duct of the recent Walcheren Expedition, which had proved so disastrous to the country, and to nearly all the ill-fated men who had embarked in it. Lord Porchester expressly stated that his object "was not a select and secret committee before whom garbled extracts might be laid by ministers themselves, in order to produce a partial decision, but a committee of the whole House, by which oral evidence might be examined at the bar." The motion was carried by a majority of nine in a House of 381 members. The House of Commons was occupied in this investigation from the 2d February till the 26th March, the result being that Lord Porchester's resolutions censuring the advisers of the expedition were negatived; but Lord Chatham, who was in command of the troops, was censured for having laid a narrative directly before the king vindicating his own conduct as commanderin-chief, and condemning that of the naval part of the expedition. During the whole investigation the standing order against admitting strangers to the House had been rigidly enforced, and much public indignation was excited against the member (Yorke) on whose motion the people had been excluded. On the 19th of February Yorke complained to the House that his parliamentary conduct had been made the subject of discussion in a debating club called the British Forum, managed by a certain Mr John Gale Jones, and demanded that Jones should be summoned to the bar for breach of privilege. This was done, and the unfortunate owner of the British Forum was committed to Newgate under a Speaker's warrant. Sir Francis Burdett was not present when this took place. He held that the House of Commons "had no right to imprison the people of England." On the 12th March he moved that Jones should be discharged, his imprisonment being illegal. The House held fast to its prerogative, and the motion was negatived by an overwhelming majority. Sir Francis immediately published his speech on the motion, and prefixed to it a letter to the electors of Westminster, in which he repeated his assertion that the Commons had no right to imprison an Englishman. This letter was held by the House to be a scandalous and libellous paper, and after a protracted debate on the course to be taken to vindicate their rights, the Commons resolved by 190 votes against 152 that Sir Francis Burdett should be committed to the Tower. The warrant to commit was signed by the Speaker and handed to the Serjeant-at-Arms at the close of the debate at seven o'clock in the morning of the 6th April, and Sir Francis was allowed to retire to his mansion in Piccadilly, on stating that he would be "ready to receive" the serjeant next morning. The reception that officer met with next morning was not what he expected. Sir Francis's house was barricaded, and its owner, maintaining that the warrant against him was illegal, refused to proceed to the Tower unless taken by force. With the aid of a strong body of police and a detachment of troops, an entrance was ultimately effected, and the prisoner was driven to the Tower under their escort. A dreadful riot ensued. Vast crowds assembled in the vicinity of the barricaded house, and the troops which had accompanied the prisoner to the Tower were attacked by the mob on their return, two or three lives being lost, and several persons wounded. The Parisian newspapers reported that there was a revolution in London. Sir Francis remained a prisoner till the prorogation of Parliament released him. He took legal measures against all parties to the arrest, his determination being to show through the law courts that the House of Commons had exceeded its powers. But he was unsuccessful in all the actions he raised, and the House still retains the right he fought so persistently to wrest from it. In 1819 he was again prosecuted for publishing a letter to his constituents condemning the conduct of the magistrates and yeomanry in dispersing the great Reform meeting at Manchester, on which occasion several lives were lost, and many hundreds of the crowd more or less severely injured. He was fined £2000, and also imprisoned for three months. The disappointment of the extreme Tories of those days at the mildness of the sentence may be gathered from a letter addressed by Mr C. W. Wynn to the Marquis of Buckingham on 10th February 1821, in which he says: "I agree with you in considering the sentence on Burdett-a sentence so unexpected as to call for the plaudits of all the Radicals who surrounded the Court, and the congratulations of his friends-as most calamitous; and unfortunately it is not the first instance in which the Court of King's Bench, or rather the present judges of it, have shown that they are not proof against popular clamour and the apprehension of personal danger." * Sir Francis represented Westminster for thirty years. In later life he went over to the Conservative party, and sat for Wiltshire. In the early part of his career he was the idol of the London populace. No political speaker of the day could sway a mass meeting more powerfully than he could. Perhaps the Toryism of his old age was a natural consequence of the ultraLiberalism of his youth. Such was the father of Miss Angela Burdett; such the school of politics in which she was * Duke of Buckingham's "Memoirs of the Court of George IV.," vol. i., p. 121. reared. Her early infancy saw the end of the mighty struggle which had long convulsed