P OLITICAL London has been quite excited this week. A Cabinet Council, originally fixed for Wednesday, was called for Monday, and the quidnuttes decided that it had been hurried...

on December 13th, in the form of a " Memorandum of Instruc- tions" to officers in branches of the League. Strange to say, it has never been published in the Times, possibly...

day to his Chelsea constituents, which dealt chiefly with the foreign policy of the Government,—a section of his speech, how- ever, with which we have sufficiently dealt in...

case.

resist any remedial Bills and any coercive Bills,—the latter because they will suppress agitation, and the former because they will take away its excuse. The Government will,...

of char- acter, who has long devoted himself to the task of developing the agricultural resources of Ireland in a thoroughly generous spirit, and who has laid out, in the course...

for the Afghan war is at last made up, and that its amount will astound those who still believe in the accuracy of Indian finance. He, therefore, dashes forward to persuade the...

devotes himself to his department, and as yet all his schemes succeed. His plan for promoting thrift by allowing a Savings- Bank account to be opened by a deposit of twelve...

this week. All the telegrams, official and private, show that the colonial officers are wandering about in Basutoland without aim or advantage, the Basutos leaving a place as...

the Greek Question issued on the 14th of December was sent by cable to the Daily Telegraph exclusively. It is fall of mockery. The Porte declares that it adheres to its former...

his credentials on December 2nd, and made a little speech to the King, in which he said that " my Government, confident in the efficacy of peaceful means, is persuaded that the...

ease for his release decided on every point in favour of Lord Penzance. Lord Coleridge and the other Judges of the Queen's Bench Division ruled that Lord Penzance was, by the...

strongest testimony to the shocking condition of Mace- donia, and declared his belief that " the regions from which Philip and Alexander went forth to conquer the world, where...

the case of the Rev. R. W. Enraght, who is also in prison for disregard. ing an inhibition by Lord Penzance, has been published, which shows that the Bishop of Worcester would...

Lawson have followed the example of Mr. Justice Fitz- gerald, in calling the attention of their Grand Juries to the large number of indictable offences committed in Ire- land...

home, who has been charged with administering poison to Mrs. Booth, the wife of a Sheffield surgeon, with intent to kill her, was on Tuesday formally committed for triaL The...

made a jaunty speech at West Hartlepool on Monday, on the state of Ireland, iu which he said that he con- sidered Mr. Parnell to be his successor in office, and that the Duke of...

manly speech on Wednesday at Sheffield, had a good word for Mr. Forster, for whom a good word is now hardly ever said, because the inheritance of difficulty with which he has...

disputes with the United States include a despatch from Lord Granville, dated October 27th last, that is a perfect model of the absolute reasonableness and dignity with which...

THE IRISH CRISIS. I T does not signify much, now that Parliament is to meet so soon, but we would warn our readers to believe but little of what they hear of " Cabinets."...

IN Sir Charles Dilke, Lord Salisbury has met more than his match,—his match in oratory, and much more than his match in that precision of statement and scrupulous regard for...

N OTHING is more certain, to those who study the country papers, than that there is not an iota of evidence in favour of the statement, made at almost every Tory meeting, that...

H OWEVER Mr. Dale's personal friends may regret the decision of the Court of Queen's Bench, it is difficult to see that any public advantage could have been derived from a...

E NGLISHMEN laugh at Irishmen for being so plaintive, and talking so much about " our unhappy country ;" but there is something in the history of Ireland and in the perma- nent...

M ROCHEFORT is learning a little elementary lesson in . chemistry,—that acids, however potent, will not bite everything. Gold, even if not quite pure, will not fizz under them....

I N the same column of the same journal (the Daily News of Tuesday last), appear two notices of a kind which is now becoming alarmingly common in the list of every-day crimes....

P ERHAPS it is the want of fun in the world, of which we have recently been complaining, but to us, and, we fancy, to many more of the very " grown-ups," the most charming...

T HE Agamemnon of iEschylus, in the original Greek, was performed last Thursday evening at St. George's Hall, by a company of Oxford Undergraduates, before a crowded audience....

THE IRISH LAND AGITATION AND ITS ANTIQUITY. [TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR. "] SIR,—Mr. Shaw-Lefevre, speaking on the 8th of this month at Reading on the Irish Question, said...

(TO THE EDITOR OF TI16 "SPECTATOR.-] Stn,—Your objection to a Court of Final Appeal which should be composed of Bishops is, that the Bishops " exercise large administrative...

[TO THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR.1 Su:, — It will interest many of your readers to hear the wise observations made by the Lord-Advocate of Scotland on the subject of...

[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SFECTATOR."J SIR,—In your paper of Saturday, October 30th, you speak approvingly of Mr. Errington's working schemes for the settle- ment of Irish...

go THE EDITOR OF THE .4 SPECTATOR.") Sin,—As you were good enough to insert a short letter from me on this subject in a late edition of your journal, I venture to ask you to...

[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR:1 SIB, —I am glad to see that " A Quondam Conservative" calls attention in your columns to the horrible condition of Macedonia. A friend of...

THE SOCIETY OF PAINTERS IN WATER-COLOURS. (THE WINTER EXHIBITION OF SKETCHES AND STUDIES.) SONE dozen or so years ago the present writer, iu company with several friends, was...

(To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPIECTATOR."3 Sta,—Suffering is in so many instances the result of ignorance, that wherever it is in our power to remove the ignorance, it is clearly our...

THE POET-LAUREATE'S NEW BALLADS.*` Br fur the most powerful of the new pieces in this little volume - are the two called "The Northern Cobbler" and "The Village Wife, or the...

FOLLOWING the example of Mr. Du Maurier, Mr. Charles Keene has reprinted a large number of his contributions to Punch, a series which extends over a period of twenty years, and...

THERE is a class of novels which we are compelled by critical canons to call good, and which, nevertheless, we read only with a certain effort, and from a sense of duty. There...

A VERY effective etching by Rajon, after a picture by Bonnat, forms the frontispiece to the third volume of the Magazine of Art.* Of the many other full-page illustrations here...

THAT there is a meaning, not to say a moral, shadowed forth in each one of these four imaginative stories, will be enough in some persons' eyes to condemn them. Children, it is...

CHRISTMAS BOOKS. Pictures from the German Fatherland. By the Rev. Samuel G. Green, D.D. (Religious Tract Society.)—This is a well-written and well-illustrated volume, one of an...

Laurence Gomme. (Sampson Low and Co.)--Mr. Gomme in- vestigates, with a vast amount of laborious research and curious learn- ing, the traces in this country, as they are found...

the first of a proposed series of biographies, to be entitled "Men Worth Remembering." We are glad to have a con- venient memoir of Wilberforce, though we cannot wholly commend...

man and Hall.)—This is an ambitions book, by an author who has in her a real sense of harmony, but whose present ideas are far too vast, vague, and vagrant for a work of true...

paradise of order and goodness. The inhabitants and their friends have, it is true, an unlucky way of getting into trouble when they go out on any excursion, so that when we...