... 4A C)r C-.Wf. THE SEASON.-While some districts of England have had a rainfall of four inches in a fortnight, the total fall in London for the same period was less than one inch. Whilst large areas in Somer- setshire, Leicestershire, and Warwickshire have been under water, East Anglian farmers were proceeding blithely with the sowing of barley in that light, dry, friable soil which the beer ...

... ?? Q THE rivalry between PORTUGAL and ENGLAND in CENTRAL AFRICA has entered upon a more serious phase. 'While diplo- matic arguments go on leisurely at home over the respective claims in Mashona-Land and the Zambesi region generally, Portuguese agents in Africa proceed to fresh annexations. Thus Major Serpa Pinto's arbitrary conduct in the Shire highlands complicates the situation considerably ...

... AeOBkERzI' BROWtUNING ON Thinusday, December 12th, the world welcomed a new volume of poems from the pen of Robert Browning-poems which tshowved no abatement of mental vigour on the part of their author. But his bodily strength had long been waning, and on the very same evening he passed away at the Palazzo Rezzonico, in Venice, where he had been staying with his son. Robert Browning was born ...

... NOTHING more gratified the Shah of Persia when in Paris than the attention he received from the inhabitants of Belleville On the occasion of his visit to the Buttes Chaumont all the population of the Red Revolutionary and Socialist quarter turned out to greet him, their numbers and animation calling forth the remark, When do these Parisians find time to work ? The holiday aspect of the ...

... SKETCHES IN THE LA WV COURTS-IL OF all the courts, the Admiralty Court is perhaps the least known, and yet the best worth knowing. Thrilling stories of the sea are often told here, and Mr. justice Butt sitting with or with- out the Trinity Masters has no easy task in deciding the rights and wrongs of many a case on the conflicting evidence before him. There is a hearty partisanship anmong ...

... E I - Now that ?? European rulers have opened the winter political season with speeches from the Throne, President Harrson reviews the policy of the UNITED STATES in his Message to Congress. The President reports most favourably on the general situation, both international and domestic. Ile lays particular stress on the satisfactory relations with Great Britain, all Anglo-American iffi- ...

... es W THE SHAH.-It was generally supposed that the recep- tion accorded to the Shah on the occasion of his second visit to England would be much less enthusiastic than that which astonished and delighted him sixteen years ago. This anticipation has not been fulfilled. He is evidently as popular a figure as ever, and it will be strange if he does not leave our shores with a rather kindly feeling ...

... THE REAMZANSCEA'CES AND RECOLLECTIo.\ S OF CAPTAIN GRONOWv' * THIS has long been known as one of the most delightful boo k of gossip of the century. From i8io to 186o it was Captain Groolo', good fortune to be thrown into contact with almost all the celel .ated persons in London and Paris society. He had a kindly heait sond most tenacious memory. His fund of anecdotes has rarely if eer been ...

... ~~ry~ )7~~ RURAL AOTES~- -w P - OCTOBER-chill with the nearing winter, or calm and sunny with edections of summer in the midday hours-is one of the pleasantest of the English months. It is the month of the first fires, in most houses, when a suggestion of winter cheeriness is first allowed to remove the dulness of the shortening days rather than absolute need of warmth, October temperature ...

... O YSTERS THESE toothsome bivalves threaten unfortunately to become even less abundant than they have been during recent seasons. On most of the natural oyster-beds of the United Kingdom the breed- ing stock appears to be almost exhausted, and although it has over and over again been said that the spawn of one of these mollusks is capable of seeding an acre of ground, half-a-dozen really good ...

... THE sad affair in which this promising young officer lost his life took place on October ith. The circumstances of the case appear to be as follows. There was a Pathan, a native of Kramsal, in the Candahar territory, named Jan Muhammad. He had been employed by a contractor on the railway through the Khojak Pass, and declared-very possibly justly, knowing what the ways of sub-con- tractors are ...

... At the Dale-strect Police-court, Liverpool, before Mr a T. S. Raffes, Joseph Jauws Austin was recently sum- 1, mooied for that he dlid, at the city of Liverpool, on 0 the 6th day of Nov. ikist., cause a certain child, to wit, Ifone Joseph Lorerizo, under the age of ten years, to be a in certain premises, to wit, the Star Music Hall, licensed according to law for public amusement, to which ...