Lord Francis could not be found. As it was thought impracticable to remove the remains, they were buried in the snow with a brief service, but afterwards brought down and interred in the cemetery at Zermatt. Later in the season portions of the body of the young nobleman were discovered through the exertions of Lord Queensberry. The feeling of regret occasioned by this Alpine disaster was greatly deepened by the intelligence received about the same time that the Rev. Mr. Wilson, Fellow of Trinity, had lost his life on the Riffelberg.

16. At the Winchester Assizes, George Bloomfield, a person of considerable means, was sentenced to death for shooting Caroline Colborne, at Shirley. He endeavoured to destroy himself at the same time, but the shots were not directed against any vital part. A defence of insanity was set up; Mr. Justice Keating ruled that the aberration would require to be of such an extent as to disable the prisoner from distinguishing between right and wrong, with reference to the nature and guilt of the act which he had committed.

18.-Defeat of Mr. Gladstone at the University of Oxford. The polling commenced in the Convocation House at nine o'clock on the morning of the 13th. At the close of the first day Mr. Gladstone was in a minority of 6 below his opponent, Mr. Gathorne Hardy. On Saturday the minority had increased to 74, and on Monday to 230. On this day a circular, signed by Sir J. T. Coleridge, chairman of Mr. Gladstone's Committee, was issued to the electors still unpledged, intimating that there was reason to fear the seat was in danger, and pressing upon them the duty of recording their votes in his favour. "The Committee do not scruple to advocate his cause on grounds above the common level of politics. They claim for him the gratitude due to one whose public life has for eighteen years reflected a lustre on the University herself. They confidently invite you to consider whether his pure and exalted character, his splendid abilities, and his eminent services to Church and State do not constitute the highest of all qualifications for an academical seat, and entitle him to be judged by his constituents as he will assuredly be judged by posterity." On the 18th (Thursday), the last day of polling, the contest was less exciting than at the commencement, as it was certain Mr. Gladstone had little chance of success. He managed, however, to lessen the majority against him, the numbers at the close being-Heathcote, 3,236; Hardy, 1,904: Gladstone, 1,724: majority of Hardy over Gladstone, 180. The total number of voters who polled was 3,850-a number nearly double that on any former occasion. In the course of the contest Mr. Gladstone received 415 plumpers; Heathcote, 43; and Hardy, 16. The votes split between Gladstone and Heathcote were 1,307; between Heathcote and Hardy, 1,886; between Gladstone and Hardy, 2. Balliol gave 107 votes to Gladstone, and 90 to Hardy;

Christ Church, 206 to Gladstone, and 291 to Hardy. Of the 3,669 who actually voted, 689 voted in person, and 2,980 by votingpapers; 2,532 clergymen voted, and 1,137 laymen. Of the former, 1,166 voted for Gladstone, and 1,328 for Hardy. The latter had also a majority of 18 in the laity. At a meeting held in the Theatre, after the close of the poll, Sir W. Heathcote and Mr. Gathorne Hardy were declared duly elected. "Gentlemen, wrote Mr. Gladstone from Hawarden, "after an arduous connexion of eighteen years, I bid you respectfully farewell. My earnest purpose to serve you, my many faults and shortcomings, the incidents of the political relation between the University and myself established in 1847, so often questioned in vain, and now at length finally dissolved, I leave to the judgment of the future. It is one imperative duty, and one alone, which induces me to trouble you with these few parting words-the duty of expressing my profound and lasting gratitude for indulgence as generous, and for support as warm and enthusiastic in itself, and as honourable from the character and distinction of those who have given it, as has, in my belief, ever been accorded by any constituency to any representative."

