13. The new Italian Coalition Cabinet, under the leadership of the Marquis di Rudini, constituted and accepted by the King.

The troops which had occupied Tirah in the Afridi country withdrawn in consequence of the difficulties of transport during the winter months.

In consequence of the joint action of the British and Persian authorities rifles and ammunition valued at 25,000l., destined for the Indian tribes, confiscated at Bushire, on the Persian Gulf.

The expedition against Mat Salleh, the rebel leader in North Borneo, having stormed the outer fort, had to withdraw with loss, an inner fortress having been formed.

14. A serious fire broke out in the officers' quarters at Dover Castle, and one wing of the new buildings was completely gutted.

In the House of Lords judgment was delivered in the case of Allen v. Flood, to the hearing of which eight judges had been summoned. Their lordships, by six to three, reversed the judgments of the courts below, finding that it was not illegal for a trades union to prevent by legal means the employment of a non-unionist by his employers.

Mr. W. Kenny, Q.C., M.P., Solicitor-General for Ireland, appointed Judge of the High Court (Ireland), and Mr. Dunbar Barton, Q.C., M.P., Solicitor-General in his place.

15. The New Zealand Legislative Council by 20 to 15 votes rejected the Old Age Pensions Bill.

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At the Hague the Second Chamber of the States-General, by 46 to 41 votes, refused to vote 300,000l. for building a battleship of an improved type, whereupon the Minister of Marine resigned.

At a farewell banquet in Kiel Castle given in honour of Prince Henry of Prussia on his leaving for his command in Chinese waters, his brother, the German Emperor, made an important speech on his duty to extend the empire his predecessors had bequeathed to him.

16. Mr. William Terriss, a popular actor, as he was entering the private door of the Adelphi Theatre, London, fatally stabbed by a man who had been employed as a supernumerary at the theatre.

Wrottesley Hall, near Wolverhampton, a fine building over 200 years old, completely destroyed by fire, together with much of its valuable contents.

The Turco-Greek treaty of peace formally ratified by the respective sovereigns of the two countries concerned.

The British occupation of Buna in the West African Hinterland confirmed.

17. After a renewed conference of the engineers, extending over three days, a fresh provisional agreement was drawn up, differing slightly from that rejected by the men, and a fresh vote was agreed to be taken. The first test match between Mr. Stoddart's team and the eleven of Australia played at Sydney, resulting in the victory of the Englishmen by nine wickets. Scores: England, first innings 551, second (for one wicket) 96. Australia, first innings 237, second 408.

17. The Natal Legislature having agreed to the annexation of Zululand to the colony, the Premier started to formally take over the territory.

Colonel Ruiz, General Blanco's aide-de-camp, who had been sent to make peace proposals to the Cuban insurgents on the basis of autonomy, shot by order of the insurgent chief, Mayia Rodriquez,. together with several insurgents who were ready to treat with the Spanish leader.

18. The Russian fleet, it was announced, would with the consent of China winter at Port Arthur. It was stated at the same time that this step was not a hostile demonstration against any Power, European or Asiatic.

The remains of Voltaire and Rousseau discovered to be preserved in the Pantheon, an official investigation having been made by order of the Minister of Education. Voltaire's skull was found to be severed

from the body.

- A dense fog lasting several hours hung over London and the southern counties and the Channel, interrupting traffic and causing several serious accidents.

20. At a meeting held at Marlborough House Lord Rothschild, as Treasurer of the Prince of Wales' Hospital Fund, announced that the total amount received was 187,000l., of which 20,500l. was annual subscriptions, and that about 40,000l. was expected to be received from the sale of the Hospital Jubilee stamps.

The leaders of the Young Czech party in Prague issued an aggressive manifesto to the Bohemian nation, but the newspapers publishing it were at once confiscated.

Prince Henry of Prussia, in command of the German man-of-war Deutschland, arrived at Spithead, and having visited the Queen at Osborne, came to London.

21. The Russian Government having notified the Japanese Government of the temporary occupation of Port Arthur, a Japanese squadron at once left Nagasaki.

At Bow Street Police Court James Barry and five others, charged with the manslaughter of Walter Croot, killed in a boxing competition, discharged, all the proceedings having been shown to be strictly legal.

22. Dr. G. H. Rendall, principal of University College, Liverpool, a layman, appointed head master of Charterhouse School, in succession to Rev. Canon Haig Brown.

The Canadian and United States Commissioners, appointed under the Behring Straits Fisheries Arbitration, agreed to fix at $464,000 the losses suffered by Canadian sealers from seizures by United States cruisers.

A telegram from Calcutta stated that the total casualties during the recent campaign against the hillsmen amounted to 433 killed and 1,321 wounded, of whom 36 killed and 81 wounded were British officers. The Khaibar Pass and the abandoned forts, Mesjid and Maude, were occupied without molestation.

23. M. Albert Vandal received at the French Academy in succession to M. Léon Say, whose eulogy he pronounced.

The Pope gave his customary Christmas reception to the cardinals, and in a long speech dwelt on the conflict between Church and State in Italy, but held out no prospect of an agreement.

The Egyptian troops and friendly native Arabs, under orders from Colonel Parsons, attacked the Dervish position at El Fasher and Osobri, capturing the former with slight loss, and completely investing the latter fort.

