6 MAY 1876

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

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case.

The position is considered so serious at St. Petersburg, that

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Count Andrassy has been invited to meet Prince Gortschakoff and Prince Bismarck at Berlin, and discuss with them what is to be done. The invitation has been accepted, and is to...

The telegrams about affairs in the Herzegovina this week have

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been absurdly contradictory, Mukhtar Pasha declaring that he has defeated the insurgents with great slaughter and revictualled Niksics, while the insurgents maintain that they...

NEWS OF THE WEEK.

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T HE Proclamation of the new title of " Empress of India," the issue of which we were just able to announce last week, is not found to satisfy the engagement of the Government...

Mr. Lowe has rather come to grief this week, in

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relation to his rash statement at Retford as to the asserted previous attempts to get the title of "Empress of India" added to the title of the Queen, and the double rebuff...

On Tuesday night Lord Selborne drew attention, in the House

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of Lords, to this apparent violation of the pledge repeatedly given by the Ministers to localise the new title, so far as possible, in India, reading the emphatic words so often...

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Mr. Eustace Smith tried on Friday week to obtain a

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Commis- sion of Inquiry into the expenditure on the famine in Behar. • His allegation was waste, and he was partly supported by Sir George Campbell. The general sense of the...

No further news has been received from Barbadoes this week,

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and there has therefore been no renewal of the riots. The papers received, however, bring ample evidence of the excitement of the employers, and of the dominant spirit in the...

On Thursday Mr. Lowe put himself right with the House

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of Commons by a most unreserved and hearty acknowledgment that he had at Retford been greatly in fault in drawing the Queen's name into the discussion at all, and quite wrong as...

They are wiser in Italy than in Denmark. In Copenhagen

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the King is risking a revolution rather than admit a Radical Minister to power ; but atRome, Victor Emanuel, once aware that the Radicals have a majority, accepts them at once...

Hereupon arose Mr. Disraeli, intent—much too intent—on administering condign punishment,

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such as Mr. Lowe should remember for ever after. He regretted the speech of Mr. Lewis, and still more the answer of Mr. Lowe. It had not been the custom in England to use public...

The Empress of India has already got into Chancery. In

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the case of " Bacon v. Turner," before Vice-Chancellor Sir Charles Hall, an application was made to know whether, as a writ would have to be served on a German gentleman and his...

The American Government appears to be deeply offended by the

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refusal of the British Government, acting under the Extra- dition Act of 1870, to surrender the alleged forger, E. D. Wins- low, without a pledge that he shall not be tried for...

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The annual dinner of the Royal Literary Fund was unusually

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well attended, and marked by many short speeches, most of them happy. The Swedish Ambassador, for instance, claimed for diplomacy distinct literary rank, diplomatists being,...

Mr. Fronde returned thanks for the toast of the "Interests

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of Literature," in a speech in which he mocked a little at the appe- tite of the public for biographical details of great men, and hinted surprise at the taste which likes to...

Tuesday's debate on Mr. Wilberforce, the Sussex magis- trate, who

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flogged—at the father's request—two little boys for digging out a rabbit from his hedge, and who was severely repri- manded both by the Lord Chancellor and the Home Secretary...

A very large gathering of tenant-farmers and landlords assem- bled

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at the Cannon-Street Hotel on Tuesday, to present Mr. C. S. Read with a testimonial, consisting of a silver salver and 5,500 guineas. The testimonial is a mark of the...

The doctor's assistant, W. K. Vance, and Mrs. Helen Snee,

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whose correspondence on the best means of destroying life secretly has attracted so much attention, were on Friday com- mitted for trial by Mr. Vaughan, the formal charge being...

At the Royal-Academy Dinner, yesterday week, the speaking was hardly

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as amusing as usual. Mr. Disraeli again noticed the difficulties which Art encounters in our gloomy and smoky cities. 4 ' It is not, in a city like London, in the power of any...

Consols were at the latest date 96i to 964.

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THE WINSLOW EXTRADITION CASE.

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T HIS Winslow affair will not, we hope, prove serious ; but its history is a curious one, and the action of the Government is so questionable as to suggest, not for the first...

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

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THE PROCLAMATION. S IR HENRY JAMES is doing a real service to the country by the motion of which he has given notice for next Thursday, though we may assume as certain that it...

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THE PARLIAMENTARY SQUABBLE.

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W HEN politics lose their intellectual interest,—the interest derived from sustained argument and the expression of deep moral convictions,—politicians are only too apt to make...

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THE AMERICAN PRESIDENCY.

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T H'politicians of the Union are fairly puzzled. They cannot make out in the least which way the nomination for the Presidency will go, either in the Republican or the...

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THE GOVERNMENT AND THE MERCHANT SHIPPING BILL.

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T HE secret history of the Merchant Shipping Bill of 1876 would present a singular record of changing purposes. It is difficult to believe that, at the end of last Session, any...