18. Mr. Gladstone a candidate for South Lancashire. He was nominated on the 17th with other candidates at the little town of Newton. "I appear before you," he wrote,

66

I

as a candidate for the suffrages of your division of my native county. Time forbids me to enlarge on the numerous topics which justly engage the public interest. I will bring them all to a single head. You are conversantfew so much so-with the legislation of the last thirty-five years. You have seen--you have felt its results. You cannot fail to have observed the verdict which the country generally has, within the last eight days, pronounced upon the relative claims and positions of the two great political parties with respect to that legislation in the past, and to the prospective administration of public affairs. humbly, but confidently-without the least disparagement to many excellent persons from whom I have the misfortune frequently to differ-ask you to give your powerful voice in confirmation of that verdict, and to pronounce with significance as to the direction in which you desire the wheels of the State to move. Before these words can be read I hope to be among you in the hives of your teeming enterprise. Mr. Gladstone made his appearance in Manchester in the afternoon of this day, and addressed a crowded meeting in the Free-trade Hall. "At last, my friends," he said, "I am come among you-and I am come, to use an expression which has become very famous, and is not likely to be forgotten, I am come among you 'unmuzzled.' (Enthusiastic and prolonged cheers.) After an anxious struggle of eighteen years, during which the unbounded devotion and indulgence of my friends maintained me in the arduous position of representative of the

University of Oxford, I have been driven from iny seat. I have no complaint to make of the party which has refused to me the resumption of that place. cannot say that I am glad of it, but they are the majority, and they have used their power. As they have used it, I appeal to you, the men of my native county, to know whether that which has disqualified me from representing the University of Oxford has also disabled me from representing you. But, gentlemen, do not let me come among you under false colours or with false pretences. I have loved the University of Oxford with a deep and passionate love, and as long as I breathe that attachment will continue; if my affection is of the smallest advantage to that great, that ancient, that noble institution, that advantage, such as it is, and it is most insignificant, Oxford will possess as long as I live. But don't mistake the issue which has been raised. The University has at length, after eighteen years of self-denial, been drawn by what I might, perhaps, call an overweening exercise of power, into the vortex of mere politics. Well, you will readily understand why, as long as I had a hope that the zeal and kindness of my friends might keep me in my place, it was impossible for me to abandon them. Could they have returned me by a majority of one, painful as it is to a man of my time of life, and feeling the weight of public cares, to be incessantly struggling for his seat, nothing could have induced me to quit that University to which I had so long ago devoted my best care and attachment. But by no act of mine I am free to come among you. (Great cheering.) And, having been thus set free, I need hardly tell you that it is with joy, with thankfulness, and enthusiasm, that I now, at this eleventh hour, a candidate without an address, make my appeal to the heart and the mind of South Lancashire, and ask you to pronounce upon that appeal. (Renewed cheers.) Mr. Bazley and Gentlemen,-As I have said, I am aware of no cause for the votes which have given a majority against me in the University of Oxford, except the fact that the strongest conviction that the human mind can receive, that an overpowering sense of the public interests, that the practical teachings of experience, to which from my youth Oxford herself taught me to lay open my mind-all these had shown me the folly and, I will say, the madness of refusing to join in the generous sympathies of my countrymen, by adopting what I must call an obstructive policy.' The polling took place on the 20th, when Mr. Gladstone was returned third, the numbers being-Egerton, 9,171; Turner, 8,806; Gladstone, 8,786; Legh, 8,476; Thompson, 7,703; Heywood, 7,653. The first, second, and fourth stood as Conservatives; the third, fifth, and sixth, as Liberals.

18.-Earthquake on the slope of Mount Etna, destroying the village of Fondi di Macchia, with considerable loss of life.

20. -The foundation - stone of the new

Blackfriars Bridge laid by the Lord Mayor, in presence of the Corporation and chief civic dignitaries. (See Nov. 6, 1869.)

