The summer of 1866 will be remembered long in the City of London by reason of the commercial disaster and monetary panic which followed sharply on a period of speculative inflation, the combined result of active trade and the new law of limited liability. The suspension early in May of the great discount firm of Overend and Gurney, with liabilities figured at 19,000,000, was followed within the same week by the failure of several banks and the suspension of the Bank Charter Act.

On May 11 the Bank rate was raised to 10 per cent. and continued at that point till August 17. The shock was one from which the credit of the country took a long time to recover, and the amount of private misfortune and loss of income reacted on almost every department of trade, though the public revenue maintained a surprising degree of elasticity.

[Ill.u.s.tration:

A. Private, Queensland Mounted Infantry.

B. Trooper, South Australian Cavalry.

C. Trooper, New South Wales Cavalry.

D. Trooper, Bodyguard, Canada.

E. Trooper, Canadian Dragoons (Winter Dress).

F. Private, Cape Mounted Infantry.

G. Sergeant, Cape Town Highlanders.

H. Officer, 8th Battalion Active Militia of Canada.

J. Officer, Royal Malta Artillery.

K. Trooper, Canadian Dragoons.

L. Gunner, Royal Canadian Artillery (Winter Dress).

_R. Simkin._}

TYPES OF COLONIAL TROOPS, 1897.]

[Sidenote: The Atlantic Cable.]

A brighter pa.s.sage in the record of 1866 is that which commemorates the completion of telegraphic communication between Great Britain and America. Attempts had been made in 1857, 1858, and 1865 to lay a cable across the Atlantic, all of which ended in failure; but Mr. Cyrus Field would not abandon his dream. The _Great Eastern_ steamship sailed from Berehaven on July 12, and on July 27 the first messages were exchanged between the old and new worlds. A feat hardly less inspiring was performed later in the same season, in the recovery of the broken cable of 1865, which was spliced, thereby effecting a second connection between the two continents.

[Sidenote: "A Leap in the Dark."]

Mr. Disraeli, as has been said, had undertaken the task in which Mr.

Gladstone had failed, and brought in a Reform Bill early in the session of 1867. It cost the Government a heavy price at the outset: Lord Carnarvon, Lord Cranbourne (now Marquis of Salisbury), and General Peel resigned their seats in the Cabinet because they disapproved of it. The Bill went forward, and, after undergoing many changes, finally pa.s.sed in a form conferring household suffrage in boroughs and a 12 franchise in counties. "No doubt," said Lord Derby on the third reading of the Bill in the Lords, quoting a remark made by Lord Cranbourne in the other House, "no doubt we are making a great experiment and 'taking a leap in the dark,' but I have the greatest confidence in the sound sense of my fellow-countrymen." But another saying by Lord Derby gives a truer insight into the real object of a Conservative Government in doing work so repugnant to its accredited principles. Somebody having observed to him that the measure was dangerously democratic--"We have dished the Whigs!" was all that Derby replied. Mr. Disraeli, in reference to the same subject, made use of a phrase which gave bitter offence to some of his party, and deepened the distrust with which the old school of Conservatives regarded him almost to the end of his life. On October 29, 1867, he was entertained at a banquet by the Conservatives of Edinburgh, and when pa.s.sing in review the events of the session, and especially his Reform Act, he said: "I had to prepare the mind of the country, and to educate--if it be not arrogant to use such a phrase--to educate our party."

[Ill.u.s.tration: _From a Photograph_} {_by Beattie, Hobart._

HOBART, TASMANIA.

Tasmania, formerly known as Van Diemen's Land, was taken possession of by the British in 1803. It was governed from Sydney until 1825, when it became an independent province; and it received its existing Const.i.tution in 1855. Population (1895), 160,834; imports, 1,094,457; exports, 1,373,063.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: _From a Photograph_} {_by Beattie, Hobart._

LAUNCESTON, TASMANIA.]

[Sidenote: The Fenians.]

