RETROSPECT OF 1877.

Thames Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2816, 22 February 1878, Page 3

RETROSPECT OF 1877.

(FSOM THE HOME NIWB, JANUARY 3.) (Continued from our last,) THE YEAR'S CASUALTIES. In England the retrospect of sevcntyseven is less fertile in disaster and casualties than usual. The year opened indeed with aoTeral storms and floods, and at intervals throughout its course, noteably in the middle of October, and again a month later. Tho Arlesey railway accident; the trampling to death Of six persons in a Eoman Catholic church in New York; an accident to the Flying Scotchman express between Edinburgh and London, near Morpeth, in which five passengers were killed and many injured; the burning of the Queen's Theatre in Edinburgh ; the burning of the Southern Hotel in St. Louis, U.S., fifty persons perishing in the flames ; and on the same day, April 11, the flooding of the Troedrhiew Colliery at Pontypridd, only four out of tho fourteen miners being rescued —their rescue being effected by dint of ■uch heroism that, on May 1, it was announced that the Queen had extended the decoration of tho Albert Medal,to cases of gallantry in saving life on land, so as to enable Her Majesty to extend lhafc honor to the Bontypridd colliers; the fall of a footbridge" over the River Aron at Bath, resulting in the death of eight, and the severe injury of fifty persons; the collision off Portland between the Avalanche and the Forest, both vessels being sunk and most of the. passengers drowned; tho mishaps which happened to, and the marvellous recovery of, Cleopatra's Needle on her voyage to England, in the Bay of Biscay; the eruption of firedamp gas at the Peniberton colleries near Wigan, by j which thirty or forty men were killed; the burning of the Duke of Argyll's Louse at Inverary, and of the Marquis of Bute's at Hothesay; the colliery eruption at Blantyre, near Glascow-—these are a few of the more memorable casualties which have signalised the year seventyseven. In America the destruction worked by man has been greater than that worked by nature. On July 12 serious Orangeriots took place at Montreal, in Canada. Five days later there began what it is not too serious to call a civil war at Baltimore. The railway emplayis made a general strike, and for a fortnight steam locomotion was at a standstill. The Militia had to be called in, and on July 20 there was a conflict between the strikers and the civilian soldiery. The next day the Militia fired at Pittsburg on the railway rioters, killing twenty persons and wounding twenty-nine. These acenea and incidents continued up to the 27th of the month, when the rebellion was subdued, but not before damage to railway property, estimated at two millions, had been done.

THE ILIiTJSTBIOTTB DEAD. The foremost ranks of men distinguished in the service of their country, in the arts of war or peace, hare not been greatly thinned daring the past year. The tiro personages of the most distinguished European fame who hare joined the illustrious majority of the dead, are Adolphe Thiers, patriot, statesman, historian, orator; and Field-Marshall Yon Wrangel, reteran strategist, and warrior ■—the former at the age of fourscore, the latter at fourscore and thirteen years. England naa lost military officers who served in the great wars at the beginning of the present century in the. persons of Sir J. G. Cowell Stepney, Field-Marshal Sir J. F. Fitzgerald, and Lord Henry Percy. Brigham Young has been released from the anxieties of matrimony and existence, and has left behind him the reputation of one of the greatest organisers, if also one of the arch impostors, of his age. Among public characters who, if not statesmen, were yet members of Parliament, and in some instances keen politicians, we hare lost the Earl of Shrewsbury and Talbot at the comparatively early age of forty-seven ; Sir James Kay-Shuttle worth, who will long.be remembered in connection with his ser rices to the cause of. education ; Mr Nisbet Hamilton, a venerable Conservative politician who had a place in-die first Cabinet in whioh Lord Beaconifieid ever sat; Lord Canterbury, Governor of Victoria irom 1866 to 1872; Mr Ward Hunt } Mr E. D. Mangles, member of the Council of India; the Earl of St. Germains; Sir Matthew White Eidley. In literature the most considerable representative who has disappeared from amongst us is Mr J. It. Motley, the historian, and formerly XJnited States Minister to this country. After him maybe mentioned Mr Samuel Warren, author of the novel, once universally popular, now little read, "Ten Thousand a Year;" Mr Walter Bagehot, of the Economist, and one of the most accomplished economical writers and politic philosophers of bis_ time; Mr John Oxenford, the scholarlike and versatile dramatic critic of the Times; Lady Stirling Maxwell, better known as the Hon. Mrs Norton, author of " Lost and

Bared" and of many oilier norels, a granddaughter of Brinsley Sheridan; Mr Andrew Halliday, essayist and dramatist; Mr Longman, author as well as publisher. Science has lost one of her most eminent ions in Urban Jean Lererrier, the astronomer, whose fortune it was to make the discovery of the planet Neptune at the same time as the English astronomer Adam*. Nor should the names be ibrgotffen^ of D,f. B.r jce, the deVoted'an*,.learned"geologist, who died from the fall of a rock w,hile pursuing his labors in'the pass of Inverarjfr,e,g; of WU^ani' Henry jßVhc/who. if not' t^e foyxtr was the impr.ove¥ 'at photography; pf Dr Johanna Jacoby, Jew and Spinoaiit, a physician at IConigtburg; of John Scotfc Bowerbank, naturalist; of -Sir Edward Belcher, Artie explorer and trarellerj of Alfred Smee, surgeon to the Bank of England, and inTcntm* -f ;' ne bresent moae of printing bank-notes; of jDr Pullen, professor of astrpnp.my' a.t Gi-esham College';' of tne widow of the late J. !E. Smith, founder of the Linneoan Society, who had passed by three years the limit of the century; of William Coulgon, surgeon and Hunterian Orator; of

Miss Mary Carpenter, philanthropist, promoter of Tagged and industrial schools in India; of Julius Eietz; composer and director of "t^e ppnserTatory of Music at Dresden'; of Douglas Alexander Spalding, {he most promising of the rising physiological B«T»nts of his time. •Oltß MOBE OV THEM. In the fine arts, painting, music, sculptire, and the drama, not a few of those who were the favourites or cynosures of the public hare disappeared. Joseph Durham, W. Meredyth Thomas, both of them sculptors ; William Edward Frost, Royal Academician acd painter; Valentine Bromley, one of the most pleasing and most promising of English water

colourists; Itobert Landells, special artist of the Illustrated London News; Francois Euloz, who, as conductor and i progenitor of the JRevue dcs Deux ftfondes, is entitled to the reputation of one of the greatest editors that has ever lived; Frank Tophtmi, watercolor artist; Theresa Titions, vocalist— these aro the names tho mention of which will be enough to vindicate the dis'inctness of the void caused by the death of their owners. As for the celebrities, whether domestic or foreign,, who come under a more miscellaneous category than any wo hare yet given, it will be enough to mention the names of Sir John Esmonde. M.P. for Waterford j Sir Col man O'Loghlen; George Odger; Sir William Fergusson ; Sir H. W. Baker, chief editor of " Hymns Ancient and Modern " ; Mrs Caroline Chisholm, the emigrants' friend; John Morgan Connell, son of the Liberator ; General Changarnier; Charles Cowdea Clarke, the tutor of Keats; Dr. Michel), Principal of Magdalen Hall, now transformed into Hertford College, Oxford j Admiral Canaris, Greek Prime Minister and Patriot of the War of Independence ; Marshal Cabrera, Carlist General in the Civil War in Spain ; General Aurelles, de Paladin; Sir Jamestjee Jejeebhoy, head of the Parseo Community of Bombay; Sir Jung Bahadoor, Prime Minister and Dictator of Nepaul. FINIS.