13 MARCH 1880

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%* TheEdifors cannot undertake to return Manuscript in any case.

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Lord Beaconsfield took the unusual course of leading off the

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election addresses himself, notwithstanding the little difficulty that, as a peer, he had no constituents to address. Of this difficulty he turned the flank, as the strategists...

Lord Hartington's address is a calm, solid, and thoroughly well-reasoned

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manifesto, occasionally very felicitous in its wording. He begins by repudiating the insinuations in Lord Beaconsfield's letter. He knows of no party " which challenges the...

NEWS OF THE WEEK

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P ARLIAMENT is to be dissolved. The official proclamation will appear on the 24th inst., the writs will be issued at once, and by the middle of next month we shall all know...

Sir Stafford Northcote's address to the electors of North Devon

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is a very different, and rather humble document. He praises the present Parliament, as having " upheld the honour of "the country, and vindicated its claim to its proper rank...

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Sir Stafford Northcote's Budget proposals on Thursday were at once

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simple and confused,—very simple in substance, but delivered in a slovenly and confused form not usual with the Minister. The revenue of last year, estimated at £83,055,000,....

There is to be no debate on Afghan policy before

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the election, . Sir Stafford Northcote having definitively refused to allow a day for the purpose. That does not matter much, as politicians can say what they have to say...

Lord Beaconsfield has clearly infuriated the Irish Members. Mr. Shaw,

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the leader of the Home-rulers, and the most moderate man among them, asserts that no Ministry within his memory has done less for the content of Ireland, and declares that the...

The Clubs arc full of prognostics of the result of

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the elec- tion, none of which are worth much, except as regards uncon- tested seats. Southwark is evidence on the Tory side, and Elgin on the Liberal side, that under the...

The Government on Thursday pressed the second reading of their

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Corrupt Practices Bill, which contains a new clause of some interest. The payment of conveyances for voters in boroughs is legalised. Apparently, this is quite fair, as the...

Of course, this implies that Sir Stafford Northcote sacrifices altogether

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his plan for reducing the National Debt by paying all the difference between £28,000,000 and the interest required every year towards that object. Or rather, it merges this...

A whole week has passed without a political assassination in

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Russia, but it is said that General Loris Melikoff is ill with excitement and overwork. Ile has as yet laid down no general plan of action, but he executed, with military...

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In the same speech, Lord Emly made a sharp and

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most just attack on the Irish Secretary, Mr. Lowther, for one of his violent and exceedingly loose speeches on Irish subjects, lately delivered at Kendal, in which he, the...

The French Government has finally decided against the ex- tradition

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of Hartmann, the man accused of blowing up the Czar's train. They plead that the evidence of identity is not sufficient, and, in the absence of a Court which could decide that...

The Prince Imperial of Austria, Rudolph, has this week been

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betrothed to the Princess Clotilde, a daughter of the King of the Belgians, now only sixteen years old. The arrangement seems to have given great satisfaction in all the States...

Lord Beaconsfield has secured a certain amount of favour with

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the Evangelical party, by giving the Deanery of Salisbury to the Rev. John Charles Ryle, a canon of Norwich, and one of the chief lights of that party. The new Dean of Salisbury...

Yesterday week Sir Wilfrid Lawson brought in his resolution in

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favour of giving the householders of any licensing district a " local option," permitting them to restrain the multiplication of public-houses in that district ; but he was not...

The debate on the Navy Estimates on Monday is principally

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valuable for these facts. Mr. Ward Hunt, when he took the Admiralty, said he found nothing but a "phantom Fleet." Yet it was that Fleet, built by the Liberals, which, according...

Lord Emly, yesterday week, called the attention of the House

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of Lords to the persistent unwillingness of the Unions in the West of Ireland to use their power of sus- pending the ordinary rules, and give out-door relief to the starving...

Consols were on Friday 971 to 97.

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On Tuesday, the French Senate rejected Clause 7 of M.

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-Jules Ferry's Education Bill,—the clause reviving reli- gious persecution in France in the form of a proposal to prohibit to non-authorised religions societies the right to...

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TOPICS OF THE DAY.

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THE APPEAL TO THE COUNTRY. T HIS Parliament has been sentenced at last, and will be executed on March 24th. It is possible that the precise date was settled some months ago, and...

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LORD BEACONSFIELD'S MANIFESTO.

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TA ORD BEACONSFIELD adheres steadily to his rococo style,—the style in which he described the victories of the Abyssinian war as having resulted in planting " the Standard of...

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THE BUDGET.

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S LR STAFFORD NORTHCOTE'S good resolutions have gone the historical way of good resolutions in general. His Sinking Fund for the National Debt as he found it, has been seized...

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THE TORIES AND THE IRISH.

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T HE Tory leaders are showing a great contempt for political morals in their language about Ireland, and we are not sure they are not making a great blunder in tactics. They...

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THE DEFEAT OF M. JULES FERRY'S CLAUSE. T HE victory of

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the Moderate Liberals in the French Senate, —for it is really their victory, though it could not have been won without the aid of men who are not Liberal at all, —is a very...

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THE WITHDRAWN WATER BILL.

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IT is a great pity that the progress of Mr. Cross's Water Bill was stopped by the announcement of the coming Dis- solution. That Bill was the one really great measure intro-...

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MR. GLADSTONE'S ADDRESS.

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W E take the unusual course of placing Mr. Gladstone's Address in our editorial columns. In language which it would be difficult to improve and impossible to condense without...

THE SECRET OF MEMORY.

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I a curious, though not, we fear, very valuable little treatise, 1 on " The Secret of a Good Memory," just published by Messrs. Bogue, Mr. Mortimer-Granville offers to the world...

