OCTOBER.

4. UNSEAWORTHY SHIPS.-The Royal Commission appointed "to inquire into the alleged unseaworthiness of British ships" has issued a preliminary report. Substantially it is an admission that whilst many of the evils pointed out by Mr. Plimsoll are clearly proved, there are serious if not insuperable difficulties in the way of their removal. The report is signed by all the Commissioners, amongst whom are the Duke of Somerset, the Duke of Edinburgh, Mr. Liddell, M.P., Mr. Milner Gibson, Admiral Sir James Hope, G.C.B., and Mr. Brassey, M.P. The Commissioners, owing to the extent and number of the subjects included in their inquiry, are not yet prepared to make a final report, but they believe that what they have done will show the difficulties by which the inquiry is surrounded, and will prepare the way for the legislation which may be

necessary.

6. BALLOON VOYAGES.-Two attempts to reach Europe from America by balloon have been made. The London agent of the Daily Graphic received a cable despatch from New York, announcing that the balloon had started at 9.19 that morning, with Donaldson, Ford, and Lunt, and was seen going east. The agent adds that the balloon is the one constructed for the first trial, which exploded on September 16th. The Mr. Donaldson mentioned is the balloonist who was to accompany Professor Wise according to the original arrangements; Mr. Ford is a correspondent and artist in the employment of the Daily Graphic; Mr. Lunt is an English sailor, whose services are to be called into request in the event of the voyagers being compelled to abandon the balloon and take to their lifeboat. Unfortunately, however, this second attempt also failed, for by a telegram from New York we learn that the balloon was caught in a storm while over Connecticut, and the three travellers barely saved their lives by dropping from the car when at a height of thirty feet from the ground.

7. THE CESAREWITCH STAKES for three-year-olds and upwards. Cesarewitch course, 2 m. 2 fur. 28 yds. Seventy-nine subs. Lord Lonsdale's King Lud, 4 yrs., 7st. 5lb. (Bruckshaw). 1 Mr. W. S. Crawfurd's Royal George, 3 yrs., 5st. 13lb. (incl. 3lb. extra) (Glover)

Mr. W. P. M. Innes's Pirate, 3 yrs., 6st. 71b. (incl. 71b. extra) (C. Wood)

2

3

Betting: 4 to 1 agst. Corisande, 8 to 1 agst. Pirate, 9 to 1 agst. Uhlan, 100 to 8 each agst. Shannon and Louise Victoria, 100 to 7 agst. Marie Stuart, 100 to 6 agst. Little Tom, 20 to 1 agst. King Lud, 25 to 1 agst. Oxford Mixture, 30 to 1 agst. Mestizo, 33 to 1 each agst. Moorlands, Moissonneur, and Suleiman, 40 to 1 each agst. Napolitain, Royal George, and Xanthus, 50 to 1 agst. Winslow,

66 to 1 each agst. Flurry, Fève, and Thunderer, 100 to 1 each agst. Indian Ocean, Falkland, Prosper, Restless, Rattlecap, Tambour, Thistledown, and Reflection, and 1000 to 5 agst. Silvia colt, Burford, Merodach, and Cathedral Chimes.

9. SIR SAMUEL BAKER AND LADY BAKER arrived in London. By the last accounts the whole territory which has been the scene of his expedition was quiet and prosperous, and the slave-trade extinct. Strictly speaking, says Sir Samuel, there was little slave-trade in the country, it was nearly all slave stealing. Slave holding was almost universal. Grown men were not stolen, for they ran away. The kidnapping consisted of women and children, especially young boys, as these in growing up became attached to their owners and did not escape. The captivity could scarcely have been very arduous. The hardship consisted in breaking up of homes and family ties, and the sufferings endured when driven to the homes of new owners. The current price of a girl was ten cows, so that if one man succeeded in stealing another man's daughter, he was virtually richer by ten cows. The demoralization of the custom extended far and wide. As to the geographical question, Sir Samuel Baker simply testifies to the information given him on all hands that the Albert Nyanza and Tanganyika are, to quote Livingstone, one water. If this is not true, and no communication exists, Sir Samuel is clear that the Tanganyika has no part in the Nile system. The Nile has no western affluent; the Paha Gazal is a currentless marsh.