21. Came on at Salisbury Assizes, before Mr. Justice Willes, the trial of Constance Emilie Kent, charged on her own confession with the murder of her brother, Francis Saville Kent, on the night of 29th of June, 1860. The prisoner appeared in the dock dressed in deep mourning, and having on a thick veil. She first went to the back of the dock and had some conversation with her solicitor; she then pct up her veil and came to the front. The Clerk of Assizes stated the nature of the indictment, and asked the prisoner, "How say you, Constance Emilie Kent, are you guilty or not guilty?" The prisoner in a low voice said, "Guilty." Mr. Justice Willes: "Are you aware that you are charged with having wilfully, and intentionally, and with malice, killed your brother?" Prisoner made no reply. After a pause, the Judge proceeded: "Do you plead guilty to that?" No reply. The Judge:

66

What is your answer?" Prisoner was understood to say "Yes.” The Judge: “I repeat, you are charged with having wilfully, intentionally, and with malice, killed your brother. Are you guilty or not guilty?" Prisoner: "Guilty, my lord." The Judge: "The plea must be recorded." Mr. Coleridge, as counsel for Constance Emilie Kent, acting in her behalf under her own direct instructions, said: "I desire to say two things before your lordship passes sentence. First, solemnly in the presence of Almighty God as a person who values her own soul, she desires me to say tha the guilt is hers alone; that her father and others who have so long suffered most unjust and cruel suspicions are wholly and absolute's innocent. Next, she desires me to say that she was not driven to this act, as has been asserted, by any unkind treatment of her mother-in-law; she met with nothing at home but tender, for bearing love. I hope I may add, my lord, not improperly, that it gives me a melancholy pleasure to be made the organ of these statements, because, on my honour, I believe them to be true." The learned judge in the usu terms, but deeply affected, passed the awfei sentence of the law upon the prisoner, whɔ, after standing for a short time in the dock, covered her face with her veil and was conducted back to her cell.

23. A splice having been made with the shore end of the Atlantic Cable off Valent the Great Eastern sets out on her paying-o′′ voyage across the Atlantic, accompanied by the Sphinx and Terrible. Faults were discovered next day, when 84 miles had been paid out; and again on the 29th, 707 miles; but on each of these occasions the cable was recovered from the bed of the ocean and the defects made good.

24. The Prince and Princess of Wales and party descend Botallack Mine, near the

Land's End, and inspect the workings at the 200-fathom level.

25. Mary Jane Harris, aged 23, and Charlotte Winsor, aged 45, again brought up at Exeter Assizes, on the charge of murdering the infant child of the first-mentioned prisoner. This time it was resolved that Harris should be admitted as Queen's evidence. She made a revelation which not only shocked the Court, but sent a thrill of horror through every household in the kingdom. "In February last," she said, "I was a servant at Mrs. Wansey's, Tamar Villas, Torquay. Before I went there I had been confined of a male child. I took the child to Mrs. Winsor's, near Shipley Bridge. As we were taking the child there, I said there had been one child picked up in the country. The prisoner said, I wonder I had not got myself into it once before.' She had put away one for a girl who was confined at her house, who had promised to give her 37., but she did not give it her. I asked her how she did it. She said she put her finger under the jugular vein. She said she had stifled one three weeks old for Elizabeth Darwin, and thrown it into Torbay, and when it was picked up it was nearly washed all to pieces; that she had put away one for her sister. While her sister was staying at the house, she had directed a letter to be left at the Jolly Sailor for the father of the child, and she received a 5. note by return of post. She said she only gave her 2/., but that when her husband returned from sea, she would make her a handsome present; but she had not done it, I then went on with her to her house and had tea. I asked her if she was not afraid. She said, 'To

with you; it's doing good,' and she would help any one that would not split upon her. I was leaving, and she said, 'I'll do whatever lays in my power for your child.' I said, 'All right,' and went away. I saw my child a fortnight after in Mrs. Wansey's kitchen. The prisoner brought it. She said if I would give her 5. she would do away with the child. I said I had not 57. to give her. She asked me to give her a note to the father of the child. I said I could not do that. She said, 'Get it anyhow else; I'll put them all by for thee if thee hast forty. "The jury now found Winsor guilty, and Mr. Justice Keating sentenced her to death, holding out no hope of mercy. Without seeking to justify the frightful crimes proved against her, this wretched woman's case was afterwards taken up on constitutional grounds, Lord Wensleydale urging it to be without parallel that any person should be tried twice for the same offence. The question was solemnly deliberated upon by the Judges at Westminster, the capital sentence being from time to time deferred till a decision could be arrived at. This decision was in favour of the conviction, but the criminal had been so often reprieved that it was thought public justice would be satisfied with inflicting a punishment short of the original sentence. She was, therefore, consigned to a prison for the term of her natural life.

