T HE Emperor of Germany opened the Reichstag on Thurs- day in a long speech, rather too full of his own individuality, he invariably using " I " or " we " where most Sovereigns...

chiefly for the speech of a very young Member, Sir E. Grey, who for this occasion deserted the Glad- stonians,• and whose incisive reasoning in favour of the Bill created a deep...

to buying out landlords under Lord Ashbourne's Act from five millions to ten, was opened on Monday by the Irish Solicitor-General, who in a speech of studied moderation...

case.

appears to be recovering from the attack of bronchitis, but it is stated that his system has received a severe shock, and that other ailments of older standing have gained...

a measure for relieving tenants in arrear should have precedence of the Bill, contended, first, that the failure to reduce arrears impeded the working of the Land Acts,...

Mr. Balfour said that, so far as he could judge, Mr. Gladstone was very angry with him for pouring contempt upon Irish Coroners' juries when thay had convicted the innocent,...

and succeeded in diminishing decidedly the Glad- stonian majority. Mr. Oldroyd, the Gladstonian, was returned by 6,071 against 3,979, or by a majority of 2,102. In 1886, Eir J....

but was a little dull. He returned to Mr. Disraeli's text, " Sanitas Sanitatum," and, as in Mr. Disraeli's own case when dealing with that text, his oratory became a little...

very gross passage in the Kerry Sentinel of November 14th, on the proceedings of the Judges. That paper declared : —" The Judges are showing the measles now, though at the...

a few sensational scenes during the last week. Besides a fainting-fit of Lady Mountmorres, the widow of the murdered Lord, during her cross-examination by Sir Charles Russell...

is a man who is not afraid to speak out when he sees a Home-rule movement degenerating into a movement for excusing the most flagrant breaches of the moral law. In 1886, he had...

week, which was wanting only in what Mr. Balfour's speeches frequently want, the sense of magnanimity. He replies to Mr. Gladstone with at least as much bitterness as Mr. Glad-...

powerful marine, is, it appears, true. A Bill has been presented to the Reichstag demanding a sum of £5,800,000 for the con- struction of twenty-eight men-of-war, of which four...

ever. The case of " Andrieux v. Gilly," heard at Nimes, has, it is true, fallen through, M. Gully, though ready with evidence against other members of the Budget Committee,...

derer, and so far as appears, he may go on killing an " unfor- tunate" a month for the next ten years. The newspapers have improved their sale this week by sensational stories...

Power agrees to pay tribute to a weak one usually works the worst. It seems that Great Britain does not pay a penny of the £93,000 a year agreed on as a tribute for Cyprus. The...

charming speech at Liverpool on Thursday night, just before leaving for the United States, in which, while professing carefully to avoid politics, he said precisely the right...

of " Sander v. the Duchess of Montrose," decided this week, being a mere illustration of its extent. It was proved in the evidence given before the Queen's Bench Division, that...

tracting a considerable loan. The financiers of Berlin refused an advance, and those of England drew back ; but a com- bination of French and Dutch capitalists agreed to advance...

New Consols (24) were on Friday 96 to 964.

THE DEBATE ON THE ASHBOURNE ACT. T HERE are just five speeches in the debate on the extension of the Ashbourne Act which deserve attentive study,—that of the Solicitor-General...

M R. DILLON'S speech on Tuesday night should be dis- tributed far and wide amongst those constituencies which are disposed to adopt the Parnellite cause. Mr. Dillon is a...

A S Mr. Bright lies ill at Rochdale, the talk of his career is very naturally both vivid and controversial. All Englishmen have a pride in Mr. Bright,—even those who during the...

Boulangists sometimes hit the nail on the head. They are wise from their point of view in making a fuss about the accusation brought by M. Numa Gully against the Budget...

W E hear enough, though by no means too much, of the woes of trustees, but nobody in ordinary times pities those of the persons for whose benefit trustees and the Trustee Laws...

T O endure the slow and gradual processes of growth and development, seems just now for the world at large quite impossible. Everything must grow like the Indian conjurer's...

I N the course of last summer, there was an interesting correspondence between Lord Carnarvon and the Archbishop of Canterbury about open churches. Some very true and pertinent...

I N his recent apology for what he is pleased to call the Positivist "faith," Mr. Frederic Harrison has restated with his usual eloquence the position which we have so often...

T HE occasional though, we are happy to see, the infrequent telegrams from Madrid about the King of Spain seem, we fancy, to most readers to have in them something a little...

ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. [To T H E EDITOR OP THE " EPECTATOR.".1 SIR,—Twelve years' experience on the London School Board, together with some knowledge of the working of Voluntary...

[To THE EDITOR OP THE "SPECTATOR."] Sin,—The views you have taken up with reference to the above subject must commend themselves to all who desire to see lessened the untold...

seemed to me that the denominations have very much to thank themselves for the difficulty which they experience in maintaining their own schools. They have never sufficiently...

L.To THE EDITOR OW THE " SPECTATOR."] Sin ,—I have not seen Mr. H. Kendall's " Kinship of Man " (Spectator, p. 1,565), but it seems founded on mere fallacy, and should surely be...

Quick a little unjust to the present system of examination in elementary schools P Or is he unaware that, besides the test of reading aloud, there is in every class the further...

[To THE EDITOR Or THE " SPECTATOR."] SIR,—You remark most justly, that great landlords as well as little peasant-owners invest in the soil at a rate that brings them hardly any...

"FLORENCE THE BEAUTIFUL." THE mountains and the seas between She lies—the land of golden green ; The while a glowing silence fills The bosom of the Tuscan hills, And sparkle...

[To THE EDITOR OP THE " SPECTATOR."? SIR, — In your article of November 17th under this heading, it is stated, on the subject of the Official Referees :—" From one cause or...