24. A second ballot of the engineers taken on the revised masters' management proposals and the fifty-one hours suggestion of the men's delegates. In both cases the majority of the men was against acceptance. The total vote was one-sixth smaller than on the first ballot, about 52,000 voting, of whom 43,000 were members of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers.

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The Christmas traffic, especially in London and the neighbourhood, seriously impeded by a dense fog, which, with slight intermission, lasted with a sharp frost for forty-eight hours.

The projected reduction of postage on letters sent from Canada to points within the empire indefinitely postponed, the imperial authorities wishing to establish a general reduction with all other colonies.

The Japanese Diet, in which a vote of want of confidence in the Ministry was inevitable, suddenly dissolved by the Mikado. The Cabinet nevertheless resigned on the difficulty of raising revenue to meet the greatly increased expenditure on military and naval services.

25. A serious accident occurred on the Paris and Marseilles Railway near Péage-de-Roussillon, one express train running into the rear of another which had broken down. Three persons were killed and fifteen injured.

Chicago Coliseum, said to be the largest building of the kind in the world, in which a manufacturers' exhibition was being held, totally destroyed by fire, nine employees being burnt to death and forty injured.

The formal cession of Kassala by the Italians to the Egyptian troops under Colonel Parsons took place at noon, the Italians withdrawing to their new frontier at Zabderat.

27. A destructive fire broke out in a large drapery shop at King's Lynn, and raging fiercely for six hours, destroyed thirteen business premises and property valued at over 100,000l.

A fire also destroyed a considerable portion of the buildings on the pier at Weston-super-Mare.

The prosecution of the directors of the Union Bank of St. John's, Newfoundland, abandoned by the Crown, and a verdict of not guilty as in the similar case of the Commercial Bank entered; the former paid 80c. and the latter 20c. in the dollar to its creditors.

28. The thirteenth Indian National Congress, attended by upwards of 700 delegates, met at Amrati, and elected as president Mr. Sankaran Nayar, a prominent member of the Malabar community and a member of the Legislative Council of Madras.

The Peshawur column of troops under General Hammond reached Landi Kotal without opposition; the enemy however occupied the heights.

A great fire occurred at Port-au-Prince (Hayti), by which 800 houses, a church and a hotel were destroyed, and 3,000 persons rendered homeless. While the fire was raging an earthquake lasting several seconds added to the general terror.

29. The Dervish post at Osobri, the one important post between Kassala and Khartoum, taken by the Egyptian troops after a protracted defence by the Dervishes.

-President M'Kinley signed the bill prohibiting, under heavy penalties, pelagic sealing, and the importation of pelagic sealskins and the wearing of sealskin cloaks and jackets of foreign manufacture.

The total returns of plague cases from Bombay showed up to date 14,257 cases and 11,882 deaths during the renewed outbreak.

30. A severe south-westerly gale, accompanied by heavy rains, raged along the southern coasts of Ireland and England, interrupting the mail services with the continent and causing great damage to shipping.

-After protracted proceedings, which generally were regarded as scandalous, all the defendants in the Panama trial were acquitted by the jury.

The United States Government, under pretext of rendering aid, proposed to send a military relief expedition to Klondike, but the proposal was strongly opposed by the Dominion Government.

31. Sir Henry Havelock-Allan, M.P., who had been studying the frontier questions on the spot, separated from his escort while riding through the Khaibar Pass, and was shot by the hostile Afridis.

The Emperor of Austria closed the sittings of the Austrian Diet by proclamation, and issued a rescript continuing for six months the existing financial relations of the Dual Monarchy.

RETROSPECT

OF

LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART IN 1897.

LITERATURE.

DURING the early part of the year, owing to the absorbing interest in foreign politics and to the excitements of the diamond jubilee celebrations, book publication-especially of literature proper-languished. The most important issues were reserved for the last quarter of the year, when the output assumed its normal conditions.

There has been a steady growth of the literature of knowledge, of patient important research in nearly every branch of scholarship and science; while of the literature that belongs primarily to the realm of fine art, and therefore of a less transient nature, there is little to chronicle. To this category belong the classical editions of the writings of Robert Louis Stevenson (Chatto) and of George Meredith (Constable), although fiction finds no place in this survey.

POETRY.

The finest verse of the year comes from the so-called youngest writers. Mr. Francis Thompson's New Poems (Constable) sustain his reputation. If there is a greater austerity of beauty there is no lack of imagery, no pause in the procession of thought; the poems are marked by lofty spiritual penetration. The slender volume, Earth's Breath (Lane), by the mystical poet who signs himself" Æ.," contains essential poetry, the impassioned expression of a deeply wrought seer. Ireland and other Poems (Mathews), by Lionel Johnson, is the work of a scholar and poet who has the genius of architectural verse, of dignified syllabic melody. The greatest sensation has been made by two of the most recent verse writers: Mr. Henry Newbolt's slim volume, Admirals All (Mathews), consists of stirring sea ballads, with swinging rhythm and ring; full of the freshness and grit that characterised our sea singers of the seventeenth century. Mr. Stephen Phillips strikes a more solemn and stately note in his volume of very beautiful Poems (Lane), and indeed "Marpessa" is one of the finest poems of recent days. To this volume was awarded the prize of 100 guineas granted by the Academy to the work which seemed to it of most signal merit written in 1897. Mr. Theodore Watts-Dunton's long-looked-for volume, The Coming of Love and other Poems (Lane), has at length appeared, and been cordially