Parliament has at last begun to wind up its business with some energy, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday having been days of something like expedition. The Local Taxation Bill...

Mr. Chamberlain made an excellent speech this day week to the Liberal Unionists of Highbury, on the Session which is now so near its close. He vindicated the Government...

-NEWS OF THE WEEK. TIHE feeling of uncertainty and suspense prevailing in the Argentine Republic since the failure of the attempted revolution has at last come to an end. On...

On Friday, August 1st, the Sultan of Zanzibar issued a I decree which constitutes the most serious blow ever directed against slavery in Africa:- The exchange, sale, or...

Another of those miserable struggles between capital and labour which are doing so much to retard the return of prosperity, has broken out in South Wales, where 1,800 railway...

THE WRIT OF HABEAS CORPUS. ON Tuesday, the House of Lords, as the Final Court of I Appeal, decided one of the most important points of I law that has ever come before it. The...

A VANISHING TREATY. M R. BRYCE'S question to Sir J. Fergusson on the - - recent disturbances among the Armenian population in Asia Minor and elsewhere, and his speech on...

POETRY. JOY. [A BANK-HOLIDAY CON-CEIT.J o Joy! Since letters three Spell Thee, Why art Thou still unspelt by me ? Sorrow hath double; sixThey fix Themselves in thought, like...

HORSES AND BANK HOLIDAYS. [TO THE EDITOR OP THE "SPECTATOR. J SIR,-I am spending Bank Holiday in Kenilworth with friends, and the question has risen to my lips all day long: "...

BO OK S. LORD CLIVE. * THIS is an excellent little book, of that kind of which Dr. Johnson said with approval, that you can carry theni to the fire to read. They do not...

THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON AND THE TOAD. fTO THrE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."1 SIR,-I have only just noticed the statement, in the Spectator of the 2nd inst., that some one, in a...

" A TYROLESE TRAGEDY." [TO THE EDITOR (IF THE " SPECTATOR." SIR,-I am still further indebted to you and your readers. From Brighton I have received £1, and Herr Alfiller has...

THE OBER-AMMERGAU PASSION-PLAY. [TO THE EDITOU OF THE " SPECTATOB.-] SIR,-Among the many comments which have appeared in various quarters on the Passion-Play at Ober-Ammergau....

ETIQUETTE AND CARDINAL MANNING'S: PRECEDENCE. [TO THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."1 SIR,-Will you permit me to notice two mistakes in your article on " Etiquette," in relation...

The real cause of the comparative failure of the Session, said I Mr. Chamberlain, was obstruction, " inveterate, barefaced, avowed, deliberate, premeditated obstruction, such...

I On Wednesday morning, the convict Kemmler was put to death by electricity at Auburn, a town in the western part ot the State of New York. Instead of death being...

The Lord Chancellor, who was asked to return thanks for | the House of Lords, proposed to hand that duty over to Mr. Goschen, and to return thanks for the House of Commons...

| To-day, Heligoland is to be formally handed over to the Germans, Minister von Botticher representing the Imperial Chancellor at the ceremony. On his return from the Isle of...

I On Monday, Lord Knutsford in the Lords, and Baron Henry De Worms in the Commons, announced the conclusion of a convention with the Transvaal for the regulation of the affairs...

The usual banquet at the Mansion House to her Majesty's I Ministers, which marks the close of the season, was held on Wednesday, when Lord Salisbury described the condition of...

I The German Emperor, true to his ideal of perpetual excur- sion, has been visiting the Queen in the Isle of Wight during the past week. On Tuesday he witnessed the regatta,...

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. CHURCH POLICY. [TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR,-(1.) I inherit certain property, which came to me on what I believe to be a good title. Suppose...

THE MAN OF THE SESSION. ACH Session of the House of Commons has not only E its specific character, but its specific man. When we look back in August over the months that have...

On Tuesday, Lord Weniyss proposed to add to the Gates and Bars Removal Bill, a proviso that " if any land shall be taken or be injuriously affected by anything done in virtue...

The Times of Tuesday devotes a column of small print to describing yet another torpedo, and one which is apparently destined to outdo all former inventions. This ingenious...

Mr. Bryce made a very good speech on Thursday night in I relation to the Armenian troubles, and the complete indifference of Turkey to our remonstrances. We have indicated in...

The cholera is very bad at Mecca and at Jeddah, onl the Red Sea. At the latter place there have beea, it is said, already an average of a hundred fatal cases a day since August...

I A bronze statue to Mr. W. E. Forster, on the Embankment near the Temple Station, in the same enclosure with that of Mr. John Stuart Mill, was unveiled yesterday week by Lord...

A military mob, combined with a number of peasants, have destroyed part of a Chinese railway to Lutai, on the ground that the floods which have prevailed there are due to the...

