31. The official return of pauperism for January, 1914, showed that the total number of paupers had dropped from 33·8 per 1,000 in 1874 to 17·5 in 1914, and that of outdoor paupers from 27.5 to 10.3 per 1,000. Indoor pauperism, however, had risen since 1874 from 6.3 to 7.2 per 1,000, this being due largely to the greater use of workhouse infirmaries. Between 1906 and 1913 the total number of paupers over seventy had fallen nearly 75 per cent., and of outdoor paupers over seventy nearly 95 per cent., owing mainly to old-age pensions.

FEBRUARY.

2. First performance in England of Wagner's Parsifal at Covent Garden Opera House. (See post, Pt. II., Music.)

Announcement that the anonymous lady who had promised 25,000l. to lay out Shadwell Park in memory of King Edward was precluded from giving it by "severe and sudden financial misfortunes."

At Windsor Castle, Gustav Hamel "looped the loop" before the King and Queen fourteen times in 17 minutes.

4. Influential meeting at the Mansion House to explain the plans for celebrating the Hundred Years' Peace between Great Britain and the United States; among the speakers were the Prime Minister, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Lord Bryce.

Announcement that the King had approved the appointment of Mr. William Warwick Buckland, M.A., Senior Tutor of Caius College, to be Professor of Civil Law in the University of Cambridge, vice Dr. E. C. Clark, resigned.

At Sheffield, during an Association Football Cup-tie Match, a wall collapsed owing to the pressure of the crowd on its base at a corner; about seventy persons were injured, three very seriously.

At Christie's, a James I. silver-gilt cup and cover was sold for 4,500l.

5. At the Liverpool Assizes, George Ball, alias Sumner, was found guilty of the murder of Miss Christina Bradfield (Chron., 1913, Dec. 11) and sentenced to death, and Samuel Eltoft convicted as an accessory after the fact, and sentenced to four years' penal servitude. An appeal by Ball failed, and he was executed on February 26.

6. Announcement that the King had approved the appointments to the new Sees created under the Bishoprics Act, 1913, as follows: to the Bishopric of Sheffield, the Rt. Rev. L. H. Burrows, Bishop Suffragan of Lewes; to the Bishopric of Chelmsford, the Rev. J. E. Watts-Ditchfield, Vicar of St. James the Less, Bethnal Green; and to the Bishopric of St. Edmundsbury and Ipswich, the Ven. H. B. Hodgson, Archdeacon of Lindisfarne.

Mr. R. C. Munro-Ferguson, M.P. for Leith, appointed GovernorGeneral of the Australian Commonwealth, vice Lord Denman, retired.

7. At Cardiff, in an International Rugby Football Match, Wales beat Scotland by twenty-four points to five.-At Queen's Club, West London, in the Inter-University Association Football Match, Cambridge beat Oxford by two goals to one.

9. Announcement that the "Panshanger Madonna" (Chron., 1913, Nov. 26) had been sold to Mr. P. A. Widener, of Philadelphia.

Announcement that Lord Justice Cherry was appointed Lord Chief Justice of Ireland, vice Lord O'Brien resigned.

Before a court-martial at Chatham, Fleet Paymaster J. A. Lowry, of H.M.S. Ganges, pleaded guilty to desertion and embezzlement, and was sentenced to three years' penal servitude.

10. Sir Laurence Gomme resigned his office as clerk of the London County Council, owing to ill-health.

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Meeting of Parliament. (See Eng. Hist., Chap. II.)

At Durban, the M.C.C. cricket eleven were defeated by Natal by ten wickets.

11. Announcement that Lord Gladstone had resigned the office of Governor-General of South Africa. (For the consequent Ministerial changes, see Pt. I., p. 27.)

The Mont Blanc range crossed by the airman Parmelin in a flight from Geneva to Turin. Fog compelled him to descend at Aosta.

13. Announcement at the annual meeting of the Great Eastern Railway shareholders that Mr. Henry W. Thornton, general superintendent of the Long Island Railroad (New York), had been appointed as General Manager of the Great Eastern Railway in succession to Mr. Walter Hyde. He had special experience with heavy suburban traffic.

14 At Rochdale a tramcar was derailed; eighteen persons were injured.

At Twickenham, in an International Rugby Football Match, England beat Ireland by seventeen points to twelve.