Europe, and which closed with the battle of Waterloo; in her opening womanhood the great Reform agitation in which her father had taken so active a part culminated in the bill of 1832, and piping times of peace once more revisited the weary land. As a natural consequence party contests became less bitter. Old animosities were forgotten, or at least buried, and a regenerated populace set themselves earnestly to the development of industry and art. Character is moulded by circumstances to a larger extent than is generally supposed, for which reason we have given a more detailed account than we should otherwise have done of Miss Burdett's family, and of their connection with the history of the times. The death of the Duchess of St Albans took place, as has been said, in 1837, when the Derbyshire baronet's daughter suddenly found herself the richest woman in England. Untold wealth was at her command. She might have chosen a life of pleasure or of ambition. She chose one of never-ceasing beneficence, and great riches were never employed to more noble ends than the riches of Miss Burdett. By the will of the duchess she was bound to assume the name and arms of Coutts. She was therefore now known as Miss Burdett-Coutts. Of Holly Lodge, which became one of her residences on the death of the Duke of St Albans, in 1849, William Howitt says, in his "Northern Heights of London:" "In the house and grounds of the late Duchess of St Albans now resides Miss Burdett-Coutts, famous for her wealth, her extensive benevolence, her erection of dwelling-houses for the poor, churches for churchgoers, and bishoprics for the colonies. A daughter of Sir Francis Burdett, she has not appeared ambitious to follow in his democratic steps, but rather to become a nursing mother to the Church of England. I suppose no other woman under the rank of a queen ever did so much for the Established Church; had she done it for the Catholic Church, she would undoubtedly be canonised as St Angela. But perhaps the noblest and most enduring of her works is seen in the clean and smiling hearths of hitherto too much neglected and ill-housed poverty." People who are not thoroughly acquainted with London have generally the idea that Westminster is a district of palaces and mansions. They have read of the venerable Abbey, of the Houses of Parliament, of the new Government offices. Perhaps in the course of a hurried visit to town they have seen these splendid edifices. The Londoner knows that around and behind these, not many yards away, lies one of the most wretched, squalid, and poverty-stricken portions of the metropolis. In this miserable locality Miss Burdett-Coutts began her great work of charity. She chose it for her first public effort in remembrance of her father's long connection with the borough. In 1850 she erected in Rochester Row the Church of St Stephen the Martyr, a fine specimen of Gothic architecture. She afterwards built a parsonage house and three schoolhouses, and crowned her munificent gift by amply endowing the whole. The Duke of Wellington presented an altar-piece to the church. This is only one of the least of Miss BurdettCoutts's beneficent deeds. During the time when the Church of St Stephen was building, her bountiful hand was providing for the religious wants of more than one of the colonies. In 1847 she endowed the bishopric of Cape Town; the Rev. Robert Gray was consecrated and appointed to the see, and in the following year he commenced his labours in Africa. In the same year she endowed the bishopric of Adelaide, in South Australia, and Dr Short was appointed to the see. Since then (1858) she has contributed the funds necessary not only to endow a bishopric in British Columbia, but also to provide for the clergy of the diocese. The sum she devoted to the Church in Columbia amounted to £25,000, and altogether the establishment of the three colonial bishoprics cannot have cost her less than £50,000. In addition to all this she founded an institution in South Australia for the education of the aborigines. Bethnal Green is one of the poorest suburbs of London. The locality formerly known as Nova Scotia Gardens was one of the poorest in the district. The site of these "Gardens" is now occupied by a block of model lodginghouses for the poor, which has been named Columbia Square. In the centre of the square there is a handsome clock-tower. The dwellings are fitted up with baths, wash-houses, and every convenience that can encourage habits of cleanliness and comfort. Over three hundred families live there at low weekly rentals, each in its own separate abode. Columbia Square is the work of the Baroness Burdett-Coutts, and, thanks to another millionaire, whose name will be long remembered as a benefactor of the London poor, buildings constructed on the same plan and for the same purpose have been set down in more than one of the most squalid districts of the great city. Mr George Peabody is one of the few who do not need to blush when their good deeds are mentioned in connection with those of Baroness Coutts. The building of Columbia Square was commenced in May 1858, and finished in May 1862. On 28th April 1869, Columbia Market was opened, another gift of the Baroness to the Bethnal Green district. Her intention was that this market should place within reach of the dense population around it supplies of provisions, and especially of fish, of better