26. A meeting of the subscribers to the Colenso fund held in the Freemasons' Tavern, and 3,300. presented to the Bishop as a token of respect on leaving for his distant diocese.

Gallimore and Benge tried at Maidstone Assizes on the charge of manslaughter in connexion with the late accident at Staplehurst. No evidence was led against the first mentioned, and he was discharged. Benge was sentenced to nine months' imprisonment.

At

29. Meeting of members of the Guild of Literature and Art, at Stevenage, to celebrate the completion of three houses erected by the Guild on land given by Sir E. B. Lytton. the dinner which followed at Knebworth, the host described the new buildings as comprising "three houses, for the artist, the scholar, and the man of letters, modest in themselves, but of such a character that a gentleman may inhabit them with a small but well-assured pension. I associate," he continued, "with the toast of the evening the name of a man whose writings are equally the delight of the scholar and the artisan; whose creations dwell in our hearts as familiarly and fondly as if they were our own kinsfolk, and who has united an unrivalled mastery over the laughter and the tears of millions with as genial and sweet a philosophy as ever made the passions move at the command of virtue." Mr. Dickens replied, speaking in the handsomest terms of the genius of their accomplished host. "The ladies and gentlemen," he said, "whom we shall invite to occupy the houses we have built will never be placed under any social disadvantage. They will be invited to occupy them as artists, receiving them as a mark of the high respect in which they are held by their fellow-workers. As artists I hope they will often exercise their calling within those walls for the general advantage; and they will always claim on equal terms the hospitality of their generous neighbours."

31.-Meeting of the London cowkeepers to establish a national society for the prevention of cattle-diseases.

The Inman steamer Glasgow destroyed by fire on her voyage from New York to Liverpool. The passengers and crew were saved, with the ship's plate and a portion of the luggage. The fire had its origin in the accidental fall of a lamp among the cotton in the steerage.

August 2.-The Privy Council cause intimation to be given to the President of the Royal Agricultural Society, of the steps they had taken for checking the spread of the cattleplague, and of the symptoms by which the disease might be detected.

Το

it, and went on paying out cable without let or hindrance at a high rate of speed-seven knots an hour. At 8 A. M., when in about 2,000 fathoms water, and with 1,186 miles of cable paid out, a serious fault was discovered to exist about six miles from the ship. recover this portion the Great Eastern was stopped, and the cable passed from the stern to the bow of the ship. After getting in two miles, the fault being still overboard,-the engine's eccentric gear and the picking-up machinery got out of order, and the cable unfortunately snapped asunder. The machinery was still in motion, the cable and the rope travelled aft together, one towards the capstan, the other towards the drum, when, just as the cable reached the dynamometer, it parted, thirty feet from the bow, and with one bound leaped, as it were, over and flashed into the sea.

It is not pos

sible for any words to portray the dismay with which the sight was witnessed and the news heard. It was enough to move one to tears, and when a man came aft with the inner end still lashed to the chain, and one saw the tortured strands, torn wires, and lacerated core, it is no exaggeration to say that a strange feeling of pity, as though for some sentient creature mutilated and dragged asunder by brutal force, passed through the hearts of the spectators.' It was at once resolved to put the Great Eastern over the track of the cable, and if possible lift it with the powerful grapnel apparatus on board. The last attempt was made on the 11th. At 9.40 P. M. Greenwich time, just as 765 fathoms had been got in, a shackle on the hemp hawser passed through the machinery, and in a moment afterwards the rope parted near the capstan, and flew over the bow with a whistling sound like the rush of a round shot. Signal was at once made to the Terrible, orders were given to get up steam, and all haste made to return from the disastrous spot. After a parting salute from the Terrible, the Great Eastern turned homeward, and reached Crookhaven on the 17th, and Sheerness on the 20th.