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THE SCANDALS OP PURCHASE IN THE CHURCH.

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The theory of private patronage is a very good one. The distribution of the right of presentation to livings over so large a number of patrons secures variety in the schools of...

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LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.

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THE PRESENT LIBERAL POSITION. (TO THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR:1 STR,—The present moment in politics is one of critical import for the community, in one respect. The Liberal...

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" THE PRESENCE, NOT TO SAY ASCENDANCY, OF ENGLAND IN

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THE COUNSELS OF EUROPE." (TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR.") SIR,—This pretentious phrase of our Caucasian Premier sounds like a mockery, when we contrast it with the position,...

PARLIAMENTARY REPORTING.

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[TO THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR.") SIR,—You have not infrequently of late expressed concern at the manifest decline of Parliamentary Reporting in English journals. Let me...

"FERVENT ATHEISM."

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[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR.") SIR,—Having quite casually picked up the Spectator for February 21st, 1880, I had the pleasure of reading there a very clever and telling...

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POETRY.

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AN INCIDENT. UNARMED and unattended walks the Czar, Through Moscow's busy street one winter's day.. The crowd uncover as his face they see,- " God greet the Czar !" they say....

"THE FIEND DISCRETION."

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[TO THE EDITOR OF THE SPECTATOR."] SrR,—In your recent review of the new edition of Daniel Webster's " Speeches," your critic calls attention to a quotation made in it from...

ART.

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• THE " CORNHILL " ON DRAWING-ROOMS. IN a readable article in this month's Cornhill, Mr. Grant Allen has described at some length the decorations and appoint- ments of the...

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BOOKS.

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JOHN DE WITT AND THE HOME-RULERS OF HOLLAND.* WE shall be happy to meet Mr. Geddes again,—upon some other subject. What strange freak induced him to select John de Witt for a...

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RAJAH BROOKE.* Ix the mouth of June, 1868, there died,

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in a quiet and peaceful retreat in the West of England, a man whose history forms one of the romances of real life of the nineteenth century. The mortal remains of the Rajah of...

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MR. PERRY'S "ST. HUGH OF LINCOLN."* WE reviewed in these

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columns, now more than fourteen years ago, the late Mr. Dimock's edition of the Magna Vita Sti. Ilagonis, one of the series published under the superintendence of the Master of...

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MADEMOISELLE 1)E MERSAC.*

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THE leading idea of Mr. Norris's story is a simple one. A woman is loved by two men,—by one passionately and un- selfishly, by the other selfishly and imaginatively. She herself...

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THE GREATEST MEN IN RELIGION.* Tins is the third of

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the series of portfolios containing portraits and sketches of the lives of the hundred greatest men. This port- folio is entitled. " Religion," and divides the subject into...

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CURRENT LITERATURE.

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Eastern Cities and Italian Towns. By R. P. Pullen. (Stanford.) —The author of these brief notes of wanderings in Palestine, Egypt, and Italy gives us some chatty chapters about...

A LITTLE LIGHT ON CRETE.*

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IT is an obvious reflection that we have not heard the last of Crete, and this very clever little work, though very one-sided in its view, is a contribution towards the proper...

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Classical Revision, of the New Testament. By W. Nicolson, M.A.

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(Williams and Norgate.)—The author has based his researches on the principle that the Greek of the New Testament is more strictly classical than has usually been supposed. He...

Burnham Beeches. By Francis George Heath. (Sampson Low and Co.)—We

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were requested, we have just observed, nearly six Months ago, to give " an early notice " of this little book. We will do what we can now. Mr. Heath has written a most readable...

NOVELS.—Mrs. Lancaster's Rival. 3 vols. (Sampson Low and Co.) —This

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is a curiously infelicitous name for a really good story. Mrs. Lancaster is a consummate flirt, who would not interest us at all, but that she happens to be badly treated by a...

A Treatise on Metalliferous Minerals and Mining. By D. C.

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Davies. (Crosby Lockwood and Co.)—This pleasant-looking and substantial A Treatise on Metalliferous Minerals and Mining. By D. C. Davies. (Crosby Lockwood and Co.)—This...

Electro-plating. By J. W. Urquhart. (Crosby Lockwood and Co.)— Not

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a bad practical manual of the art of depositing metals by electric agency. The author makes no pretensions to scientific knowledge on his own part, nor does he demand any such...

Boys and Their Ways : a Book for and about

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Boys. By One who knows Them. (Hogg.)—A very well put together and readable volume, full of good advice, judicious reflection, and apposite anecdote. One or two little blemishes...

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Mitchell's Newspaper Directory for 1880.—This useful Press annual, which has

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now reached its thirty-fifth year, not only furnishes details concerning the daily and weekly newspapers, periodicals, and monthly and quarterly magazines, &c., published in the...

Extra Physics and the Mystery of Creation. (Hodder and Stoughton.)

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—This is an attack on the physicists, specially on Professor Tyndal, " their great High Priest." The author tries to wring out of his admissions the notion of a "free human...

considerable utility and importance. It is described on the title-page

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as " A New and Original Work of Reference to All the Words in the Eng- lish Language, with a Full Account of their Origin, Meaning, Pronuncia- ticn, and Use." It may be briefly...

In Sheep's Clothing. By Mrs. Harry Bennett-Edwards. 3 vols. (Samuel

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Tinsley.)—Here we have a melodramatic story, which seems to us to bear no relation to real life. A young girl, who has grown up with a belief that the last of the Aylmers (who...

The Rosicrucians : their Rites and Mysteries. By Hargrave Jennings.

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Second Edition. Revised, corrected, and considerably enlarged. (Chatto and Windus.)—" This book purports to be a his- tory (for the first time seriously treated in English) of...