I'm sick of Harcourt's sounding brass, Of Morley's tinkling symbolism ; Why am I such a loyal ass ? I wish they'd put me out to grass Far from this everlasting schism : I'm...

MISS WEDGWOOD'S ESSAYS.* Miss WEDGWOOD takes as a motto for these masterly essays which she has collected under the somewhat inadequate title of The Moral Ideal, the passage...

• The Life and Opinions of Major.General Sir Charles Metcalfe Macgregor, K.C.B., C.S.1, C.I E.. Quartermaster•General in India. Edited by Lady Mac- gregor. 2 vols. Edinburgh and...

MB. WILLIAM BLACK in his latest novel has renewed his literary youth. We cannot say that he has returned to his first manner, because he has never had more than one manner —and...

ALTHOUGH really written in a moderate and unpretending style, this book is nevertheless one of supreme pretensions. It aims at nothing less than the establishment of a synthesis...

a high pitch of expectation, not wholly unmixed with awe, that, having read Mr. Ruskin's preface, we see ourselves about to embark upon a story of which the immediate...

THE title on the back of these volumes, " Reminiscences of J. L. Toole, Joseph Hatton," is, on the whole, a fairer index to their contents than the description which appears on...

(Griffith, Farran, and Co.)—This is, we suppose, a new book ; but there is no date on the title-page. This is an omission against which we would seriously remonstrate, for...

graceful reproduction of Sheridan's famous song, Here's to the Maiden of Bashful Fifteen. It is illustrated by Alice Havers and Ernest Wilson. Both artists have done their work...

them humorously illustrated, are published by Messrs. Wells Gardner, Darton, and Co.,—The Biter Bit ; or, the Sad End of a Tail ; and The Yolk Laid on the Biggest Shoulder, in...

Pictures by Clinton Peters. (Routledge and Sons.)—This, the title-page informs us, is "the honest and only authentic account of certain stories, as related by the Red Indian to...

:— Sunday .Reading for the Young. (Wells Gardner, Dayton, and Co.)_ The words "Sunday reading " are interpreted with a fair liberality, and we get here a really good volume,...

Lento- mann With Explanatory Text by Professor A. Kirchhoff. Translated from the German by George Philip, jun. (G. Philip and Son.)—These " graphic pictures," well drawn and...

Adams, and Co.)—These " twelve white flowers " are the Double White Camellia, the Poet's Narcissus, Eucharis Grandi- flora, Marguerite, Lily of the Valley, Lapageria Alba, Rose...

picture-books, gaily coloured without, and printed within in large, clear type, and illustrated with drawings that are for the most part of considerable merit. We shall put them...

Sons.)—This volume bears a date-1889—but surely cannot be a new one; unless, indeed, it was left in manuscript by its author, who has certainly been dead several months. The...

executed reproduction of Jack the Giant - Killer, by Richard Doyle. Richard Doyle did this in 1842, when he was sixteen. His writing has been fac-similed, with one or two...

Table. By Margaret Vere Farrington. (G. P. Putnam's Sons )—Miss Far- rington gives in a brief introduction a summary of the little that is known and the much that is guessed...

on account of the wealth of interesting information about almost everything under the sun, and the wholesome fiction in the form both of serial and of short stories, which it...

differs from most historical romances intended for boys in this, that its chief scenes are laid not on the English but on the American side of the Atlantic. It describes certain...

story, The Little Savage, published, with some fairly good illustrations, by Messrs. Routledge and Sons. We cannot but think that, whoever the author, a new edition should...

Darton, and Co.), contains some two hundred pictures of men and things. We do not know why the particular epithet " story- telling " has been given to it. If there are any...

F. Shaw.)— It is really impossible to tell whether this book, having no date on the title-page, is old or new. This is not the first time by many that Mr. Wood, whom we are,...

make it uniform with his edition of " Elia's " works, Canon Ainger has reprinted and revised his Life of Lamb in the series of " English Men of Letters." The additions or...

On the Belief of Excessive and Dangerous Tympanites by Puncture of the Abdomen : a Memoir. By J. W. Ogle, M.A., M.D. Oxon., F.S.A., Consulting Physician to St. George's...

gives us plenty of the St. Bernard's history,—for, indeed, it has more real history than any other breed of dogs. There has always been much discussion as to the various strains...

story is one of this author's well-known melanges of fighting, brine, breezes, and sound boyish ethics. It lags a little at the beginning, for Dr. Stables appears to think it...

(Vizetelly and Co.)—There is a good deal of cleverness in this story, which deals largely with the Bohemian section of the literary and artistic world of London. Some of the...

A. H. Bullen. (Nimmo.)—This beautifully printed little volume is a selection from the two volumes of " Lyrics from Elizabethan Song-Books ". already published by Mr. Bullen. It...

the author of a novel, in the course of an elaborate description of his, or her, heroine, tells us that " a fortuitous sigh escaping from between her red lips broke the spell of...

Year Cards, and the little etchings "with hearty greeting" are this year particularly pretty, as are some of the comic animal figures. "A Bear Civility," for instance, is very...

provincial pocket-book. Great pains have been taken with the engravings, and the poetry, though still very mixed, includes a fair piece or two. The prize enigmas, too, are...

Co.)—This is a very poor novel, but it is poor in such a very feeble and harmless sort of way, that any elaborate exposure of its poverty would be waste of time. Its persons are...

of Half - a - Century. Compiled by John C. Francis. 2 vols. (Bentley.)—In an introductory note to these thick volumes, Mr. Fox Bourne states that "through more than fifty out of...

. an " inexplainable phenomenon," and certainly he does not make the slightest attempt to explain the mystery he relates. Perhaps it is well, for anything more hopelessly...