yesterday the closing prices were 89i e for transfer, and 871 88 for time, indicating a fall of rather more than one quarter per cent. The Bank return is...

Dr. Pusey has written to the editor of the Catholic

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paper the TVeekly Register, to thank him for his favourable review of Dr. Tusey's Eirenicon, a work in which apparently the Doctor tried to discover articles of peace which...

The leading British Railways left off at the annexed quotations

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yesterday and on Friday week :— Friday, Nov. 24. Friday, Dec. 1. Caledonian .. • • Great Eastern .. •• .. 47 .. .. 121 48 Great Northern Great Western. .. .• •. Do. limit...

The German lad whom the British Government selected as King

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of Greece does not seem to give much satisfaction at Athens. Greece has had three ministries in a month, brigandage increases so rapidly that travelling is impossible without...

Sir Eardley Wilmot has published a pamphlet on Reform, valuable

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for its statistics, but we need not discuss his plan. It has a fatal blot, being based on the increase of the House of Commons. Will men otherwise so able never see that unless...

There can be no doubt of the manner in which

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the Southern :States intend to use their powers. They will pass vagrancy laws, 'which will tie the negro to the soil, whip for disobedience, and if necessary limit the rate of...

There is hope yet for the eyes of Londoners. The

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Commissioners of Sewers have ordered the companies which supply the City with gas to be prosecuted for supplying gas full of sulphur. The penalty, we regret to say, is not penal...

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TOPICS OF THE DAY.

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THE NEWS FROM JAMAICA. T HE readers of all newspapers except the leading journal have been pretty completely informed this week of the condition of affairs in Jamaica, during...

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THE CABINET AND THE MINISTRY.

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T ., reconstruction of the Ministry has commenced, but that of the Cabinet has still to be begun. As yet the Premier has made but one attempt to strengthen the real Government,...

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HR. BRIGHT AT BLACKBURN.

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I F Mr. Bright had been an engineer he would have hated the hills he had to tunnel. If he had been a schoolmaster he would have whipped boys for thickheadedness. If he had been...

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SPAIN AND CHILI. ,

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I T is difficult to conceive a position more embarrassing than that which has been created for Europe by the aggression of Spain on Chili. It is quite evident from the juscatory...

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WOOLWICH ACADEMY.

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T HE Woolwich Academy still gives signs that all is not yet right within its walls, notwithstanding the changes, which were introduced after the disturbance which occurred there...

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WOMEN'S TACT.

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T HE reappearance of Mrs. Candle's Curtain Lectures in an edition de luxe, with embossed binding, and tinted paper, and illustrations by Mr. Charles Keene, is a curious literary...

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NERVES AND NERVE- THE new sixpenny magazine, the Argosy, has

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amongst severs. other clever papers one of great humour by Mr. Matthew Browne in favour of nerves. This gentleman is much hurt at the ordinary disparagement of nerves. He...

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THE FITZ-GERALDS OF KILDARE.

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frIHE FITZ-GERALDS,* or GERALDINES 7 have the reputation of being the best loved of all the Anglo-Norman and English settlers in Ireland, the most closely identified with...

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EXTINCTION OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY.

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[FROM OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT.] New York, November 11, 1865. THE elections this week have been very decisive and very signi- ficant. Like those which shortly preceded them,...

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LORD ELCHO AND HIS COMMISSION.

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[To THE EDITOR OP THE "SPECTATOR."' SIR,-I am sorry to see you writing in so condemnatory and contemptuous a tone of Lord Elcho and his proposed com- mission on Reform. To...

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BOOKS.

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MR. SWINBURNE'S CHA,STELARD.* Mn. SWEIBURNE'S poetry runs clearer year by year, and no one with a grain of feeling for poetry can doubt that it is both remark- ably original,...

A rt.

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THE WINTER EXHIBITIONS. Aurnou Gn it may be quite true that picture exhibitions are now never out of season, any more than gorse is ever out of bloom, it is yet equally certain...

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HALF A MILLION OF MONEY.*

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IT is curious to note how very few English novels are written about money. The main object of English life, the motor which keeps it going, the pressure which sustains its...