11. FUNERAL OF SIR EDWIN LANDSEER.-Amid every sign of respect, the remains of Sir Edwin Landseer were deposited in St. Paul's Cathedral. At St. John's Wood-road an immense crowd of people had assembled near the house of the deceased, and by the time the hearse and four coaches arrived the road was almost impassable. The procession slowly wended its way along the St. John's Wood-road, past many a well-known studio, and thence, by Portland-place and Regent-street, to Trafalgar-square, where it was joined by ten more mourning coaches, containing the President and Council of the Royal Academy. Among those present were Sir Francis Grant, and Messrs. Webster, Frith, Lee, Marshall, Ward, Elmore, Millais, Richmond, Frost, Wells, Sant, Robson, Armitage, Stocks, Petitt, Stephens, Lejeune, Dobson, Leslie, Orchardson, Cole, Walker, Barlow, Woolner, &c. The President of the Royal Scottish Academy was also present. The Strand, Fleet-street, and Ludgate-hill were lined with spectators, through whose ranks the route was cleared by a body of mounted police.

The cathedral was well filled before noon, the time at which the procession was expected to arrive. At a quarter to twelve o'clock one of the bells began to toll. The west doors were by this time open, but it was past twelve o'clock before the carriages forming the procession drew up in the yard. On the top of the pall lay a large cross of camellias, surmounted by an immortelle. At the foot of the coffin was a handsome wreath of camellias, roses, and violets,

which had been despatched to the residence of the deceased by her Majesty the Queen, and only reached there during the morning. The pall was borne by Sir Francis Grant and five of the Academicians, and upon the coffin being placed upon the tressels two more wreaths were added. Then the chief mourners, notable among whom was the venerable form of Thomas Landseer, brother of the deceased, took their allotted seats, and the long train of Academicians and Associates went to their places in the stalls.

At the south-east portion of the crypt lie in a line the tombs of many of our celebrated painters. The place, in fact, might not inaptly be called, in imitation of part of another celebrated burialplace, "Painters' Corner." West, Daw, Dance, Turner, James Barry, and Sir Joshua Reynolds are here; while, looking down from the side wall of a niche, is the square tablet to the memory of Christopher Wren.

24. MR. THOMAS LEFROY, a landed proprietor, residing near the village of Clonbra, county Longford, was shot at and mortally wounded. The Daily Express gives the following particulars of the outrage:

"About eight o'clock in the evening, and when six or seven men were in the house, Mr. Lefroy went into his drawing-room, which is on a level with the ground, for the purpose of packing some bottles in preparation for an entertainment of the character of a harvesthome, to which he had invited his tenantry, and which was to come off in a few days. He was in a stooping position, near the window, engaged as already mentioned, when a shot was fired through the window, which entered in an oblique direction the right arm, the side of the chest, and the back. The shot was fired from a height considerably above the level of Mr. Lefroy's body, as the would-be assassin had to raise himself and his weapon above the level of some timber which was lying in front of the window, the house being in an unfinished state. To the circumstance that the shot entered in this oblique direction the surgeons attribute Mr. Lefroy's escape from instant death. The police, on examining the place after the outrage, found some grains of No. 4 shot. It is said that Mr. Lefroy, who is a nephew of the late Chief Justice Lefroy, some time ago evicted some tenants, and that the evictions were followed by letters threatening him with death. The police were directed to patrol in the neighbourhood of his residence for his protection, and in order to enable them to do so more effectually he provided a boat for them in which they could cross the Shannon, which separates his residence from the constabulary station. The boat, however, was lost or sunk, and when some persons made an attempt to recover it they were threatened. Another statement is to the effect that Mr. Lefroy had recently had his land surveyed, with a view, as was supposed, to a revaluation and an increase of rent."

25. DREADFUL BOAT ACCIDENT.-An accident occurred at Woolwich, resulting in ten men being thrown into the River Thames, and of whom nine were drowned. In consequence of a dense fog,