quality, and at more reasonable prices than they could be procured through the small dealers and huck sters who had previously monopolised the trade. The market, which was opened in the presence of royalty, is one of the most elaborate pieces of Gothic art in the metropolis. Its cost is said to have been about a quarter of a million sterling, and we have reason to believe that no small part of this sum was spent on architectural detail, mainly with the view of creating employment for stone-masons in the district, of whom a large number were, at the time, out of work and almost destitute. The building did not succeed as a fish-market. The great wholesale fish-dealers of Billingsgate could not brook a rival establishment trading directly with the coast and thereby depriving them of their profits. For a time the Baroness subsidised the trade in Columbia Market; but the Billingsgate opposition was too powerful, and her efforts to contend with it were unsuccessful. Lady Coutts then transferred the building to the Corporation of London as a free gift, on condition that they should do what they could to promote the objects for which she had erected it. But the trade opposition which had defeated her ladyship's attempt to establish a wholesale fish-market was strong enough to defeat all the efforts made by the corporation for the same purpose, and in 1874 the splendid building was re-conveyed to the Baroness. In December 1875 the market was re-opened under an arrangement with three of the great railway companies, whose united influence, it was thought, would secure sufficient support to the fish trade. The Baroness, anxious only for success in her philanthropic purpose, undertook to indemnify the companies against any loss they might incur in connection with the venture. The enterprise, we regret to say, has resulted in another failure. A recent newspaper describes the market in the following words: est Continental markets, to be imported direct to Columbia Market, and sold at prices greatly lower than those of similar articles of food in the home markets. It is calculated that meat, poultry, etc., can be packed in ice safes and transmitted with perfect safety from the Continent to London without being unpacked on the way, and that this can be done profitably at much less cost to the consumer than the present home prices. All who are interested in promoting the comfort of the poor will wish every suc cess to the enterprise. We have not yet exhausted our account of the benefactions of the Baroness to Bethnal Green. To give a complete account of them would be impossible, for it is well known that her private charities in the district have been large and wide-spread. For example, in a time of great destitution and distress, she undertook the Admiralty contract for supplying shirts to the navy, gave out the work at high rates of wages to the unemployed needle-women of Bethnal Green, established a school to teach needlework to those who were unable to execute it, and thereby kept hundreds of poor people from starvation. In many other ways has she found employment for the destitute, medical skill for the sick, and help for the helpless. We have not adhered strictly to the order of time in our mention of the Baroness Coutts's works of benevolence during the years we have been writing of. Our aim has rather been to group together works of a similar character, so as to show how thoroughly, how energetically, how unweariedly she carries her plans into execution; how persevering she is amidst disappointments; and with what undamped spirit she sets herself to contend with difficulties. We must now go back to the year 1854, and describe some of her efforts in the cause of education. In that year she began to take an active part in promoting the industrial training of young women. Among other institutions established for the purpose of giving industrial education to girls is the Whitelands Training Institution at Chelsea. To this institution Miss Burdett-Coutts gave £50 a year to be annually distributed in prizes after a competition among the pupils on questions of household economy; and the personal interest she took in the training of the scholars, her kindly counsels, and words of encouragement have doubtless left a lasting impression on many, and influenced their whole after-life for good. "Most of the tenants have left their shops, the great hall is closed, and the majestic beadle, an old veteran, is being consumed with ennui, for even the very children of the district seem to shrink from invading these desolate precincts for fear of hearing the echo of their own voices or footsteps, while the 'Sir Francis Burdett' Arms in the north-west corner of the quadrangle is probably the only public-house in the metropolis, perhaps in the whole kingdom, which is without guests. It is almost impossible to describe the desolation which reigns supreme; and the very sight of the buildings, which are handsome and costly enough for a college or a palace, is really more depressing to the spirits of a beholder than the mouldering ruins of an A department of education which had been preabbey or some ancient city."