The stream of emigration westward which set in after the Irish famine in 1848 had resulted in creating a very large Irish population in the United States. All these emigrants had brought with them a bitter hatred of England, on whom they laid the blame of all the sufferings of their own people. They had found in America the true remedy for their wrongs, which, had they realised it, arose not so much from political, as from physical causes. By moving to a s.p.a.cious land where labour was in demand, they escaped from the evils which must always press upon a congested population with no proper outlet for its energy. But still they loved old Ireland and hated England, and, finding themselves of political importance in the new land, for the Irish vote soon became indispensable to the Democratic party, they busied themselves with projects for the deliverance of their country. They found plenty of encouragement from Americans, for the feeling in the Northern States was very bitter against England after the close of the civil war. Thousands of Irishmen had learnt the art of war and the use of weapons in the Federal armies; a military organisation was set on foot in the belief that Great Britain and the United States were on the point of going to war. This organisation, which adopted the t.i.tle of Fenian, had for its leader a man of great ability and experience, James Stephens. The Government received due warning of what was in preparation; in fact, the leaders of the movement in Ireland openly proclaimed their intention of restoring by force of arms the independence of Ireland. They had plenty of funds: every Irish man and maid in America contributed something to such a glorious purpose. A steady stream of American-Irish, most of them old soldiers of the civil war, set in from across the Atlantic, and scattered themselves among the towns and villages of Ireland. At last Stephens himself arrived, who, having been mixed up in the rising of 1848, was promptly arrested and lodged in Richmond Prison, Dublin, in November, 1865. All Ireland was convulsed with delight when, a few days later, he was found to have escaped.

The absence of Stephens from America had evil results to the Fenians there. One party was for invading Canada, a project which Stephens had never favoured. No sooner was his back turned, than a party of Fenians actually crossed the Niagara river, occupied a fort, and defeated a force of Canadian volunteers. Just as in 1838, when the Canadians were in revolt, the United States Government had saved the position for Great Britain by enforcing the neutrality of their frontier, so now it acted a similar part, and put an end to what might have become a highly dangerous state of affairs. Stephens never reappeared, but the preparations he had started were continued. With the pathetic hero-worship of the Celt, the Irish peasantry were confident that their lost leader would return among them soon and lead them to victory. But one brief taste of prison discipline had been enough for this doughty champion, and he is believed to have spent the rest of his life abroad in comparative affluence, derived from the subscriptions collected from his dupes.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _From a Photograph_} {_by Valentine & Sons, Dundee._

WELLINGTON, NEW ZEALAND.

The first body of immigrants arrived at Port Nicholson in 1840. In the same year the whole of the islands were annexed by Great Britain, and Wellington and Auckland were founded. Const.i.tutional government was conferred in 1853. In 1865 Wellington became the seat of government. The population of the islands in 1895 was 698,706; imports, 6,400,129; exports, 8,550,224.]

In February 1867 the Government frustrated a Fenian plot to seize Chester Castle; there was an attempt at a general rising in Ireland, which ended in the loss of a few lives in harebrained and disconnected attacks on police barracks in Cork, Limerick, Louth, and elsewhere, and a number of American-Irish were arrested. Two of these prisoners were being conveyed across Manchester in a prison van, when it was suddenly attacked by a party of armed Fenians. A policeman was shot dead, the prisoners were rescued and were never recaptured.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _From a Photograph_} {_by Valentine & Sons, Dundee._

THE PINK TERRACES, ROTOMAHANA, NEW ZEALAND.

The water from the hot springs, on its way to Lake Rotomahana ("Warm Lake"), left a deposit which gradually a.s.sumed the forms shown in the ill.u.s.tration. The water was exquisitely blue; the terraces on one side of the lake were white, on the other a transparent pink. Both were completely destroyed in the great eruption of 1886.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: _From a Photograph_} {_by Valentine & Sons, Dundee._

THE WHITE TERRACES, ROTOMAHANA, NEW ZEALAND.]

The only other serious act of the Fenians was an attempt to release two prisoners confined in Clerkenwell Gaol, who, considering the means adopted, might very well pray to be delivered from their friends. A barrel of gunpowder, placed against the outer wall, was exploded at four in the afternoon, throwing down about sixty yards of masonry and wrecking several houses in the street. But for a warning received by the Governor of the gaol that an attempt was to be made to blow it up, the prisoners would have been at exercise in the yard at the time of the explosion, and almost certainly must have been killed. As it was, twelve persons were killed and 120 were wounded.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SIR ROBERT NAPIER, AFTERWARDS LORD NAPIER OF MAGDALA, 1810-1890.

Born in Ceylon. Commander-in-Chief of Bombay, 1865, and of India, 1870.