4.-Died at Blackhills, near Elgin, W. E. Aytoun, Professor of Rhetoric in the University of Edinburgh, and author of "Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers," &c.

Frightful ravages by the cholera at Constantinople; as many as 2,000 are said to have died to-day.

8.-Stephen Forwood, alias Ernest Southey, murders three children of a woman with whom he cohabited, and then shoots his own wife and child. Three children, boys, were brought by Southey, on the 6th, to a coffee-house in Red Lion-street, Holborn, to be provided with beds for a night or two preparatory to their leaving for Australia. On Tuesday evening, the 7th, he saw them off to bed, the two youngest, aged six and eight, in one room, the eldest, aged ten, in another. He returned to the house soon after this, asked for a candle to see

that the children were all right, remained upstairs with them a short time, and went away, promising to return in the morning. In the morning the children did not come down, and on the chambermaid entering the room, she found them all dead-apparently suffocated. Steps were immediately taken to discover the man who had brought the children to the coffee-house, but he was not apprehended before he had greatly aggravated the horror of his crime. The children, it appeared, were not his own, but belonged to a woman named White, who lived away from her husband, and with Southey. His own wife was living in dis tress with her daughter at Ramsgate. Thither Southey went the morning following, and, gaining access to the room which they occupied, shot both wife and daughter dead at the fireplace. He was immediately taken into custody, when it was found that he was the person "wanted" for the triple murder in Red Lion-street. Southey was known to have been living a loose blackguard life lately, frequenting gaming-houses, and trying to entrap thoughtless players into his toils. He now threw the blame of his crimes on "Society.' "I charge back," he said, "the guilt of these crimes on those high dignitaries of the State, the Church, and Justice, who have turned i deaf ear to my heartbroken appeals who have refused me fellow-help in all my frenzied efforts, my exhausted struggles; who have impiously denied the sacredness of human life, the mutual dependence of man, and the fundamental and sacred principles of which our social system itself is based.” Southey was committed to Maidstone Gaol on the verdict of the coroner's jury, and tried at the assizes in December, for the murder of his wife and daughter. An attempt was made to feign madness, and even to prove it in evidence, but the jury, after a few minutes' deliberation, brought in a verdict of Guilty. The murderer was executed at Maidstone on the 11th January, 1866.

10. Mr. Secretary Seward, in acknowledg ing the receipt of an interlocutory degree pronounced by the Vice-Chancellor, in the case of the United States against Prideaux and others, to recover 1,356 bales of cotton, writes to Mr. Adams :-"The United States do not admit that the combination of disloyal citizens which have raised the standard of insurrection is now, or at any time has been, a Government de facto, or in any sense a political power, capable of giving, taking, holding, or maintaining corporate rights in any form, whether municipal or international."

11.-Died, at his house in Wimpole-street, Joseph Parkes, Esq., Taxing Master in Exchequer, a Liberal politician of much influence, and the compiler of an ingenious argument identifying the author of the Junius Letters with Sir Philip Francis.

John Curry, from an upper window. The murderer was seen to give a smile of satisfaction when the victim of his revenge dropped into the arms of a brother-officer, and permitted himself quietly to be taken into custody. He was tried for the crime at the Central Criminal Court, found guilty, and executed at Maidstone October 12.

12.-Died, at Kew, aged 80, Sir William Hooker, F.R.S., Curator of the Royal Botanic Gardens.

