... *.HOM-E. - POLITICAL AFFAIRS.--The Bishop of Manchester has written to the Supertor explaining that, but for severe illness, he should have attended in the House ?? and voted against the Afghan war. His lordship says- The vote of opinion of a non-political person like myselfis of little value or significance, but as a Bishop of the Church of England, I would not be thought indifferent-as by ...

... A TOUR THROUGH NORWA Y TiSosE whose main object is scenery-hunting should enter Norway at Throndhjem, and leave it at Christiania, and if they defer their visit till September, by which time early frosts will have caused the bracken to assume a ruddy hue, and turned the quivering foliage of the birch to a bright yellow, their sacrifice of an hour or two of daylight for travelling will be ...

... o ttwW i I THE OUEEN'S Si'EECH.--As was generally antici- pated, Her Majesty's Message is of a vcry brief and of an eminently business-like character. Parliament has been summoned at this early date chiefly, if not entirely, for the purpose of granting supplies for the Afghan Campaign, and though the Ministry cannot avoid, and probably have no desire to avoid, a full and exhaustive discussion ...

... ?? ?? Ic4 G~~~IUH~~~WS ~~1 p -~ LK , CUDDESDON COLLEGE.--The lay memorialto the Bishop of Oxford, alluded to last w'eek, has been met by a counter ineu. rial from 277 old students of the College, and the lishop, rep!y. ing to the latter, remarkis that the imputations on the teaching of the College proceed from persons who have no opportunity (,f knowing what it is, and the conltradliction from ...

... ?? 0fl~~il CALIFORNIAN TESTIMONIAL TO LORD BEACONSFIELD THIs casket has been subscribed for by a number of British residents in California, and contains an address expressive of their high appreciation of the brilliant statesmanship *which the Earl of BeaconsfielH evinced during the late European crisis, and the interest and pride with which they have watched the successive triumphs which ...

... C- OFFENIACH'S NEwV OPtrIA, Afadaite FabavI, comies out at the Paris Folies-Dranatiiques early next week. UNCLE TONS'S CAPIN is being played at the Drlin Vic- toria Theatre by the negro Zrolpe lately in England. PARISIAN BON-BONS in readiness for the New Year are invariably named after some contemporary celebrity or event. So this year M. Lecocq's latest opera, La Camnarpo gives its name to ...

... I - . THIE PARTNER OF PROrEsTANTISM.--IThe Rev. Ilely If. Smith, Rector of Tansley, Matlock, in a letter to the Record, contends that - Protestantism and Prosperity have always gone hand-in-hand in the history of England, while a pandering to Popery has invariably been either accompanied with or quicdy followed by national calamities. In proof of this assertion hle cites the fluctuations il ...

... 4 00 .T The Irish Bar- J. R. O'Flanagan. S. Low and Co. Whitaker's Almanac, 1879. The Book of Epigrams: IV. D. Adams. Rontledge. The Earl of Dufferin's Administration in Canada: WV. Leggo. Lovell Printing and Publishing Co., Montreal. Mand Linden's Lovers (3 vols.): George W. Garrett. Tissley Bros. My Son, Give Me Thine Heart: Dr. Vaughan; A Memoir of M. Daven- port Hill; Dress (Art at Home ...

... COURSING A LA MODE A DAY'S coursing on the downs; delightful anticipations of the advance in the long line of spectators, the judge on horseback, and the dogs in the slips ready for the hare when startled from her form; the uncertainty when and where she will jump up, and the uninterrupted view of the course, down the steep coomb, over the round swelling shoulder of the down, and the kill just ...

... 4 f E TiE CRISIS IN THE EAST.--The new Ministry at Con- stantinople has certainly begun well, and the first effect of Khaireddin Pasha's appointment has been the virtual banishment of Mahmoud Damad Pasha and the most prominent members of the Palace party from Constantinople, as their intrigues threatened to neutralise the endeavours which are now being made to organise the proposed reforms. ...

... ,fY THREE LIBRARIES WUEm I am in town I spend a great deal of my leisure, and a great deal more than my leisure, at what I call my three libraries. Indeed, in the case of bookish men, London owes its main charm to these libraries. Each of them is the necessary adjunct and complement to each. In former generations no prince or philosopher ever possessed such aids and helps in read- ing as are ...

... THE faithful follower of Sir John Barleycorn, desperately bard driven for yet another excuse for drinking, might do worse, perhaps, than recall to mind that it is to no less highly respect. able a personage than a bishop we owe the earliest, and probably the most enduring song in praise of jolly good ale and old. Bishop Still, who lived at the beginning of the sixteenth century, is the right ...