Raised to the Peerage, 1869, for his services in Abyssinia.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: _From a Photograph_} {_by G. W. Wilson & Co., Aberdeen._

PARLIAMENT HOUSE AND TABLE MOUNTAIN, CAPE TOWN.

See historical notes on Cape Colony, page 71. Area, including dependencies (estimated), 292,000 square miles; population, 1,800,000, of whom 39,000 are British born; imports (1895), 19,094,880; exports, 16,904,756, including diamonds, 4,775,016; gold, 7,975,637; wool, 2,000,000.]

[Sidenote: War with Abyssinia.]

The arms of a great and growing empire are seldom allowed to rust from disuse, no matter how pacific the intentions of its rulers may be.

Parliament was called together in November 1867 to vote supplies for an Expedition which it had been found necessary to send out to Abyssinia, under the command of Sir Robert Napier. Theodore, King of Abyssinia, a pa.s.sionate and semi-barbarous despot, had cultivated amicable relations with Great Britain for a number of years, chiefly on account of his friendship for Mr. Plowden, formerly English Consul at Ma.s.sowah. But Mr.

Plowden was dead--killed in an encounter between Theodore and his rebellious subjects; and Captain Cameron, who succeeded to the Consulate at Ma.s.sowah, had not succeeded in ingratiating himself with the King.

Theodore appealed to Queen Victoria to help him against the Turks, and on receiving no immediate reply to his letter, lost his temper and threw all the British subjects he could catch into the cavernous dungeons of his capital, Magdala. Among these captives was Captain Cameron. Mr.

Ra.s.sam was sent on an emba.s.sy to remonstrate with Theodore, who, however, was not inclined to listen to reason. On the contrary, he had the envoy seized, with his companions, Lieutenant Prideaux and Dr.

Blane, loaded with chains, and thrust into prison. Lord Stanley now sent to demand the release of the prisoners within three months, and declared that immediate invasion would follow if this were refused. It was a delicate business to convey despatches to the tyrant in his rock fortress, and Theodore never received the ultimatum. The expedition set out: 400 miles of very mountainous country had to be traversed, but everything had been admirably prepared in the matter of transport and commissariat, and Napier was an experienced commander. The ease of the victory which awaited him has done something to diminish the fame which is really his due for accomplishing a very difficult task. He encountered the Abyssinian army under the walls of Magdala on April 10, 1868; the King's soldiers fought with headlong gallantry, and fell in heaps before the terrible fire of British Infantry. Charge after charge was repelled, until Napier found that his enemy had vanished, leaving some 2,000 dead and wounded on the field, while in his own force the casualties amounted to no more than nineteen wounded. The fierce old King so far bowed under chastis.e.m.e.nt that the captives were released, but he refused to surrender. It then became necessary to enforce the lesson that, if Great Britain does not take up arms lightly, neither does she lay them down without exacting all her demands. Napier determined to take Magdala by a.s.sault. Perched high on a precipitous rock, it occupied a position which, in old times and without modern appliances, must have been p.r.o.nounced inaccessible. But there are few places to which courage equipped by science can be denied admission: the northern gate was stormed, and lying within it was found the old lion King. Preferring death to dishonour he had perished by his own hand.

Lord Derby's health had given him repeated warning that the time had come when he must seek release from public duties. He retired from office in February 1868, and Mr. Disraeli became Prime Minister. "The time will come when you _will_ hear me." Few--very few--who had heard that vaunt shouted across the House in 1837 were there to witness its complete fulfilment in 1868. It was a position of the highest honour, but not one of great power to which Disraeli had succeeded, and he was not called on to occupy it long. He could not reckon on a majority on any question upon which the Opposition should act together under a resolute leader. Such a question and such a leader were soon found.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _From a Photograph_} {_by G. W. Wilson & Co., Aberdeen._

SEARCHING TABLES AT THE DE BEERS' DIAMOND MINE, KIMBERLEY, SOUTH AFRICA.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: _From a Photograph_} {_by J. H. Murray, Pietermaritzburg._

TOWN HALL, DURBAN.

Durban, the largest town in Natal, had a population in 1894 of 27,984.

Natal has an estimated area of 20,461 square miles, and a population (1891) of 543,913. Imports, from Great Britain (1895), 1,602,023; exports, to Great Britain, 716,645.]