income not required, in the opinion of the trustees, for the purposes previously specified, among such of the medical charities of the borough as the trustees should consider deserving of help. Six trustees are nominated by the donor, and power is reserved to the Town Council to appoint four others as official trustees to cooperate in administering the trust. Mr. Dudley has also made a small bequest of about 1,000l. in favour of certain of the medical charities of the town.

17. GREAT SNOWSTORMS have passed over various parts of the kingdom during the past week, accompanied by violent gales. In London the snow was heaviest on Sunday, the 12th, when the steamboat traffic on the River was for a time suspended; and the wind caused many accidents by breaking the telegraph wires. In one case the wire fell round the neck of a horsekeeper who was driving an omnibus into a stable at Islington, and all but severed his head from his body, causing instant death. The river rose to a great height, and a large barge was carried by the tide against London Bridge, when it foundered. Many disasters occurred in the Channel. On the same day the Empress of Austria, returning from a visit to the Queen at Windsor Castle, was detained nearly two hours at Slough, owing to the snowstorm and gale, the wind having blown down the telegraph wires and obstructed the railway. Luncheon was provided for Her Imperial Majesty by Mr. Albert Hart, the station-master. On the 14th the wind again rose with tremendous force, and several fine elms were blown down in the grounds of the Count de Paris, near Twickenham, in Richmond Park, and other places.

The greatest severity of the snowstorm was felt in Scotland, where the railways were completely blocked in many places. Trains were stopped for hours together, unable to move backwards or forwards, and all that the companies could do for the passengers was to despatch provisions for them, and to make them as comfortable as circumstances would allow in the carriages during the night.

18. NORTHUMBERLAND AVENUE.-The new street from Charing Cross to the Victoria Thames Embankment, over the site of Northumberland House and its gardens, which was the last remaining example of the old palatial mansions of English nobility in the Strand, was opened this day. The length of this new thoroughfare is 1,000 ft., and its width is 90 ft., divided into a carriageway of 60 ft., and two footways, each 15 ft. wide, the gradient for one-half its length being one in ninety, and the remainder practically level. Carriage and foot way communications have been formed with Northumberland Street, Craven Street, and Scotland Yard, the first of which it is proposed to widen. A subway for gas and water pipes has been formed along the entire length of the street; one of the main sewers, known as the Northumberland Street sewer, has been diverted for a portion of its length to bring it under the site of the public way, and a new sewer formed under the subway for the drainage of the houses to be erected in the new

street. Trees have been planted on the footways next the kerb, making the approach correspond in character with the roadway on the Embankment. The new street was designed and completed by Sir J. W. Bazalgette, C.B., engineer, and Mr. G. Vulliamy, architect, for the Metropolitan Board of Works. The contract was let to Messrs. Mowlem and Co., on June 25 last, for the sum of 15,750l. This did not, however, include the carriage-way paving, which is of wood, and which has been executed by the Improved Wood Paving Company, at a cost of about 4,500l. The money expended in the purchase of property amounts to about 643,7541., including 500,000l. for Northumberland House and estate, but the Board will obtain a very large sum by disposing of the surplus land. The opening ceremony was very, short and simple. Sir James Hogg, chairman of the Metropolitan Board of Works, with the officers and several members of that body, walked through Northumberland Avenue; and the chairman delivered a brief address, stating the facts above mentioned.

21. ROYAL NATIONAL LIFE-BOAT INSTITUTION.-The annual general meeting of the friends and supporters of this noble institution was held to-day, at the London Tavern. The Duke of Northumberland, president of the institution, being unable from ill-health to be present, his son, Earl Percy, M.P., occupied the chair. The meeting was influentially and numerously attended. The annual report was read, stating that during the past year the Institution's life-boats, 254 in number, had saved 727 persons, nearly the whole of them under perilous circumstances, when ordinary boats could not have been employed without extreme risk to those on board them. During the past year twelve silver medals, eighteen votes of thanks inscribed on vellum, and 3,2891. had been granted by the society for saving 727 lives by life-boats and 195 lives by fishing-boats and other means. The number of lives saved, from its first establishment to the present time, either by its life-boats or by special exertions for which it had granted rewards, was 23,7901.