15. At Lyndhurst, Hants, a madman named Lee Bond was arrested after a thirty hours' motor drive through Dorset, Wilts, and Hants; he compelled the chauffeur to drive under threat of shooting him, and requisitioned petrol by like means. He attempted suicide next day.

17. At Durban the Fourth Test Match between the M.C.C. and South Africa resulted in a draw.

18. In the Upper House of the Convocation of Canterbury, the Bishop of London presented a petition signed by 676 priests in the diocese of London, expressing anxiety at the unchecked denial of fundamental Christian truths by office-holders in the Church, and at the tendency to approach the problem of reunion in a way inconsistent with the recognition of the necessity of episcopal ordination.

At the Parliamentary bye-election in Bucks (Wycombe) due to the elevation to the Peerage of Sir A. Cripps (U.), Mr. W. B. Du Pré (U.) was returned, obtaining 9,044 votes; Mr. Tonman Morley (L.) obtained 6,713.

19. At the Parliamentary bye-election for South-West Bethnal Green, due to the appointment of Mr. C. F. G. Masterman (L.) to the Chancellorship of the Duchy of Lancaster, Sir Matthew Wilson (U.) was returned by 2,828 votes; Mr. C. F. G. Masterman (L.) receiving 2,804, and Mr. John Scurr (Soc. and Lab.) 316. (See Eng. Hist., Chap. II.)

19. At Cradley Heath, Staffs, owing to a subsidence caused by old colliery workings, some forty houses in the High Street were cracked and injured.

Near Birmingham, Ala., a mail train was held up by three men, and robbed of $40,000; they then detached the locomotive and escaped on it.

In the King's Bench Division, before Mr. Justice Darling and a special jury, the six days' trial was concluded of a libel action brought by Major W. A. Adam, sometime 5th Lancers and late Unionist M.P. for Woolwich, against Sir Edward Ward, recently Permanent Secretary for the War Department. The plaintiff complained of the publication of a letter addressed officially by the defendant to Major-General Scobell in August, 1910, declaring that the charge brought against the latter by the plaintiff was unfounded and containing words which the plaintiff regarded as a reflection on his character. The defendant denied publication, and alleged that the words were privileged. The charge in question had been debated in the Commons (A.R., 1910, p. 150). The jury found for the plaintiff; damages 2,000l.

20. At the Parliamentary bye-election for Tower Hamlets (Poplar), due to the appointment of the Rt. Hon. Sydney Buxton to be Governor of South Australia, Mr. A. W. Yeo (L.) was returned by 3,548 votes; Mr. R. Kerr Clark (U.) received 3,270, and Mr. J. Jones (Lab. and Soc.) 893.

In the final heat of the Waterloo Cup, Messrs. Dennis's hound Dilwyn beat the Duke of Leeds's Leucoryx, nominated by Major McCalmont. At Messrs. Nobel's factory of explosives at Ardeer, Ayrshire, an explosion killed seven men and injured two, one fatally.

On the Wexford coast, near Kerrig Island, the Fethard lifeboat was wrecked while assisting the Norwegian schooner Mexico; five of the lifeboatmen and nine of the schooner's crew were rescued on February 22, after sixty hours on the island; nine lifeboatmen were drowned; one of the crew had died of exhaustion.

21. At Challapata, Bolivia, a magazine containing 3,500 tons of dynamite exploded; the town was destroyed, with great loss of life.

Count Mielzynski acquitted of the murder of his wife and her nephew at his castle in Poland (A.R., 1913, Chron., Dec. 20). The trial was in camera, but it was stated that the Countess had been unfaithful.

22. Severe storm in Switzerland. On the Lötschberg railway, a train was partly derailed by wind on emerging from a tunnel; one passenger killed, several injured.

23. At Debreczin, Hungary, a bomb sent by post to the Greek Catholic Bishop Miklossy exploded and killed the episcopal vicar and the secretary. The outrage was ascribed to Roumanian resentment at the creation of a Greek diocese of Hajdudorog, severing 12,000 Roumanians from the Roumanian branch of the same Church.

26. At the Parliamentary bye-election at Leith, due to the appointment to be Governor-General of Australia of Sir R. Munro-Ferguson (L.), Mr. G. W. Currie (U.) was returned by 5,159 votes; Mr. M. Smith (L.) received 5,143, and Mr. J. N. Bell (Lab.) 3,346.