-London Standard,viously much neglected. At the national schools 3d April 1876. It is said that a scheme is at present on foot for establishing a provision market in the "Columbia on an entirely novel plan. The chief feature of the new project is the purchase of wholesome food of all descriptions in the cheap sanctioned by the Privy Council many accomplishments were taught, useful no doubt as elevating influences to the classes who attend them, but often detrimental when they were permitted to usurp the place of the economical arts, which have to be prac tised in the daily life of the wives and mothers and sisters of the humbler classes. Her efforts in the cause of education were not confined to questions of industrial training. In 1865 she suggested to the Committee of the Privy Council on Education a scheme for grouping the small and then generally inefficientlyconducted schools of outlying parishes into districts, each of which should be under the super-general use on all the great traffic lines.* vision of a superior teacher. Her scheme was adopted, and the existing Education Act, so far as school inspection is concerned, is in effect an extension of the system. districts of England and Scotland used to suffer intensely in their transit per railway from thirst and often from hunger. At her own expense she provided the fittings for trucks constructed so as to enable the cattle to eat and drink on the road to London, and such trucks are now in In 1864 the diocese of Carlisle was represented by the bishop to be in a state of great spiritual destitution. The Baroness at once offered to provide a church for one of the districts of the town, and in March of that year she laid the foundation of St Stephen's Church, which was completed in 1865 at a cost of £6000, borne entirely by herself. At Shepherd's Bush the Baroness established a shelter and reformatory for fallen women. The results were so gratifying that nearly half of the inmates of the house, during the seven years of its existence, were reclaimed; homes were also provided for them in the colonies by assistance lent them to emigrate, from the everready hand of the founder of the institution. Emigration is a subject in which the Baroness bas taken a deep interest, and she has often generously aided destitute families by transplanting them to suitable districts in the colonies. At a time of great distress in the country she effected an arrangement with the Cunard Company, by which many families from all parts of the country were enabled to emigrate. Our Irishmen will readily remember how she came forward to the rescue of the inhabitants of the islands of Cape Clear, Shirkin, etc., close to Skibbereen, at a time when starvation was staring them in the face. It will not surprise our readers to learn that the Baroness is the patron of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. The deep tender feeling towards suffering humanity which is the spring of all her charities to the poor, could not exist in a bosom inaccessible to the unworded appeals of the lower animals in their sufferings. Her exertions on behalf of the society have been unremitting, and they are singularly illustrative of her sympathetic and kindly nature. No pain that can be spared or alleviated seems to escape her watchful eye. To mention a single example-some years ago she wrote to the Times (14th September 1869) complaining of the cruel usage to which imported cattle were subjected, and suggesting "to all persons engaged in teaching, in whatever rank of life, that some plan should be adopted for inculcating, in a definite manner, principles of humanity towards animals, and a knowledge of their structure, treatment, and value to man.' Nor was she less careful of our home animals. The cattle sent up to London from the remote The peerage of England is recruited from many sources. Some of these are not, or at least in times past were not, of the purest. These we pass over. Some have won their way to a coronet by the sword, some by the tongue, some by the pen. But the roll of British nobles contains no name more honoured or more worthy of honour and of love than that of Angela Georgina, Baroness Burdett-Coutts. To that roll her name was added in 1871. The poet Moore gives us, in his diary, under date May 1845, an interesting glimpse of Miss Burdett-Coutts "at home." "That night," he says, "or the next, there was a large ball at the Queen's to which I was not invited, nor shall ever, I daresay, again, having lately declined two or three of her invitations; nor have I ever indeed gone but to one of her assemblies, when I met with Lord Lansdowne. "This time, however, I was sufficiently amused by going about different houses, where I saw some very pretty specimens both of dress and beauty; but none that gave me so much pleasure as our bright and smiling Lady Mount-Edg cumbe. "Next day I called upon Miss Coutts, whom I had seen in all her splendour the night before, and found her preparing to send it back to the bank. Would you like,' she asked, 'to see it by daylight?' and on my assenting took me to a room upstairs where the treasure was deposited. Amongst it was the precious tiara of Marie Antoinette; and on my asking her what altogether might be the value of her dress last night, she answered, in her quiet way, 'I think about a hundred thousand pounds."" During a recent visit to Scotland the Baroness Coutts was presented with the freedom of the city of Edinburgh, and another link was thus added to the long chain which connects the Coutts family with the home of their ancestors. Among the multitude of other wise and enlightened acts that have flowed