14. Convention of Gastein, dividing the Danish Duchies between Prussia and Austria -the latter to occupy one, Prussia to defend both. Austria to cede Lauenberg to Prussia for 2,500,000 Danish dollars; Kiel to be made a Federal harbour for the new German fleet. Concerning this treaty, Earl Russell wrote, "All rights, old or new, whether based upon a solemn agreement between Sovereigns, or on the clear and precise expression of the popular will, have been trodden under foot by the Gastein Convention, and the authority of force is the sole power which has been consulted and recognised. Violence and conquest, such are the chief bases upon which the dividing Powers have established the Convention. The smaller German States manifested their opposition to the Convention in the Diet at Frankfort.

15.-Bishop Colenso leaves England for

Natal.

The English fleet visits Cherbourg, and is received with great honour and hospitality.

Prince Alfred's cook stabbed by Count Eulenberg, during a street-brawl in Bonn. 17.-The Brazilian allies defeat the Paraguayans, and march upon Corrientes.

20.-Interview between the Emperor of Austria and the King of Prussia at Salzburg. Convention of Gastein confirmed.

The emigrant ship Eagle Speed wrecked on Roy Mutlah sands, Calcutta, with 947 passengers, principally coolies, on board, 265 of whom were lost principally through the carelessness and inhumanity of the crew.

23. Esther Lock, Bankside, Southwark, while labouring under great mental depression, murders her three children by cutting their throats.

Constance Kent makes a further detailed confession as to the manner in which she accomplished the murder of the infant Richard Saville Kent. She was examined by Dr. Bucknill and Mr. Rodway, her solicitor, with the permission of the Lord Chancellor. former reported that "A few days before the murder she obtained possession of a razor from a green case in her father's wardrobe, and secreted it. she used.

The

This was the sole instrument which She also secreted a candle, with matches, in a corner of the closet in the garden, where the murder was committed. On the night of the murder she undressed

She

herself and went to bed, because she expected that her sister would visit her room. watched until she thought all the household were asleep, and soon after midnight she left her bedroom, went downstairs, and opened the drawing-room door and window-shutters. She next went up into the nursery, withdrew the blanket from between the sheet and counterpane, and placed it on the side of the cot. She then took the child from his bed and carried him downstairs. She had on her night-dress, and in the drawing-room put on her goloshes. Having the child in one arm, she raised the drawing-room window with the other hand, went round the house and into the closet, lighted the candle, and placed it on the seat. The child was wrapped

in the blanket and still asleep, and while he was in this position she inflicted the wound in the throat. She says that she thought that the blood would never come, and that the child was not killed; so she thrust the razor into its left side, and put the body, with the blanket round it, into the vault. The light burned out. The piece of flannel which she had with her was torn from an old flannel garment placed in the waste bag, and which she had taken some time before and used in washing herself. She went back into her bedroom, examined her night-dress, and found only two spots of blood on it. These she washed out in the basin, and threw the water, which was but little discoloured, into the pan in which she had washed her feet. She put on another of her night-dresses and got into bed. In the morning her night-dress had become dry where it had been washed. She folded it up and put it into the drawer. Her three nightdresses were examined by Mr. Foley, the police superintendent, and she believes also by Mr. Parsons, the medical adviser of the family. She thought the blood stains had been effectually washed out, but on holding the dress up to the light a day or two afterwards, she found that the stains were still visible. She secreted the dress, moving it from place to place, and eventually burned it in her own bedroom, putting the ashes or tinder into the kitchen grate. It was about five or six days after the child's death, that she burned the night-dress. On the Saturday morning, having cleaned the razor, she took an opportunity of replacing it unobserved in the case in the wardrobe. She abstracted her night-dress from the clothes-basket when the housemaid went to fetch a glass of water. The stained garment found in the boiler hole had no connexion whatever with the deed. As regards the motive of her crime," says Dr. Bucknill, "it seems that, although she entertained at one time a great regard for the present Mrs. Kent, yet if any remark was at any time made which in her opinion was disparaging to any member of the first family, she treasured it up and determined to avenge it. She had no ill-will against the little boy except as one of the children of her stepmother." She said she had not said her