so greatly dreaded by all Governments except our own, passed off this year in nearly unbroken quiet. The Labour party in many places marched and demonstrated ; but there was not...

" in the Treaty of Simonoseki, has reached London this week. The three Powers—Russia, Germany, and France—have remon- strated at Tokio, and have represented that Japan ought not...

been issued to General Low to abstain from a further advance, and to return to India as soon as con- veniently may be. E here Afzul, who besieged the fortress, has been made...

financially a tame one, the only sensation being the con- cession made to the Nationalists in the shape of a remission of the extra Spirit-duty imposed last year, the extra...

T HERE is some danger, though probably not much, that the situation in the Far East may suddenly become acute. The idea is that the French Government, pressed by the 'Opposition...

and obtained the right to use Tuesday and the morning sitting on Friday for official business, leaving to private Members the evening sitting on Friday only. And he pointed out...

the relative state of parties ; but in East Leeds the result showed a considerably increased majority for the Gladstonian can- didate. Mr. Leuty, who beat his Conservative...

in which he characterised the Session as one given up to a great practical joke, a joke he did not at all resent, if only the Government would not drive it so hard as to...

1595-95. 1505-96. Ntional Debt Services £25,C00,000 ....t25,000,000 Other Consolidated Fund Services ... 1M2,000 ... 1,625,000 Total Consolidated Fund Services.. £26,642,000...

annual meeting of the Primrose League in Covent Garden Theatre, yesterday week, when he gave in his heartiest adhesion to the compact with the Liberal Unionists, and bore the...

as far as the mere figures go, is very unsensational. The fact that the Naval vote is the largest ever recorded in time of peace, is however a very remarkable proof that the...

a hint which excited much comment. He said that it was his duty to warn the House against its tendency, and that of the constituencies, to increase ex- penditure. That, he said,...

has been utterly defeated, and has lost his own seat. He will therefore retire from politics, at all events for a time. His rival, M. Delyanni, has secured a following amounting...

of the Indian Supply Departments. It has long been sus- pected that rifles were stolen, the usual explanation, when - they were found, being that the weapons had been picked up...

at one time a Home-rule Member of Parliament, but a Home- ruler of the old-fashioned type—i.e, a follower of Mr. Butt, rather than of Mr. Parnell. In Sir Patrick O'Brien may be...

abolishing plural voting. It is a short Bill, prohibiting any person from voting more than once at a General Election, ordering that all elections shall be held on one day, and...

who, we grieve to see, is harassed by domestic misfortune, is taking in Armenia. It is known that the report of the Com- missioners appointed by the signatory Powers will...

body voted the new Army Bill, but cannot bear to pay its cost. The Committee has rejected the Bill for taxing tobacco by 18 votes to 4, and it is understood that the House will...

New Consols (2f) were on Friday, 105f.

AN IRISH BUDGET. F RENCH critics have a happy plan of looking in works of literature and art for the idee-mere, or mother-thought. The system is not a bad one to adopt, even for...

W E do not believe the report that the Government intend, if beaten either upon the Welsh Disestab- lishment Bill or the Local Veto Bill, to remain in office, and only ask the...

M R. BALFOITR'S speech at Covent Garden yester- day week at the annual meeting of the Primrose League, was remarkable not only for the warmth and explicitness of his testimony...

more characteristic of our leading statesmen than that overflow of their vitality into one or other of the various forms of humour by which they have been characterised. It is...

W E accept democracy as a great experiment which ought to be tried honestly, and we do not therefore oppose the Bill for abolishing plural voting upon Con- servative grounds....

blinds our contemporaries a little to what is passing in the Far East. They are misled by continuous experience, and cannot help fancying that if "Europe," even without Great...

but the report of the Works Committee of the London County Council, which was presented last Tuesday, is a striking exception to this rule. It is the record of a very...

T HOSE who still entertain any doubt whether we have again got a really great poet amongst us, should refer to the poem which appears in the somewhat uncongenial atmosphere of...

W E have not the pleasure of personal acquaintance with Mr. James Payn, but his closest friends could scarcely be more touched than we have been with his short description, in...

T HE most recently published volume of Allen's Naturalist's Library is a monograph on the cat family by Mr. R. Lydekker, F.R.S. There are at least forty-five species of cats,...

N OT long ago, while Mr. Peel was yet Speaker of the- House of Commons, petition was made to him by cer- tain Members of Parliament that the rule ordaining the wearing of Court...

" PANEM ET CIRCENSES." Rome, April 21st. I HAVE been asking myself at least a dozen times a day during the last fortnight, why Rome should be (to me, at any rate) the city of...

THE NEW GALLERY AS IT IS AND AS IT MIGHT BE. Rissnna over the pictures by Sir Edward Burne-Jones and Mr. Sargent, which will draw attention to themselves, I will begin by naming...

[To THR EDITOR OP THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—May I cap that "dying testimony," in the Spectator of April 20th, by another of the same stamp ? Mine tells of an old Scottish farmer of...

IRISH SUPERSTITIONS. [To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—I have read with great interest the letter in the Spectator of April 20th relative to "Irish Superstitions" in...

SIR WILLIAM PETTY.* Sin WILLIAM PETTY was one of the first Fellows of the Royal Society, sometime Secretary to Henry Cromwell, maker of the "Down Survey" of Ireland, author of...

Ms. BESANT'S new novel, Beyond the Dreams of Avarice, is unquestionably the strongest and most satisfying of the books upon the title-page of which his name appears alone. It...

Lord De TaVey. Second Series. London : John Lane. LORD DE TABLEY raises hopes which, on the whole, we fear, he disappoints. One opens his book and comes on such a verse as this...

Fr is decidedly no common event that the best writers and artists of a country should combine together to give to the outside world a description of their own land, and one is...

ALTHOUGH every Englishman loves his country, there are few who have really travelled in it, or know very much about it. Mr. Hissey takes as motto for his book a sentence from...

THE National Review is full of good articles. Mr. J. W. Lowther, one of the most promising of younger Conservative statesmen, and an expert in foreign questions, deals with the...

the Spanish of Fernando de Rojas by James 15Iabbe, 1639. (David Nutt.)—Mr. James FitzMaurice Kelly, who furnishes this volume with an introduction, dedicates it to Mr. Barrie,...

Watson. (T. Fisher Unwin.) —This volume contains three pamphlets by Stepniak, the letter sent by the Revolutionary Executive Committee to the new Czar, the "Liberal Programme,"...

Sons.)—Fifty years ago boys, and others besides boys, used to read the travels of Captain Basil Hall with no little pleasure. To the present generation he is barely a name. We...

The Quarterly Review for April (John Murray) contains at least two articles of considerable interest, that on Mr. Balfour's "Foundations of Belief," and that on "The...

—The form of this story is a "narrative" purporting to be written by one Edward Carlyon, a gentleman in the East India Company's Service, and " edited " by the gentleman whose...

Canon Browne. (S. P.C.K.) —Canon Browne publishes in this volume three lectures delivered at St. Paul's in the early part of last year. In the first he treats of Queen Bertha...