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THE CRISIS IN DENMARK.

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A FFAIRS in Denmark are in a bad way, and between an Opposition whose Radicalism has a rather deep Socialist background, and a King and Conservative party who apparently fancy...

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AN ANCIENT PRUSSIAN COURT SCANDAL.

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Alf R. BENTLEY has just published a book, in two volumes, called "Recollections of the Countess von Voss," an old lady, wife of a Mecklenburg proprietor, and Mistress of the...

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THE "CHURCH QUARTERLY REVIEW" ON MIRACLES.

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A article, to which a good deal of attention has been very properly drawn in the April number of the Church Quarterly Review, on the "Rationale of Miracles," cer- tainly pats in...

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LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.

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MR. BRIGHT AND WOMAN'S SUFFRAGE. [TO THB EDITOR OF TUB "SPECTATOR. " ] Sin,—The minds of many earnest Liberals throughout the country must have been filled with grief and pain...

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[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR.") SIR,—You say in your

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short notice on Mr. Bright's speech against -female suffrage that that speech "makes an era in political dis- ‘cussion." The remarks in your article on the same subject seem to...

THE CONSCIENCE OF ANIMALS.

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[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR.") SIR,—Your otherwise favourable review of my article on the above subject opens with the following sentence In the very interesting paper on...

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[TO THE EDITOR OF TUB "SPROTATOR.1

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SIR,—" Crippie," a canary-bird (so named from a malformation about the feet), and " Goldie," a goldfinch, live in the same cage. Both feed from the hand, and when I have time in...

ART.

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.113.6 ROYAL. ACADEMY. [MST NOTICE.] THERE is usually some question at this time, when the RoyaP Academy Exhibition for the year first opens, not only as to the merits of the...

"INHERITED INSTINCTS."

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[TO THE EDITOR OF THE SPECTATOR."] Srn„—The Barbadoes panic and the Barbadoes telegrams have presented us with a phenomenon utterly inexplicable, on any other theory than the...

GODWIN AND MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT.

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[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR. "] SIR,—In your second notice of the life of Godwin, it is state& that Fanny Blood was married to a mercantile clerk, whereas her husband, Mr....

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BOOKS.

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FRENCH SIXTEENTH-CENTURY PORTRAITS.* THESE two handsome volumes in folio contain a collection of portraits of many royal and noble persons, court ladies, and ecclesiastics,...

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ELSA AND HER VULTURE.* To those who are acquainted with

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the Oetzthal, and have crossed the wild Hoch-Joch glacier, which separates the severe Alpine climate of the valley's upper end from the Schnalserthal and the Italian beauty of...

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TRAVELS IN ME DANUBIAN PROVINCES.* Mn. CREAGE took a run

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through the Slavish provinces of Austria and the adjacent parts of the Turkish Empire last summer, and the two substantial volumes before us are the product of this little...

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A GENERAL HISTORY OF ROME.*

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A GOOD general History of Rome was a desideratum in our litera- ture before Dean Merivale wrote this book, and we regret to say that it remains a desideratum still. We have not...

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JOHN WESLEY'S SUPERSTITIONS.* IN this little volume, Dr. Rigg has

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done his best, indirectly, to justify the position of the Wesleyans towards the Church of England, but he has wholly failed to convince us that John Wesley was not to the close...

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Fragments and Specimens of Early Latin. With Introductions and Notes.

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By John Wordsworth. (The Clarendon Press.)—Mr. Words- worth is already well known for his services to philological scholarship-, and the volume before us largely increases his...

Still Unsure. By C. Vane. (Samuel Tinsley).—The most satisfac- tory

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thing about this story is that it is in one volume. Yet even in that comparatively small compass the author contrives, besides the story, to pack an amazing quantity of...

CURRENT LITERATURE.

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Municipal London. By Joseph L. B. Firth, LL.B. (Longmans.)— Mr. Firth expresses the subject of his book thus :—" London Govern- ment as it is, and London under a Municipal...

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mates, indeed, in a poem entitled "Before Raphael's Madonna at

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Dresden," that the faith which the Madonna symbolises is obsolete; but he certainly believes in Venus, to whom he addresses in Estelle a prayer that would have been thought very...

"About My Father's Business." By Thomas Archer. (Henry S. King

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and Co.)—A very sensible preface, containing an emphatic declaration against the prevalent system of trafficking in votes for charitable institutions, introduces us to a book...

The Protection of Majorities. By J. P. Quincy. (Boston, U.S.:

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Roberts.)—Mr. Quincy grapples with one of the difficulties which beset the question of democratic government, especially as it is seen at work in the United States. It is the...

ScuooL Boors.—In English class-books, we have a second edition of

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Typical Selections from the Best English Writers. 2 vols. (Clarendon Press.) The first volume comprises authors from Latimer to Berkeley, and the second the period from Pope to...