Announcement that Mr. Otto Beit had offered a South African Research Fellowship for two years at Oxford, for the collection of the South African history preserved by memory and oral tradition.

26. Announcement that Sir Hugh Lane was appointed Director of the National Gallery of Ireland, vice Sir Walter Armstrong, resigned.

At Chelsea, in a baseball match between two American teams, the New York Giants and the Chicago White Sox, the latter won by five runs to four. The King was present.

In a duel near Metz a German officer, Lieut. Haase, was shot dead by a brother officer, Lieut. von Lavallette St. George, who had shown undue attention to his adversary's wife.

nil.

28. At Dublin, Ireland beat Scotland at Rugby football by six points to

At Samar, near the Sea of Galilee, the Turkish military airmen Fethi Bey and Sadik Bey, while flying from Damascus to Jerusalem, were killed by the fall of their aeroplane.

MARCH.

1. Announcement that the King would offer a cup of the value of 1007. for an international yacht race at Panama in 1915.

1, 2. Severe snowstorms in the Eastern United States.

2. At Swansea, Wales beat France at Rugby football by thirty-one points to nil.

3. In the fifth and final South African Test Match, at Port Elizabeth, England beat South Africa by ten wickets.

The Admiralty issued a return giving particulars of the strength of the eight chief naval Powers on January 1, 1914, omitting such battleships, battle cruisers, and cruisers, as had been launched more than twenty years. Vessels built are given first; vessels building, if any, are added after a plus sign. The British figures included Dominion ships. marines given for Germany was admittedly too low.

The number of sub

4. On the Ortler Spitz, Tyrol, a patrol of twenty soldiers under instruction in ski-running were caught by an avalanche; fourteen were killed.

6. In Birmingham, a statue was unveiled of Bishop Gore, first Bishop of the diocese, as a memorial of his connexion with it.

At Boulogne-sur-Seine the Penitentiary Convent School was attacked by a band of fifteen "Apaches," who rescued three girls; these, and seven of the band, were eventually arrested.

9. In the House of Commons, the Prime Minister gave particulars of the proposed permissive exclusion of the Ulster counties from the Home Rule Bill.

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At St. Louis, Mo., the Missouri Athletic Club was burnt; about thirty lives were lost.

10. The Rokeby Venus in the National Gallery damaged by a militant suffragist.

- At Upavon, Captain C. P. Downer, Northamptonshire Regiment, was killed while flying in a BE biplane.

Ceiba, Honduras, was burnt down; estimated damage $10,000,000. In the Convocation of Oxford University a statute throwing open the eighteen seats of the Hebdomadal Council (hitherto elected from Professors, Heads, and Masters of Arts equally) was rejected by 97 to 83.

11. On Salisbury Plain, Captain Clement Allan, Welsh Regiment, and Lieut. James E. G. Burroughs, Wiltshire Regiment, were killed by a fall from an aeroplane, the only one of its type.

-At Eastchurch, Engineer-Lieut. Briggs, R. N., Royal Flying Corps, reached a height of 15,000 ft. on a biplane; he was frostbitten, the temperature falling to 38° Fahr.

12. At the annual dinner of the Association of Chambers of Commerce, the Prime Minister, after mentioning the development of inter-Imperial trade through Trade Commissioners and local correspondents in the Dominions, said that 1913 had been a record year in trade and employment; there were signs of slackening, but little reason to anticipate any serious impression. The character of the Labour unrest, however, was disquieting.

-The training ship Wellesley, on the Tyne, was burnt; no lives lost. 13. At Exeter, N.S.W., between Sydney and Melbourne, a mail train ran past signals in a fog into a cattle train shunting; fourteen killed, fifteen injured.

13-14. Great storm on the Sea of Azof. The coast was flooded, the Kuban railway (under construction) was wrecked, and there was heavy loss of life.

14. At Belfast, Wales beat Ireland at Rugby football by eleven points to three.

15-16. Heavy gales and rains; five men were drowned through the foundering of a tug off Greenhithe. The Swedish barque Trifolium was wrecked in Sennen Cove, Cornwall; five drowned.

16. At Cardiff, England beat Wales at Association football by two goals to none.