NEWS OF THE WEEK.
MR. BRIGHT died at half-past 8 on Wednesday morning, after a relapse which had lasted a fortnight all but a day, beginning on Thursday, March 14th. On Tuesday evening he became unconscious, and never recovered consciousness before finis death. It has been a long struggle. The illness began in May, when Mr. Bright took cold after a midnight railway- journey, and though he was well enough in August and September to take outdoor exercise and to hope for perfect recovery, a change for the worse took place in October, which was really the beginning of the end, in spite of the very great rally which led the nation to hope that he had some chance of complete recovery. Mr. Bright's death robs England of almost the most impressive and characteristic of her popular politicians, though Mr. Gladstone, his senior by a year, has made a much deeper mark on the politics of his age. Bnt Mr. Bright had made a very deep mark upon it. He was second only to Cobden in carrying Free-trade; the Reform Bill of 1867 would never have been carried, had not Mr. Bright's great campaigns for a lowering of the suffrage prepared the way for it. The Reform of the Indian Government was in a great degree originated by him. The Irish agrarian measures were first taken up by Mr. Bright, and the policy of multi- plying the number of freeholders in Ireland will always be associated with his name, as will also the steadfast conviction which he expressed against any dissolution of the Union between Ireland and Great Britain, and the profoundly un- favourable estimate of the political aims and methods of the Parnellite Party.
