TOPICS OF THE DAY. -a, PRINCE BISAIARCK ON THE CONFERENCE. THlE ultimate policy of Prince Bismarck in the Eastern Question can be deduced only from the interests of Germany,...

MR. BRIGHT AT BIRMINGHAM. hR. BRIGHT has not spoken for many years with the Al almost prophetic power of his speech of Monday last at Birmingham. In the very opening he struck...

HANDBOOKS.- -The multitude of books of this class, written for the most part by persons specially acquainted with their subject, is simply overwhelming. If this generation of...

Faniliar Letters on Some Mysteries of Nature. By Dr. Phipson. (Saiup- son Low and Co.)--Wo must confess to having felt some misgivings as we lanced over the title. One of the...

The Leaguer of Lathom. By William Harrison Ainsworth. 3 vols. I (Tinsley Brothers.)-One always feels a temptation to review a novel by Mr. Ainsworth without reading it, so...

Gerald Boyne. By T. W. Eamnes. 3 vols. (Samuel Tinsley.)-Mr. Crummles thought, and doubtless with good reason, that it would be well to introduce upon the stage a real pump...

KENT versus NAYLOP. A LIITLE rural story is told in the Daily News of A Wednesday, in its law report, which rouses in our minds one pleasant and a good many uncomfortable...

The " French crisis " does not appear to be very serious. M. Dufaure and the Ministry have resigned, under circumstances explained elsewhere, and the President has in vain...

Cardinal Antonelli's will has been published, and is a remark- able document. It contains no evidence whatever that he possessed any fortune beyond such as he may have...

President Grant has sent in his final Message to Congress. I Beyond advising that a new method of electing the President should be adopted, he does not enter into the present...

Mr. E. J. Reed, formerly Constructor of the Navy, and now M.P. for the Pembroke District, wrote a letter to Tulesday's Times on the condition of the Russian Navy, which he sums...

The dispute on the American election is becoming too bewilder- ing. The Electors themselves from Louisiana, South Carolina, and Oregon are denouncedas disqualified-in...

Mr. Reed also distributed the prizes to the Portsmouth School of Science and Art on Wednesday, and in doing so he committed himself to a more than doubtful proposition, namely,...

i Another of those terrible catastrophes which seem almost peculiar to America has occurred in Brooklyn, New York. At eleven o'clock, on December 5, an alarm of fire was raised...

The London School-Board Elections of last week resulted in a large majority for the friends of the policy of the late School Board, and especially in the return of the late...

We are happy to perceive that Air. J. G. Dodson, the Chair- man of Committees, and usually the most moderate of men, takes what is called the " intemperate " view of the...

The great " Conference" of Liberals of all grades, occupa- tions, and denominations, called to discuss the position of the Government in the East, assembled in St. James's...

Of Lord Salisbury, Mr. Bright said that he had long watched his career as a Member of the House of Commons, and that it had been distinguished by "a hearty unwisdom" which,...

Lord Salisbury arrived in Constantinople on the 5th inst., .and on the following day bad a long interview with General Ignatieff. The first informal meeting of Conference was...

NEWS OF THE WEEK. PRINCE BISMARCK has spoken twice on Eastern affairs, once at a Parliamentary dinner given at his own house, and *once before the Reichstag. It is not...

At a Birmingham meeting held on Monday, Mr. Bright made one of his most eloquent speeches on the Eastern Question, the drift and character of which we have attempted to...

BOOKS. AIMR. DENTON'S "CHRISTIANS OF TURKEY."* [SECOND NOTICE.] 'T1i.- three great evils under which the Christians of Turkey suffer are inequality before the law, inequality...

The Marquis of HarkiDgton distributed the prizes and certifi- cates to the successful examinees of the Oxford Local Examinations in the London, Southwark, and Streatham Hill...

Dr. Carpenter seems to have given an amusing lecture on Spiritualism at the London Institution on Thursday night, in which he went over all the old sources of fallacy as to the...

The Daily News states that the Government has at last given up its interpretation of the Extradition Treaty with the UDited States, and has agreed that a prisoner surrendered...

The Greeks are still apparently not awake to the fact that if they intend to recover their provinces they must make some serious effort and some serious sacrifices of their...

The Austrian demand for the extradition of Henri Dieudonn6 | Pierral de Tourville, on the charge of murdering his second wife, Madeleine de Tourville, on the 16th July last, on...

I Lord Penzance decided this day week, in the Court of Arches, in the case of " Willis tv. the Bishop of Oxford," that when a Bishop refuses institution to a clerk duly...

A letter to yesterday's Times, signed "'Edgar Hyde," calls attention, however, to this clause in our Extradition Treaty with Austria:-" In no case, and on no grounds whatever,...

A PSYCHOLOGICAL PUZZLE. [TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR,-I dreamed last night that in turning into a street in the West End of London (it seemed to be not unlike...

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. IS RUSSIA TO BE LEFT TO FIGHT ALONE WITH TURKEY'? [TO THE EDITOR OF TER " SPECTATOR."] SIR,-I desire to ask a question of great and urgent importance....

A R T. _ -- THE OLD WATER-COLOUR SOCIETY. THE Winter Exhibition of the Water-Colour Society is always an interesting one, and by many preferred to the more important Spring...

POETRY. AMORET. CRESSIDA, so poets feign, Long beneath the turf has lain; But, in graceful Amoret, Surely Cressid liveth yet! Not like Shakespeare's brazen jade la the...

MR. LEAR'S NEW NONSENSE-BOOK. (TO THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."] SiP,-1 am a family man, and the universal outcry of my children on my reading your reviewer's notice of...

THE NEXT ARCTIC EXPEDITION. [TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR,-I am one of those who hope and believe that the Pole will yet be attained and I trust fervently that this...

" CARROTS."* A STORY of young children, simply told, is almost of necessity both humorous and pathetic. Their ignorance supplies the former quality, and their helplessness the...

PROFESSOR HUXLEY'S LAST DICTUM. PROFESSOR HUXLEY has hitherto been the spokesman of a wise, not to say even somewhat rigid, parsimony of thought and speech, in reference to...

THE MINISTERIAL CRISIS IN FRANCE. fHE French Republicans seem to outsiders to have acted T somewhat foolishly in compelling the Dufaure Ministry to resign, but their defence of...

SOME MAGAZINES. NONE of the Magazines contain this month anything very striking, but each has a paper or two worth more than the Money paid for the number. All, apart from the...

THE LONDON EDUCATION ELECTIONS. T HE Elections of last week are as good a symptom of the political sense and the political vitality of London as one could well hope for. To...

BISCOE'S MIDDLETON FAMIILY.* TiE first Earl Middleton was ennobled by Charles 1I., and entrusted with the care of a dangerous experiment in the administration of Scotland. He...

MR. FREDERIC HARRISON ON THE EASTERN QUESTION. UR. FREDERIC HARRISON'S article in the Fortniqyitlg Al Review for December is the most comprehensive and the most temperate...

CURRENT LITERATURE. CHRISTMAS AND GIFT BOOKS. Snoic-Shoes and Canoes; or, the Early Days of a Fur- trader in thde lludson's Buy Territory. By W. H. G. Kingston. (Sampson Low...

A ANarrative of Travel and Sport in Burmnah, Siam, and the Afalay ' Peinisula. By John Bradley. (Samuel Tinsley.)-" Travellers and explorers," says 'Mr. Bradley, " may be...

REASONABLE SERVICE.* THE only passage in this valuable little work to which we feel inclined to take exception is to the first paragraph in its short preface. In that preface...