from the ever active and thoughtful benevolence of the Baroness, we may mention the encouragement she gave to the develop. ment of cotton culture on the Guinea Coast of Africa. A correspondent of the London Standard (2d Sept. 1876) says: "The trade of Lagos, which is the chief port of the Egban countries, is greater than that of the whole of the Gold Coast. They have grasped the advantages which civilisation has set before them, and are now known as a truly commercial people. Since the Baroness Burdett-Coutts first gave a cotton gin to the missions at Abeokeuta the cotton trade, which is almost entirely in the hands of the natives, has wonderfully increased, the approximate yearly export being upwards of 10,000 bales." Here we close our imperfect sketch of Baroness Burdett-Coutts. We might have described other efforts of her liberality. We find, for example, that we have omitted to mention that the topographical survey of Jerusalem made under the direction of Sir Henry James was conducted at her expense. We have said enough, however, to show how judiciously, how systematically, how carefully, and how kindly her more than princely gifts have been bestowed.* THOMAS Ꭼ Ꭰ Ꮃ Ꭺ Ꭱ Ꭰ, THE BANFF NATURALIST. [1814-—.] THE world is now familiar with the names of two men connected with the north of Scotland, who, with an inborn passion for scientific research, persevered in the pursuit, until, through untold difficulties, their labours were so far crowned with success. The name of the one is Hugh Miller, the geologist, of the other, Thomas Edward, the naturalist. Hugh Miller shed a lustre on the sphere of life from which he sprung, and shed an equal lustre on the position in the world of letters which he afterwards so worthily gained. He worked hard as a stonemason during the day, and equally hard at his books and papers in the evening. It may be wrong to call a geological holiday a bit of task work; but when off to the quarries, or to the sea-shore, he was hard at work there too. And he was happy, supremely happy, as far as his nature would permit-for wholesome employment within the limits of prudence is often wholesome enjoyment; and so while enriching the world with positive knowledge, he escaped from himself and from brooding cares. Had the end been different, for his life went out with a pistol-shot, it would have been pleasanter to contemplate; but there is always so much of mystery connected with death, and the concurrent causes of it, that we must curtain the last scene with the cloak of charity, and believe that his own reason had fled when the rash deed was done. The points of difference in the two lives which we have mentioned together will be apparent enough to the attentive reader; but they were both one in this, that they possessed indomitable perseverance, and were both true to the master passion of their nature. And amongst all the works to which we are indebted to Mr Samuel Smiles, his life of Thomas Edward perhaps will continue to be one of the most popular and readable, and may be expected to live as long as the language. Thomas Edward, the son of John Edward, a private in the Fifeshire Militia, was born at Gosport on the 25th December 1814. His father had enlisted at Cupar, joined his regiment at Aberdeen, and while in the latter town, had married Margaret Mitchell, a native of the place. The war on the Continent had caused the militia to be scattered amongst the coast towns to act as guard and garrison, while the regular troops were engaged with the wars of Napoleon. After the battle of Waterloo, John Edward returned to Kettle, in Fifeshire, his native place; and when the militia were disembodied, resumed his old trade as a handloom weaver. Then he left for Aberdeen, and settled in the Green, one of the oldest quarters of the city. When quite a youngster, Thomas Edward caused his mother trouble, and was difficult to manage, she declaring he was the worst child she had ever nursed. When only about four months old, he had leapt from his mother's arms to catch the flies in the window at Gosport, and was only saved by being caught by the long clothes. That "unseen something, that internal impulse," apparent even then, "grew in the man into an irresistible and inconquerable passion, and engendered in him an insatiable longing for, and earnest desire to be always amongst" the forms of nature and animal life. When he could walk, and while at Kettle, he made friends with the cats and dogs, and with Bet the sow, who was always known to be ferocious when she had a litter of pigs. He would stand and gaze through the splits of the sowhouse at Bet and her young pigs. One day he was lost, he was sought for far and near, the gipsies were blamed for running off with him, when a neighbour woman returned with him in her arms, saying: "There, woman, there's your bairn! but for God's sake keep him awa frae yon place, or he may fare waur next time." He had slept below Bet and her pigs all night. At Aberdeen he was quite at home on the Inches, or low levels partially overflowed and surrounded with water, where he could find eels, crabs, and worms. A manure-heap close by was the place to see flies, beetles, rats, and sparrows. The Denburn at the foot of the Green yielded horse-leeches, tadpoles, frogs, etc. He began to bring home these animals, and was spoken to for this. His frogs hopped about, * Dublin University Magazine, October 1876. |