the Great Eastern Railway Company's ferry boat, which usually conveys the workmen living at South Woolwich to their work at Henley's Telegraph Factory and Beckton Gas Works, on the north side of the river, did not run. The steamboat usually crosses over at a quarter past five o'clock, and when the workmen reached the pier and found it would not ply they rushed to the boats of the watermen, who charge a penny each for running them over. Amongst the others, one boat was filled in this manner with ten men, and they started off in the fog. Coming suddenly upon the saloonsteamer "Princess Alice," anchored in the river, the rowers dropped their oars, put out their hands against the steamer to push back, when, in the fast-ebbing tide, they were drawn under the stern of the "Princess Alice." The waterman's boat capsized, and her ten occupants were thrown into the river. The waterman managed to swim to the nearest buoy, and another man clung to the boat, which was bottom upwards. These two men were rescued, but all the others were drowned. Men have been busy dragging the spot, but no bodies have been recovered. The time when the accident occurred was twenty minutes past five. The "Princess Alice" was burning her anchor lights, but in the dense fog and extreme darkness it was impossible for the waterman to have seen more than a yard or two before him. The young man who was saved says that he felt sure they were on the north side of the river when he saw through the fog the white hull of the "Princess Alice," and the boat seemed to be sucked under her. The boat, he states, turned over outwards, but when he came up his head struck against the seat. He seized hold of the side, and although he was some time before he could get his head above water, he ultimately succeeded in climbing astride the keel, and remained there drifting down the river until his shouts brought assistance and he was taken off. The waterman, who was at first prostrated by the shock, has recovered. Four or five boats have been out for the bodies all down the Reach, especially in places where they would probably be carried by the tide, and also round about the "Princess Alice."

THE LORD MAYOR'S BANQUET AT YORK.-The Lord Mayor of York entertained the Lord Mayor of London and the Mayors of two hundred other corporate towns with a banquet in the Guildhall at York.

Most of the provincial Mayors assembled in the city of York on the day before the banquet. The Right Hon. Sir Sydney Waterlow, Lord Mayor of London, accompanied by the two Sheriffs and several Aldermen and Common Councillors, with a number of ladies, left London at ten o'clock, and arrived at York at a quarter past two, by the Great Northern Railway express train. The Lord Mayor and Sheriffs travelled in a saloon-carriage, wearing their robes of The Lord Mayor of York, with the Aldermen, Town Council, and city officers, met them at the railway station. They were first led, across a crimson-carpeted platform, to luncheon in the adjoining hotel. A procession was then formed to conduct them to the Mansion

state.

House of the York Lord Mayor. In the city business was entirely suspended, nearly all the shops being closed. Some of the streets were canopied with flags, and there were inscriptions of welcome here and there. The Minster bells rang out cheerily, and the streets were thronged with people, heartily cheering the guests of their city.

The company at the Lord Mayor's banquet began to assemble at the Mansion House, in Spurriergate-street, about six o'clock. They passed through the ancient hall of the Mansion House, adorned with red cloth and tropical plants, to the top of the grand staircase, where they were announced to the Lord Mayors, and had the honour of shaking hands with the representatives of the two first corporations in England. All the arrangements had been well made, and the heads of the Corporations of more than a hundred other towns were among the general company.

The wall spaces between the windows and the old oaken octagonal pillars that support the fine wood roof of the hall were decorated with groups of shields of the arms of the Corporations of England and Wales, and around the shields were draped flags, while the lower part of the walls, the pillars, and the gallery were covered with crimson cloth. What with the remarkably fine stained glass illuminated from the outside of the Guildhall, the floral and green decorations, shields and flags, the gas and candles, and épergnes laden with fruit or flowers, and the bright scarlet robes which a few of the Mayors continued to wear, the scene was animated and brilliant. The speeches were appropriate to the occasion, and all in good taste. The toasts were expressive of loyalty and patriotism, and of particular zeal for the maintenance of all municipal franchises vested in the towns of England, or rather of the United Kingdom.

31. RAILWAY ACCIDENTS have continued during this month inthe same proportion as previously.

On Saturday afternoon (the 4th) an alarming and fatal accident occurred at Maryhill station, on the Dumbarton section of the North British Railway, about five miles from Glasgow, by which one man was killed and twenty persons severely injured. While a general goods train was on the up-line at Maryhill, preparatory to shunting some trucks on to a siding, an express train was telegraphed as passing a junction about two miles distant. The home and distance signals were put to danger; but, notwithstanding this, the express was allowed to come up within 100 yards of the station at full speed. The driver of the express train at this point shut off steam, but, owing to the speed at which the train was going, it dashed into the goods train with fearful velocity. Seeing the approaching train, the driver of the goods was about to make an attempt to get his train on to the other line; but, observing that he had not time to do so, he shut off steam, and, along with his stoker, jumped off the engine, thus, doubtless, saving their lives. The shock of the collision was fearful, the noise being heard at a distance of