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DEAN ALFORD ON THE EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL.* Tux writings

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of St. Paul try to the uttermost a commentator's sagacity and candour. If Dr. Alford's performance in some respects disappoints us, yet it has many merits to which we will-...

AN ILLUSTRATED WATTS FOR CHILDREN.* THERE can be no reasonable

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doubt but that Dr. Watts was once a child ; —indeed there was something childlike in the pious and worthy little soul to the last. Perhaps even in the very didactic and flat...

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Running the Gauntlet. By Edmund Yates. (Tinsley.)—A most read- able

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and amusing novel, but as a work of art not an improvement upon- Broken to Harness. The hero is too much of the Guy Livingstone type. for the sympathy of ordinary human beings,...

It Maybe True. By Mrs. Wood. (Newby.)—It is not Mr.

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Newby's fault, but ours, but it is very annoying. Imagining this story to be by Mrs. Henry Wood, the authoress of East Lynne, we waded through the first volume, wondering at...

The Brothers. A NoveL By Anna H. Drury. 2 vols.

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(Chapman and Hall.)—Something of a sensation novel by a clever woman, whose natural taste inclines her to the quiet and domestic drawing-room novel. It is good on the whole,...

Moron's Miniature Poets. Selections from the works of Robert Browning.

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(Edward Moxon and (Jo.)—A very good selection, with a very characteristic likeness of the poet for a frontispiece. We would not say that it contains nearly all Mr. Browning's...

Moron's Miniature Poets. Selections from the works of William Wordsworth.

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Saleeted and arranged by Francis Turner Palgrave. (Edward Idoxon.)—Probably no two genuine Wordsworthis.ns will ever exactly agree as to the selection they would make from the...

Journal of Eugenie De Guerin. Edited by G. S. Trdbutien.

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(Simpkin and Marshall, 1865.) — To translate from French so polished and subtle as the French of Engdnie De Gudrin's journals is not an easy task. So far as we have compared...

Fides, the Beauty of Mayence. Adapted from the German. By

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Sir Lascelles Wraxall. (Hurst and Blackett.)—There are readers who. will be keenly interested in this story, readers who love memoirs, and old letters, and little glimpses...

CURRENT LITERAT URE.

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*,,,* We regret much that by an error in transcribing the name of the English publisher of Mr. Grant White's book on the Life and Genius of Shakespeare, in our review of last...

The Literature of Dreams. By F. &afield, M.A. (Chapman and

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Hall.)—Exactly what it professes to be, a "common-place book "devoted to facts, stories, opinions, and anecdotes about dreams, collected with great pains, illustrated with much...

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Agnes. By Mrs. Oliphant. (Hurst and Blackett.)—Mrs. Oli- phant always

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seems to us two people, each irreconcilable with the other. She is credited with Salem Chape4 and she puts her name to Agnes, but while we ourselves made the mistake of...

Benaiah ; a Tale of the Captivity. By Mrs. Webb.

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(Jackson, Wal- ford, and Hodder.)—We suppose that there is a public which likes to see the Scripture characters put into a story and talking the language of the nineteenth...

The Literature of the Sabbath Question. By Robert Cox, F.S.A.

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(Scot.) 2 vols. (Maclachlan and Stewart, Edinburgh ; Simpkin and Marshall, London.)—Is the Sabbath question passing into the hands of the anti- quaries?' If so, we could welcome...

The Plays of Shakespeare. Edited by Charles and Mary Cowden

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Clarke. VoL L Comedies. (Cassell.)—This is a very cheap edition of Shakespeare, and the type and paper are all that can be expeeted for the price. The editors' name, too, is a...

The Orpheus C. Kerr Papers. By R. H. Newell. With

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Notes and Introduction by E. P. Hingston. (Rotten.)—Mr. Newell, according to the editor of Artemus Ward, who writes the introduction to this book, is the satirist of the...

Brother Fabians Manuscript, and other Poems. By Sebastian Evans. (Macmillan.)—Mr.

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Evans has considerable power of diction, but not much novelty of idea. He has studied Browning, and with his assist- ance has produced some readable versions of old monkish...

Transatlantic Sketches, or Sixty Days in America. (Sampson Low.)— This

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volume contains some very vigorous sketches of life in America during the past year. The draughtsman starts from Liverpool, and begins with a couple of common-place drawings...