TO-DAY'S ANNIVERSARIES.

Press, Volume LXVII, Issue 14099, 19 July 1911, Page 9

TO-DAY'S ANNIVERSARIES.

JUSE 19. ■William Somerville, author of "The ' Chase," died .. •- •• l'< 2 Sam-uel Colt (inventor of revolver), born 1814 Iturb'do. Mexican leader, shot at Padillo • 1824 Declaration of war between France and Germany -. •• •■ 1870 Bishop WUberforce died .. •■ 1878

General Iturbide. —It was during one of the most turbulent periods of Mexican history that this Mexican leader came into*prominence. The country was in a state of guerilla warfare, one wonld-bo leader succeeding another, until, in 1821, tho capital was surrendered by O'Doneju (a Spaniard of Irish descent), the last of the viceroys. In the following year General Iturbide. who in 1821 had issued what was termed the "Plan de Iguala," providing for the independence of Mexico under a nrince of the reigning houso, had himself orocl aimed emneror, but the guerilla leader Guerrero, his former ally, and General Santa-Anna, raised the republican standard, and in*lß23 he was banished to Italy with a pension. Returning the following year he was taken and shot, and the Federal Republic of Mexico was finally established.

Colonel Samuel Colt. —Colonel Colt was born in a town in Connecticut, ran away to sea in his thirteenth year, and when ho had not yet attained his majority travelled over a large part of America, delivering lectures on chemistry, by which he obtained the funds to prosecute his invention. In 183_The took out his first patent for a revolving nistel, ywliicb after the Mexican war was adopted as a regular weapon for tho United States Army. Colonel Colt introduced the manufacture of pistols into England in 1853. and his system of manufacture induced. the British Government to establish tiie Enfield armoury in 1865. Colt expended over £500,000 on an immense armoury in Ms native town of Hartford, where he died in his forty-eignth year, and his widow erected a handsome Episcopal church- to his memory.

Bishop Samuel Wilberforce.—Bishop Wilberforce was the third son of William Wilberforce, the famous antislavery philanthropist. Be distinguished himself greatly at Oxford, and in due time took holy orders, and it was not long before his great gifts and self-denying labours brought him into prominence and many preferments. In his thirty-fifth year he was appointed rector of Aiverstoke and canon of Winchester, and an anti-slavery speech so impressed the Prince Consort, who was present on the particular occasion, that tho following year he was made one of the Prince's chaplains, and preached at Court. In 1845 he was appointed Dean of Westminster, and a few months later, on tho eve of Newman's reception into the Church of Rome, Bishop of Oxford. This was a time of storm _ and stress fo r the Church (of which one notable episode was tho Colenso controversy), jn which tbe Bishop was to the fore. He had his own troubles also through bereavement and th© secession to the Church of Rome of many of those near and dear to him. Nevertheless, he so governed his diocese for twenty-four years n3 to deservedly earn the trtJo of the "remodeller of the Episcopate." Watchfulness and work, not pomp and ease wero his characteristics, and Jje laboured incessantly for reform in all directions. He was a very fine orator, and had many and varied social gifts, and an ever-present pense of humour, "Too clever, too self-roliant," says a notice, "too persuasive, too fascinating in manner, too fertile in expedients, too fpcile," he got tho sobriquet of "Soapy Sam." but there was truth as well ps wit in his own explanation of the name, that it was because 'lie was always in hot water, and always came out of it with clean hands." In 1889 the Bi_hc-D was transferred to Winchester, but four years later was killed by a fall from his horse, in his sixty-eighth year.