modern type. From that time dates the general use of railways and railway engines, whose promoters had once been jeered at for thinking that a speed of twenty miles an hour might possibly be attained with safety, and that stage-coaches and post-chaises would be superseded.

CHAPTER XLIV.

VICTORIA.

Queen Victoria; the Prince Consort (1)—abandonment of the protective duties on corn; free-trade principles (2) -the Chartists (3)—wars in Asia and Africa; wreck of the Birkenhead (4)—the Crimean War; the Volunteers (5)—the Indian Mutiny; Empress of India (6)– Canada; Australasia; South Africa; dependent colonies (7)-legislation; penny postage; newspapers; Jews admitted to the House of Commons; parliamentary reform; municipal elections; legislation for Ireland; education (8)—Arctic voyages; the Franklin expedition; Alert and Discovery expedition; inventions (9)-literature (10).

1. Victoria, 1837.-Although called to the throne in a time of political restlessness and discontent, Queen Victoria, then only eighteen ars of age, was received by her subjects with warm loyalty; and throughout her reign she has ever been regarded with affection and respect in every part of her Empire. On the 10th February, 1840, her Majesty married her cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. The Prince Consort, whose public and private conduct gained him the respect of the whole nation, died December 14, 1861.

2. The Repeal of the Corn Laws.-The chief question of the time was the repeal of the laws laying heavy duties on the importation of foreign corn. Many people upheld these restrictions, on the

ground that home agriculture ought to be encouraged, or protected, by keeping up the price of corn, and that a country ought, as far as might be, to depend upon itself for its supply of food. On the other side, those who held Free-trade doctrines argued that the effect of the Corn Laws, so far as they were operative, was to set, for the benefit of the landowners, an artificial limit to the wealth and population of the kingdom in general. A number of zealous free-traders in 1839 formed an association, the Anti-Corn-Law League, which employed itself in enlightening, by speech and writing, the public mind as to the evil effect of protective laws. The League gradually made way in public opinion; but it was some years before its cause triumphed. In 1842 the leader of the Conservatives, Sir Robert Peel, then prime minister, proposed and carried a new corn law repealing that of 1828. A "sliding scale" of duties on the importation of foreign corn was maintained, but the duties were lowered. The next year Canadian corn was let in at a reduced fixed duty. At last, in 1846, when the failure of the potato-crop was threatening a fearful famine in Ireland, the League attained its end, Sir Robert Peel bringing in and carrying, to the dismay of many of his party, bills for abolishing, or reducing to a merely nominal amount, the duties on foreign corn, cattle, and other productions. This repeal of the corn duties, though carried in 1846, did not come into complete operation till 1849. The honour of the measure was attributed by Peel to Richard Cobden, the foremost of the free-trade politicians, whose doctrines-that every man and every nation should be free to buy in the cheapest and sell in the dearest market, without the laws interfering to favour some particular class of producers-are now recognized and acted upon in Great Britain.

3. The Chartists.-Side by side with the CornLaw struggle went the Chartist agitation. The

Chartists were for the most part working men, who suffered from the distress then generally prevailing, and who looked to further reforms in the system of parliamentary representation for the means of mending their condition. Their name came from their "People's Charter," the document in which they set forth their demands-universal suffrage (excluding however women), equal electoral districts, vote by ballot, annual parliaments, no property qualification for members, and their payment for their legislative services. After some rioting in 1839, the Chartists remained tolerably quiet until 1848, when, excited by the revolutions which took place that year in France and other parts of the Continent, they determined to make show of their strength. Mustering on the 10th of April on Kennington Common, they designed to march through London to the House of Commons, carrying a petition embodying their demands, which they boasted, though mistakenly, to bear more than five million signatures. This was to be presented by Feargus O'Connor, one of the members for Nottingham. Both the government and the great body of the people met the threatening movement with firmThe Londoners, to the number of a quarter of a million, enrolled themselves as special constables; the Chartists were not allowed to recross the bridges in procession, and the whole affair passed off quietly, without the troops which the Duke of Wellington had posted out of sight, but at hand, having any need to show themselves. From that time the Chartists ceased to be of any importance as an organized body; but three of the reforms for which they contended have since been carried out by the Acts abolishing the property qualification, and granting well-nigh universal suffrage for men and vote by ballot.

ness.

4. Wars in Asia and Africa. The wars of this reign hitherto have been waged in distant parts of the world. In 1840 England, together with other

powers, took the part of the Sultan of Turkey against his vassal Mohammed Ali, Pasha of Egypt, and Acre was bombarded and taken by the fleet under Admiral Sir Robert Stopford and Commodore Napier. In this action war-steamers were employed for the first time. In the same year a war with China arose out of the attempts of the Chinese Imperial Government to put down the contraband trade in opiurn carried on between India and that country. One of the results was the cession of the island of Hong-Kong to Great Britain. There were fresh quarrels with China in 1856, and again in 1860, when the allied English and French entered Pekin. A war which began in 1838 in Afghanistan is memorable for the disasters which befell the British troops in occupation of Cabul. The British-Indian government had taken up the cause of the dispossessed sovereign of Cabul, the actual ruler being believed to be intriguing with Russia against England. At first the war was successful. The gate of the stronghold of Ghuznee was blown open with gunpowder, and the fortress stormed and taken; the city of Cabul was entered in triumph; and British troops were left in occupation of the country; but being forced, by a rising of the natives, to retreat from Cabul in 1842, they were cut off, almost to a man, in the mountain passes. One officer alone, wounded and exhausted, reached Jellalabad, which was in possession of the English. After these misfortunes had been retrieved, a war with the Ameers or princes of Sind broke out in 1843, of which the result was the conquest of their country by Sir Charles Napier, a soldier trained in the Peninsular War, who further distinguished himself by the success with which, as Governor, he ruled the territory he had won. the end of 1845, and again in 1848, there were wars with the Sikhs of the Punjaub, ended by the victory of Goojerat, won by Lord Gough, February 21st, 1849, and the annexation of the Punjaub to the British

At

dominions. To these was added, in 1852, the province of Pegu, taken from the Burman Empire. In South Africa there were wars with the Kaffir tribes on the frontiers of the Cape Colony, resulting in the annexation by the Colony of the district called British Kaffraria. The most noteworthy incident connected with the Kaffir War of 1850 was the wreck of the Birkenhead steamship, which, while conveying detachments from the 12th, 74th, and 91st regiments, struck at dead of night, February 25, 1852, on a reef of sunken rocks on the South African coast, and in less than half an hour went down. The men on board gave a noble example of discipline and self-sacrificing courage. "Every one," wrote one of the survivors, "did as he was directed, and there was not a murmur nor a cry among them till the vessel made her final plunge." The boats were filled with the women and children and pushed off; while the soldiers, in obedience to their officers, stood calmly on the sinking ship, awaiting almost certain death rather than endanger the safety of the boats by attempting to get into them. Out of more than six hundred soldiers and seamen, less than two hundred were saved. Among African wars are also to be noted the successful Abyssinian Expedition, sent out from India in 1867, under the command of Sir Robert Napier (created Baron Napier of Magdala), to rescue certain British subjects and other Europeans held captive by Theodore, King of Abyssinia; and the equally successful Ashantee Expedition of 1873, sent out, under the leadership of Sir Garnet Wolseley, to chastise the Ashantees, a warlike people near the Gold Coast, who had harassed tribes under our protection, and attacked the British castle of Elmina.

5. The Crimean War. The Volunteers.In 1854 Great Britain and France, joined later on by Victor Emmanuel, King of Sardinia, engaged, on behalf of the Turks, in a war with Russia, which