STATISTICS OF RELIGIOUS BODIES.-At a meeting of the Statistical Society, Mr. James Heywood, F.R.S., in the chair, a paper by Mr. Herbert S. Skeats was read "On Statistics Relating to the support of Religious Institutions," meaning by the term public societies having for their object the advancement of the Christian religion, and the support of the various places of worship connected with that religion. It seems that in 1851 there were 14,162 places of worship connected with the Established Church, and 20,569 with other churches. Since that period there has been a large increase. In the diocese of London the places connected with the Established Church have increased in number from 486 to 559; 154 new churches had been built in the diocese of Durham. In the diocese of Winchester the increase has been from 668 to 791. There are, therefore, now probably in all England between 18,000 and 19,000, an increase of

more than 4,000 in the twenty-five years. Among other denominations the increase has been similar, and the whole number of Nonconformist places of worship may be reckoned at above 28,000. As to the support of religious worship, the endowments of the bishoprics are about 155,000l. and of the cathedrals about 300,000l. per annum. The last return of the rentcharge payable to incumbents was 2,410,000l., but these amounts had been largely supplemented by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, who give half a million a year in augmentation of benefices. The writer estimated that the Nonconformists contributed about 17. per attendant per annum; or a total of about 6,000,000l. per annum. There were also large revenues spent by religious societies, amounting to 1,678,264. In reply to some remarks as to the grand total, Mr. Skeats said the amount contributed in England was about 16,000,000l. a year for religious purposes.

25. A GREAT JEWEL ROBBERY has been perpetrated at the premises of Messrs. Williams and Son, manufacturing jewellers, of 108 Hatton Garden. The value of the property stolen is estimated at 25,000l., the actual loss to the firm being about 20,000l.; and, if broken up, it is said, the jewels, "pinched" from their settings, would be worth more than 15,000l.

It had been the custom of the firm to leave the place at night without any person sleeping there. For protection against robbery Messrs. Williams appear, in fact, to have relied entirely on the quality of the safes and the illuminating effect of the gaslights, which after dusk were always kept burning at the full; and it has been conjectured that the entrance of the thieves, if not the robbery itself, was effected somewhere about dusk, that is, about seven o'clock on the Saturday evening. The principal partner, on visiting the place about one o'clock on Sunday afternoon, found the street-door in its usual state, and by means of a Chubb's key got into the counting-house. On his entering the latter everything at first seemed to him to be in perfect order, the jewel safes, which were kept in the counting-house, being all locked. On turning round, however, he saw some cases lying on the counter, and discovered that their contents had been abstracted. He went home for the keys of the safes, and found on opening them that they had been rifled of the most costly articles, things of lesser value being left untouched, and then carefully relocked.

A reward of 600l. has been offered for information leading to the apprehension and conviction of the thief or thieves and the recovery of the jewellery.

28. BOILER EXPLOSION.-The boiler of the locomotive of a ballast train, while half-way between Kilmarnock and Irvine, on the Glasgow and South-Western Railway, burst to-day. The driver, fireman, and guard were killed, and two surface men died shortly afterwards. Nine other men were dreadfully injured. The engine, which was running with the tender in front, was thrown right over

the van, tearing away one of its sides, and fell on the carriage behind, crushing it to pieces. The van kept the rails, and ran 150 yards after passing under the engine. The tender was not stopped till it had passed Dreghorn station.

29. THE QUEEN'S VISIT TO GERMANY.-The Queen, accompanied by Princess Beatrice, and attended by the Dowager Marchioness of Ely, Lady Churchill, Sir William Jenner, General Ponsonby, and Col. the Hon. H. Byng, arrived to-day at BadenBaden, where she was met by the Earl and Countess of Derby. Her Majesty left Windsor Castle on the 27th, and crossed the Channel from Portsmouth to Cherbourg in the "Victoria and Albert" steam yacht. By the Queen's express orders no salute was fired, and in traversing France she took the Paris Ceinture line, thus avoiding the capital itself. Her Majesty travelled under the name of Countess of Kent.