I At Lewes on Wednesday, Baron Huddleston was seized by a dangerous attack of gout in the night, and was warned by his doctor that it might be fatal for him to leave his bed....

Essays on Government. By A. Lawrence Lowell. (Houghliton, Miffiin, and Co., Boston and New York.)-Mr. Lowell has some interesting things to say about government here and in...

Tuwo English Girls. By Mabel Hart. 2 vols. (Hurst and I Blackett.)-This story is distinguished by its pure and elegant English, and the refinement of its style and thought. It...

TYRANNICIDE. M R. SWINBURNE'S last poem and Mr. P. J. O'Brien's question in the House of Commons, have brought back to life the old controversy in regard to tyrannicide. The...

Eric Rotherharn. By fMrs. W. D. Hall. (Digby and Long.)-| The title-page states that this book is the sequel to one named "Marie ;" and, having never read the latter, perhaps...

The Last of the Cornets. By Colonel Rowan Hamilton. (F. V. I White and Co.)-We should describe this work rather as a sketch of soldiers' life in time of peace than as a novel....

Heine, Novelist and Dramatist. By R. McClintock. (Roper I and Drowley.)-In a rather rambling preface, which is half preface and half biography, Mr. McClintock describes his...

Laura Montrose. By Adela May. (Digby and Long.)-As in an I indifferent sermon there is always the text to profit by, so in a story whose moral is good, readers may very well...

Essays on Social Subjects. By John Stutart Blackie. (D. Douglas, Edinburgh.)-It is scarcely necessary to cirnend Professor Blackie to our readers. 'Ihey know that he is always...

Love's Loyalty. By Cecil Clarke. 2 vols. (Griffith, Farran, and Co.)-It would be going too far to paraphrase Sidney Smith's famous dictum upo . style, and say that all novels...

liucinda. By Major G. F. White. 3 vols. (Ward and Downey.) -There are exceptions to the rule, Ne sutor ultra crepidarn; but Major White does not provide one of them. He is...

I "For So Little: " the Story of a Crime. By Helen Davis. (Swan Sonnenschein and Co.)-A story of a crime is nothing if not exciting. People who revel in the society of...

Broughton. By E. S. Arnold. 3 vols. (Ward and Downey.)- Mr. E. S. Arnold, who is the author of a well-meaning but altogether superfluous biographical compilation entitled "...

THE SITUATION IN BUENOS AYRES. W HEN the Times' correspondent spoke of the situation N in the Argentine Republic as being " unprecedented and almost incredible," he was not...

&THE USES OF DRUDGERY, AND OTHER ESSAYS.* IT is to Lady Aberdeen, we believe, that the British public is indebted for the republication of these two charming little volumes on...

THE BLIND M1USICIAN.* KOROLENKO'S powerful study of an artistic blind boy's growth and life has been given us in beautiful English by Messrs. Stepniak and Westall, and we feel...

TOPICS OF THE DAY. MINISTERS ON THE WEAKNESS OF PARLIAMENT. LORD SALISBURY and Mr. Goschen both expressed L their opinion on Wednesday at the Mansion House that the present...

THE RIGHTS OF SERVANTS. M RS. FRANCIS D ARWIN, who writes in the Ninbeteenth IN/1 Cent ury for August on " Domestic Service," is evidently interested on behalf of servants. She...

MR. WHISTLER'S ESSAYS.* THE Polemical Papers of a Butterfly, edited as by a Cockatoo, cannot fail to be amusing. The sallies of a master of epigram and of his art against...

The Preacher of St. Justin's. By A. M. Rose. (David Stott.)- The preacher of St. Justin's, the Rev. Dr. Hamilton, seems, from his portrait, to be in some respects a very...

CURRENT LITERATURE. Whistle-Binkie. (David Robertson, Glasgow.)-This is a new edition, which is in effect a new book. It gives, in two small but closely printed volumes, the...

LONDON CRUSHES. IT is still a matter for conjecture why people in London give such crowded parties, and why other people go to them. One does not like to insult the...

CORRESPONDENCE. A COMMENTARY IN AN EASY-CHAIR: THE END OF THE SEASON-THE RESULTS-LITERATURE I AND ART. | THE schools are closed; the houses are shut up; the trains and the...

CHRISTIAN WOMEN IN TURKEY.* THERE is very little apparent connection between Miss Lucy Garnett's straightforward and pleasantly written account of the Christian women of...

THE MAGAZINES. THOUGH there is nothing in the Magazines this month that inebriates, there is a fair amount of cheerful and pleasant reading. In the Nineteenth Century, one of...

THE GLADSTONIAN ATTITUDE TOWARDS THE I GOVERNMENT. T is a curious but an indisputable fact that neither the Unionists nor the Gladstonians realise how far their antagonists are...

AB-DEL-KADER'S FAVOURITE RESORT. " ONE half of the world never knows how the other half lives," is a saying we all know; but can one half of the world imagine how the sun...