RETROSPECT OF 1877.

Thames Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2815, 21 February 1878, Page 3

RETROSPECT OF 1877.

(PBOM THE HOME OTTWB, JANTTABY 3.) (Continued from our last.) ABUT AND NATY. Of the two Services, the Navy and the Army,, the former has attracted the greater share of Parliamentary attention. Mr Gathorno Hardy's scheme for Army retirement and promotion had been already hailed with satisfaction when it was discussed in the House of Lords early in. August. In the case of the j Navy, no sweeping indictments against j th« administration of. the present Government have been forthcoming. A motion of Mr P. A. Taylor's to abolish flogging was negatived by a comparatively narrow majority—l 64 to 122. The Naval College of Greenwich, the qaestion of extending competition to naval cadets, and (he qualities of the Inflexible, have be<=n among the other chief subjects of debate" in connection with the Admiralty Department. As regards the Inflexible, tub Government have finally adopted the safest and most judicious plan open to them. The report of the j Committee is now issued, and its contents are sufficient proof of the wisdom of its j original appointment. MEMOBABI.E EVENTS, There have been not a few memorable events which will serve in a special and personal manner to associate Her Majesty with the history of the past year. On Jan. 1, 1877, Queen Victoria was proclaimed Empress of India at Delhi before a large assemblage of Prince 3 from all parts of the East, under the presidency of Lord Lytton, similar proclamations being made on the same day, and at the same hour, at Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay. For the first time for seven years the Queen opened Parliament in person on Feb. 8. .Nor will it be forgotton, when the chrpnicler of the present comes to bo written "by the' historian of the future, that a little more than ten months after, on December 15, Her Majesty visited the Minister of State, the First Lord of the Treasury, the Earl of Beaconsfield, at his country house at Hugbendcn. If the Queen has not resided much in London—if, with the few esccptipns just mentioned, she has only been visible upon such occasions as Drawing Boom days, it is none. the less a fact not to be denied that the past year [has

witnessed in a peculiar degree tho identification of tho influence and tho initiative of Her Majesty with thi< policy pursued by Her Ministers. Tho third volume of the Prince Consort's ?»■ moirs made it clear to those who have cl<-t»bted the fact, that on all vital affairs of national welfare and of Stato-the Queen Ims vigorous views of her own which sho is not likely to forego, and the Queen's Prime Minister is a statesman who has made it one of the chief aims of his career to kivo practical effect to his cardinal political doctrine that tho Sovereign must govern as weU as reign. LONDON "BKABON.

The stagnation of trade, the uncertainty of the European prospect which has acted 83 a check on commercial enterprise and has kept capital locked up, the continued struggle between capital and labor, have not been favourable to life and movement in the world of society and fashion. The London season which in some way or other effects the whole country was not particularly brilliant. It had, indeed, the usual number of scandals, and was relieved by the visits of the usual number of foreign celebrities. The King of Hanover, the Emperor of Brazil, the latter of whom certainly displayed a practical anxiety to make the most of his time unexampled among royal visitors, aud ex-President Grant, havo been among our guests. In the spring of the year, shortly after the formal conclusion of peace between Servia and Turkey, General TchernaiefF was the lion of several draw-ing-rooms, and,, a little later, when the fate of the Protocol was trembling in the balance, General Ignatieff was entertained and feted at Hatfield. One or two facts with reference to the London season, as illustrative of a gradual change in our social state, should be noticed. Though, as has been said, the regular season, that which comprises the months of June and July, fell far short of its normal splendours, there is no doubt that during the earlier months of the year London was much fulJer than for a long period it has been. Similarly, though from midAugust to mid-September the town was sufficiently desolate, it began to fill again after the latter date with great rapidity. Thus we seem to have witnessed in the course of the past twelve months something like a gradual and equal distribution of the activity, trade, and excitement, which were formerly concentrated into two or three months, over the whole annual period. While it is certaifi. that families, who a few years ago were in the habit of taking a West mansion for an entire quarter, now content themselves with two or three weeks in hotel departments, and that thus house and estate agents have more vacancies than they would like on their books, is to be remembered on the other hand that hundreds of families, who not long since seldom or nerer made a pilgrimage to town, now regularly have their annual metropolitan outing. A great principle of compensation runs through all things, and the London season is no exception to the rule. Some confirmation of this even may be found in the fact that the experiment of winter opera has been this year successfully made. In the summer all the world was rushing to hear Wagner's music in the Boyal Albert Hall; and during the last two or three months Mr Mapelson has had no reason to com* plain of a lack of patrons of the entertainment which he has provided for them at Her Majesty's.

OTHES EVENTS OF THE YEAH. The cocial year.has been marked by other incidents of various import and character. Early in January the Duke of Marlborough entered on his Vice-Begal office in Ireland, and made a public entry into Dublin. A few weeks later the first Chinese Embassy that has been permanently accredited to the Court of St. James tookup itsresidence in London, and shortly afterwards the envoy from the Celestial Empire was presented to the Queen by the Earl of Derby. Ecclesiastical excitements and scandals have been with us throughout 1877. The H atcham troubles began early in January, and they were not terminated by the imprisonment of the Bey. A. Tooth. Bitualism thus had its proto-martyr, and the cause of .Ritualism claimed to have won another triumph when the Court of Queen's Bench decided that the subsequent charge against Mr Tooth for illegal practices had been informally made, and therefore that the sentence meted out to him was null android. Though Mr Tooth has cut the knot of the difficulty by resigning, -it is clear that sacerdotal anarchy has not yet reached its term^ Mr Mackonochie, of St. Alban's, declines to recognise the judgment in the Bidsdale case, or the very institution of -the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, and is openly at war with the bishop. It cannot, therefore, bo urged that the. internal state of the Church of Eugland is at this moment very satisfactory, though there is little doubt that the proceedings of the Holy Cross Society, and the revelations of the " Priest in Absolution," have begun to work a feeling in the popular mind against this illicit mimicry of the doctrines and rites of the Church of Home, which will yet bear fruit. As we have had ecclesiastical, se also have we had secular causes cSlebres. Early in the year there was an atrociously cold-blooded murder committed in Pimlico by a youth named Tredaway. The Penge mystery created a sensation not merely in London but throughout England, and, though it is impossible to look back ou the course of the trial with satisfaction, it may be hoped that substantially, justice has been done, and that the punishment inflicted on the Stauntons will be at least sufficient to deter others from tho perpetration of the worst and cruelest of crimes. It is to be trusted that certain other lessons which the inquiry seems to point will not I bo thrown away, and that at an early day ' next Session Parliament will be invited to I consider the desirability of formally establishing a Court of Appeal in crimi- | nal cases. Similarly the conviction of the detective police inspectors, following the trial and punishment of Kurr and Benson for the perpetration of one of the most audacious and gigantic frauds oh record, will not have produced half the good which we are entitled to hope, from it, unless the whole of our system for the detection of prime is investigated and reorganised. • To be continued.