THE PLAGUE, which for the last two years has appeared now and again in villages on the Lower Euphrates, has now broken out at Hillah, and some cases have occurred at Bagdad. "The disease," remarks the Times, "has been absent from this country for more than 150 years, and from the continent of Europe, and from its once favourite haunts in Egypt, Syria, and Mesopotamia for about 40 years. The recent outbreaks, however, have shown no diminution of the old virulence, and there can be little doubt, when the present state of commercial communication is considered, that the malady will soon be conveyed from Bagdad to the Levant. From the Levant it might easily pass to Europe, and even to our own shores."

30. MURDER AT BLACKBURN.-A horrible murder was brought to light this day by the discovery, in the neighbourhood of Blackburn, of parts of the body of a little girl of about seven years old; they were identified as belonging to a child named Emily Holland, who was missing. The child had been last seen to come out of a tobacconist's shop, to take a small packet to a man who was standing in the street, and to go away with him; but attempts to identify this man proved unsatisfactory. The police at length had recourse to a method of detection which recalls past times. They called the sagacity of the dog to their aid, and endeavoured to put a bloodhound on the scent. They took the animal in the first instance to the spot where the limbs of the child already recovered had been found, in order, if possible, to discover the rest. In this, however, they were unsuccessful, and they then resolved to take the dog to two houses against the occupiers of which suspicion was entertained. In the first of these the dog betrayed no excitement; but it had no sooner entered the second than it began to give evidence of its detection of some scent. It led the police at length to the fireplace of an upper room, and there, concealed in the chimney, were discovered the head and several bones of the child, with portions of clothing. The occupier, a barber, named Fish, was at once arrested, and when in prison made a confession

C

of the crime. He acknowledged having sent the girl for half-anounce of tobacco, and on her return having decoyed her upstairs. Fish was tried for the murder at the next assizes, found guilty, and condemned to death.

APRIL.

3. THE EMPRESS OF AUSTRIA quitted England to-day, after a visit of a month, the greater part of which time she passed at Easton Neston Park, in Northamptonshire, where Her Majesty enjoyed the hunting season in company with her brother-in-law and sister, the ex-King and Queen of Naples.

LOSS OF THE "STRATHMORE.”-Eight survivors from the wreck of this vessel, which took place in the Southern Ocean, on July 1 of last year, arrived at Southampton this day. The details given of the loss of the vessel, and the life led by the forty-four survivors during seven months on a desert island, are full of interest. The "Strathmore," an iron clipper-ship, which sailed from Gravesend with a crew of thirty-eight hands and fifty passengers, on April 19, bound for New Zealand, was wrecked on the Crozet Islands, in the southern region of the Indian Ocean, about 700 miles south-east of the Cape of Good Hope. It seems that the ship was lost through the captain miscalculating her position, in consequence of thick weather, which prevented observations being taken. On the night of June 30 the captain thought he was about eighty-seven miles from the Crozet Group; but he must have been mistaken, as the ship struck about 3.45 A. M. on July 1. There was the usual confusion and difficulty in launching boats. On day breaking two boats were got off under the direction of the second mate, who, as the captain and chief mate had been washed off the ship soon after she struck, was left in command. The two boats went towards the rocks, which were seen in front, about a hundred yards distant, rising like a wall several hundred feet out of the water. Late in the afternoon the gig returned, and took away five passengers. As she could not return again that night, those whe were left in the rigging passed another night of misery and terror. All their sustenance was a few biscuits, and they were wet and almost frozen. After daybreak the gig came back, and took them all off, and they joined those who had already landed. Besides the two boats already mentioned, a third boat had reached the shore. They found a desolate place-a refuge for sea-birds, and without trees. The island on which they had landed was about two and a half miles long, and half a mile broad at the broadest part. When they first arrived they slept on the bare rocks, but they soon built huts of stones and turf. They found albatross on the island, and a sort of grey bird. They subsisted on these for some time, and then they had a flock of molly-hawks. After these came penguins, whose eggs were a great luxury. Their skins were