TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Press, Volume LIX, Issue 11278, 20 May 1902, Page 4

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

The Coronation of the The Spanish young King Alfonso XHI Coronation, of. Spain appears to have passed off with great eclat. The boy King haa now entered on his seventeenth, year, for it was .on May 17th, 1886, that Senor Sagasta announced to an anxious nation that the widow of their dead King had borne a son. .Alfonso XH., the boy's father, had died late in the previous "November, a victim to consnmp tion. He was only twenty-eight years old, and -had reigned some eleven years. After his death the Queen widow and her daughter Mercedes assumed joint control, and wheh Alfonso Xni. was born the Regency passed into the hands of the Queen alone. Her task is probably not yet completed, but th® duties of kingshjn will now devolve, at least nominally, upon her youthful son. A'fonso XETT. is described as at first sight a delicate lad— thin, pale, and of nervous appearance. He speaks English, French, and German, as well as-Spanish,.has had a careful .mathematical training, is a student of history, and is devoted to military matters. For a boy of his age, in fact, the young King,

is remarkably well-informed. Whether he has the physical srt-rength to bear the strain of !his onerous position remains yet to be seen. In any case, it is believed that for some time to.come the Government will be large".}- in the hands of the Queen Mother, SetKir Sagasta, and tbe Duke of Tctnau, a descendant of the Red ,o'Donnell of Ulster. A recent -writer in the London "Daily Mail," discussing the conditions in Spain a* the present period, thus summed up the prospects of the new Sovereign: — '"They say in Madrid that, his best policy lies in a continuation of the existing order of things, and devotion to such works as the improvement of the financial situation, the substitution, of some less direct method of taxation for the octroi duties, the ihaintenance of army efficiency, the creation of a smaH navy on the most modern lines, and the granting of such concessions to democracy as the Spanish official mind can accept without offence. It is not a verr heroic programme, nor. is it one that can appsal very stronglj -to the young, enthusiastic, ambitious rider; but Spain is a f very tired country just now; she has passed through years of internal convulsion."

The creation of peerage digCoronation nities in honour of the CoroPeerages. nation of a British Sovereign is a- custom which dates hack more than five centuries. Froissarfc relates how, -when Richard 11. was crowned in 1377, he created '"mi. Contes et IX. Chevaliers," but it was not till the Coronation of Richard HI. that the first precedent for the existing custom was really established. Of his successor, Henry Vnf, we read that on the eve of his Coronation the King "appoynted a good nombre of .noble persons of this his realme -bo take the order -of knygkthoda, and he made Knights.of the Bath, in the Tour of London." iXo changes in the peerage marked the Coronation of Herry VUI., but when Henry s youthful son Edward was crowned Somerset, the real power behind the boy King's throne, saw to it that a dukedom was created for himself and minor dignities for seme of his friends. Of these particular creations the dukedom of Somerset is the only one which survives tq-day. Several new peers were created when Elizabeth was crowned, .but James I. eclipsed ail previous records by appointing three earls, eight barons, and no fewer than <tihree hundred knights in honour of hia Coronation. Charles I. bestowed earldoms on eight existing peers, while six earls and six barons were created by the second Charles, among them being a Howtard, who had accepted a peerage from Cromwell himself before becoming a convert to the .victorious Royalist cause. Eleven new peerages came into existence at 1-he Coronation of William and Maiy, but James 11., Anne, George 11., and George in., were all exceptions to the general custom. The first of the Georges followed the precedent of Charles 1., and bestowed his earldoms upon eight existing ■peers, giving English titles to four of the peers of Ireland. George IV. was particularly lavish in the distribution of his honours, which included a m-arquisatc and five earldoms," eight fresh baronies, and a' yiscountey, and seven baronies among. Scotch and Irish peers, who -had no seats in the House of Lords. His -example was clossiy folknrai by William IV., but at the Coronation-of Victoria the mniilber of peerage creations and promotions was reduced by half, although the same principle of distribvrtion was observed. Disclosing these .precedents, a writer in the latest "Monthly Review" remarks that the only feature that can be safely anticipated in regard to the 'creation of peerage dignities by King" Edward is the further bestowal of English titles on peers of Scotland and Ireland. Although since the Union seventy-eight peers of Ireland have received peerages of the United Kingdom, there are still nearly ninety without seats in the House of Lords,

t»ome two- or three - A months ago we pubVivisectionist's lished tlie terms of a , Offer. remarkab'e offer by an I American medical man. Dr. James Russell, of Brooklyn. He had Ibeen aflnoyed by a violent attack on vivi' section by a local paper, and to demonstrate that, vivifectionists were not a heartless and 'cruel set of people, and that, if pecessary, the doctor ,who practised vivisection wa s quite wiF.ing to "surrender bis own body to the scalpels of his fellows," he announced his willingness to give himself as a subject for scientific vivisection, "for the benefit of humanity." "I want to stop this anti-viviseotion cant," he said, and further .stated fhat he had obtained the fcesfi possflxe legal/advice that he,-was quite within his' hi making th'e offer; though it is doubtful, seeing what the end must -have been, whether he would have found the highest legaV authorities unanimous on thi s point. It is possible that Dr. Russell did not believe his offer wou'.d be taken up, and if this was so he must havo been rather shocked at tfhe alacrity with which ths staff of a-local hospital announced its readiness to ma-ka usa of him as a subject. Even more disturbing must have been the course of work that they laid out, and of .which they kindly notified him, seeing ■ that it included the insertion of long needles into his internal organs, the removal: of his thyroid gland, and a number of. other operations likely to afford the vivisectors keen "professional .pleasure, and a corresponding amount of suffering and injury to the subject. The announcement of this acceptance of his offer waa. however, the signa l . for its withdrawal by Dr. Rossrll. 'Tt was all bluff," he told an interviewer. . "I thought the time had come to call the turn on the anti-vivisectionists. They have been airing their opinions much to our harm. All I did .to gain this notoriety was to reply to a letter in a Brooklyn paper, never for a -moment thinking that my views wonta. gain outside publicity." Thereupon the hospital staff who had proposed to cut him up declared in their turn that their acceptance was also a joke. 'Tt was a game of bluff on both sides," remarked one of them. "We never had any serious idea of vivisecting him. No .reputaible member of our profession woruld do such a thing." The honours of the encounter seemed to rest .with *he hospital staff. The humour on both sides was of the grimmest, but in Dr. Russell's case it has recoiled' on his own head, and xfc is difficult to see how he has done any semes to the cause of the .vivlsecttonists by making _a ridiculous offer which he had no intention of carrying out.