He had introduced the question of Par- | boroughs with a population under four liamentary reform in the House of Commons as early as 1797.

14 For the people.-The Reform Act bestowed the privilege of the franchise in towns upon occupants who paid a rental of ten pounds; in counties, upon those who paid a rental of forty pounds. In England, fifty-six boroughs with a population under two thousand, and returning one hundred and eleven members, were disfranchised; thirty

thousand, and returning each two members, were reduced to one member. Twenty new boroughs received each one member; twenty-two received each two members: the county members were raised from ninety-four to one hundred and fifty-nine. Scotland received an addition of eight borough members. The Reform Act of 1867 still further lowered the franchise. It increased the number of Scottish members to sixty.

15. VICTORIA'S TEARS.

1837 A.D.

[Queen Victoria's first Privy Council was held at Kensington Palace on the morning of her accession, June 20, 1837. When the herald proclaimed her as Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, she threw herself into her mother's arms and burst into tears.]

1. "O maiden! heir of Kings!
A King has left his place;

The majesty of Death has swept

All other1 from his face :
And thou upon thy mother's2 breast,

No longer lean adown,

But take the glory for the rest,

And rule the land that loves thee best!"
The maiden wept-

She wept to wear a crown!

They shouted at her palace gate,

"A noble Queen succeeds!"

Her name has stirred the mountain's sleep,
Her praise has filled the town;
And mourners, God had stricken deep,
Looked hearkening up and did not weep.
Alone she wept,

Who wept to wear a crown!

3.

She saw no purples shine,

For tears had dimmed her eyes;

She only knew her childhood's flowers
Were happier pageantries!

And while the heralds played their part,
Those million shouts to drown,

"God save the Queen!" from hill to mart,
She heard through all her beating heart,
And turned, and wept-

1 All other, that is, all other maj-| Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, devoted herself esty, all traces of the earthly greatness to the education of her daughter, with of the King. a special view to the exalted position she was destined to fill.

2 Thy mother, the Duchess of Kent, widow of Edward, Duke of Kent (fourth son of George III.), who died in 1820. The Duchess of Kent, a Princess of

3 Cannot move, cannot move the hearts of subjects, or excite their sympathy.

16. THE RETREAT FROM CABUL.

1842 A.D.

[The English interference in Afghanistan in 1838-42 led to the greatest disaster which ever befell the English arms. The Indian government and the government at home held it to be indispensable that English influence should predominate at Cabul, in order to check the intrigues of Persia and of Russia, who were said to be acting in concert. Dost Mahomed was the accepted and powerful ruler of the country; and he was anxious to be on friendly terms with England. But he was distrusted by Lord Auckland, the governor-general of India, who thought we should be more secure if a prince of our own selecting ruled Afghanistan. We adopted Shah Soojah, the representative of the exiled dynasty, as our protégé. We sent an army to Cabul, overthrew Dost Mahomed, sent him as a prisoner to India, and set up Shah Soojah in his place. The Afghans refused to accept Shah Soojah. They rose in riot at Cabul and slew the English envoy, Sir Alexander Burnes, and all his attendants. Akbar Khan, Dost Mahomed's son, put himself at the head of the insurgents. With his own hand he slew, at a conference, Sir William Macnaghten, one of the English generals. He required the English army to withdraw from Afghanistan.]

1. The withdrawal from Cabul began. It was the heart of a cruel winter. The English had to make their way through the awful pass of Koord Cabul. This stupendous gorge runs for some five miles between mountain ranges so narrow, lofty, and grim, that in the winter season the rays of the sun can hardly pierce its darkness even at the noontide. Down the centre dashed a 'precipitous mountain torrent so fiercely that the stern frost of that terrible time could not stay its course. The snow lay in masses on the ground; the rocks and stones that raised their heads above the snow in the way of the unfortunate travellers were slippery with frost. Soon the white snow began to be stained and splashed with blood.

2. Fearful as this Koord Cabul Pass was, it was only a degree worse than the road which for two whole days the English had to traverse to reach it. The army which set out from Cabul numbered more than four thousand fighting men, of whom Europeans, it should be said, formed but a small proportion; and some twelve thousand camp followers of all kinds. There were also many women and children Lady Macnaghten, widow of the murdered

:

envoy; Lady Sale, whose gallant husband was holding Jellalabad1 at the near end of the Khyber Pass2 towards the Indian frontier; Mrs. Sturt, her daughter, soon to be widowed by the death of her young husband; Mrs. Trevor and her seven children, and many other pitiable 'fugitives.

3. The winter journey would have been cruel and dangerous enough in time of peace; but this journey had to be accomplished in the midst of something far worse than common war. At every step of the road, every open

ing of the rocks, the unhappy crowd of confused and 'heterogeneous fugitives were beset by bands of savage fanatics, who with their long guns and long knives were murdering all they could reach. It was all the way a confused constant battle against a 'guerilla enemy of the most furious and merciless temper, who was perfectly familiar with the ground, and could rush forward and retire exactly as suited his tactics. The English soldiers, weary, weak, and crippled by frost, could make but a poor fight against the savage Afghans.

4. 66 'It was no longer," says Sir J. W. Kaye, "a retreating army; it was a rabble in 'chaotic flight." Men, women, and children, horses, ponies, camels, the wounded, the dying, the dead, all crowded together in almost inextri

cable confusion among the snow and amid the relentless enemies. "The massacre," to quote again from Sir J. W. Kaye, "was fearful in this Koord Cabul Pass. Three thousand men are said to have fallen under the fire of the enemy, or to have dropped down 'paralyzed and exhausted to be slaughtered by the Afghan knives. And amidst these fearful scenes of carnage, through a shower of matchlock balls, rode English ladies on horseback or in camel-panniers, sometimes vainly endeavouring to keep their children beneath their eyes, and losing them in the confusion and bewilderment of the desolating march."

5. Was it for this, then, that our troops had been induced to capitulate? Was this the safe-conduct which the Afghan chiefs had promised in return for their accepting the ignominious conditions imposed on them? Some of the chiefs did exert themselves to their utmost to protect the unfortunate English. It is not certain what the real wish of Akbar Khan may have been. He protested that he had no power to restrain the hordes of fanatical Ghilzyes whose own immediate chiefs had not authority enough to keep them from murdering the English whenever they got a chance. The force of some few hundred horsemen whom Akbar Khan had with him was utterly incapable, he declared, of maintaining order among such a mass of 'infuriated and lawless savages.

6. Akbar Khan constantly appeared on the scene during this journey of terror. At every opening or break of the long straggling flight he and his little band of followers showed themselves on the horizon: trying still to protect the English from utter ruin, as he declared; come to gloat over their misery and to see that it was surely accomplished, some of the unhappy English were ready to believe. Yet his presence was something that seemed to give a hope of protection.

7. Akbar Khan at length startled the English by a