REVIEW.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XIII, Issue 4480, 23 March 1876, Page 3

REVIEW.

. A REPORT FROM " THE TIMES." Being the annual summaries for a quarter o£ a century. . London : Goodlakc, Times ; Office, Printing-house-square. We believe there are but two—probably not t, ro _copies of this remarkable compilation in Auckland. It is published in London at a shilling, and is probably the most complete shilling's worth ever put in circulation. j[t is known to all readers of newspapers that the Times closes each year with a summary of the events, political and social, for that period expired. These summaries are. generally most comprehensive, "written by master hands, and occupy from one to two pages of the well-known broad-sheet. The volume before us contains these annual summaries for the last quarter of a century. It commences with the opening of the great Exhibition of 1851, and finishes with obituary noticcs of Ledru Itoll in and Charles Kingsley. The millennium of industry has been strangely chequered with vicissitudes of wars and revolutions. It is scarcely possible to give a more compendious history of "what has happened in the world within the last quarter of a century than is contained in the following extract from the preface of this little volume : —

In tho form, then, of the summaries presented to the readers of The Times on the last day of the year, these pages are a history of the last twenty-flvo ye - \rs—tho third quarter of the 19th century. It is not too much to say that the period is not surpassed by any former equal period in the importance, the interest, and even the surprising character of its events. It docs not lack a single circumstance of distinction, and, upon the whole, Koglishmen must regard it as one continued triumph of progress, though not always In tho way that had been expected. This quarter of a century has seen the beginning and the crd of tho Second Kmpire ; the .first and second International Exhibitions, with tho numerous useful and magnificent institutions that have risen out of them* it has se«m the Crimean "War, and the ultimate surrender of tho chief object supposed to be then secured : it has seen the Indian Mutiny, long foreboded, and now long forgotten ; it lias seen the union and independenco of Italy, established bythe overthrow of German influence, and the expulsion of the Bourbon and Austrian Princes, and the foundation of tho Italian Kingdom; it has seen the extinction of the Papal Temporalities and the preposterous attempts to restore the niediaival t'ap cy by the Vatican Council and other like extravagances; it has seen Pio JX. start a liberal reformer and finish a despot in a splf-made prison; it has seen the beginning and tho end of the war which threatened to break up the American Union, but winch only abolished ■ slavery and laid tho Union under a debt moro bur- . densome than our own; it has seen tho last of - Wellington's glory and the cutting short of tho Prmco Consort's useful and exemplary career; it has seen >s-Prus3ia begin on the Danish peninsula, carry on to •the shores of the Danube prosecute through tho many realms of much-divided Germany, and accomplish at Paris her long-matured sr.home for tho restoration of the G-rman Kmpire under her own dynasty; it has seen the losses and humiliations of Germany repaid with tenfold interest on her foe, and France, in her turn, laid under the heel nf an uppitying conqueror; it has seen in Franco a political beginning thereof none can guess the end. In tue course of these events it lias seen battle*, defeats, surrenders capitulations, on a scalo and with incidents beyond all former example. At home it has seen a larl amontery Ileforni Act hardly less important than tlio fir«t* -it has seen British armies triumphant in Abyssinia ard Joomassle; it has seen Spain surpassing herself in revolution, anarchy, and civil war; it hai seen the commencement the completion, and now tho praotic&l acquisition by our own country of, perhaps, the grandest material work ever achieved by man— tho Canal which divides continents and unites the northern, end southern oceans; it has seen the disestablishment of tho Irish Church, the .settlement of Irish tenant right, tho foundation, at length, of a really national system of elementary education, and the serious progress of many measures for the health of the people: it has seen England visited by distant potentates better known hitherto in travel or in tale; it has seer. steam substituted for sails, and iron armour-plates for the " wooden walls" of England, on a scale beyond the dreams of our forefathers; it has seen even the .army accept somo ouce impossible reforms; it has .seen (he electric wire, which twenty-fivo years ago was .just known to tho educated and used by the wealthy* carried to every post-office and station in the country; -ii.Jias seen the Thames embanked and the metropolis dv.tlned; it has seen the completion of free trade, the removal of all religious disabilities and restrictions; it lijis seen royal marriages of singular interest , and high promise; it has seen our colonies, by Ihe -gold discoveries and by emigration from home riso •to .the rank of free States ami valuable allies: it bus seen an extension of our manu- • factures, trade, aud <oinmercn, beyond all anticipation; it has seen discoveries and inventions »•which it takes ..volumes even to enumerate; {It has scon otr s>stem of law and judtcaiure .reformed from tho baso to the summit; and, meanawhile. it has soea the.working cla3se«, whether in .country or in town, spontaneously, and with hardly ; effort, rising to .recoil their full share of the . national gains. It is - harp to say what subject of • interest lia3 not become mora interesting, more i stirring, and more important during this period. In .matters of faith there, hava been controversies, secessions, conversion", church *r.d chapel building and restoration, such as »hctc never was before. Ancient ,cities-iavc beeu discovered,,.with buried literatures, ■languages, and annals. Central Africa has been distCovered. opened, aud introduced to science, humanity, Asiatic empires are enduring, and even inviting Europeau civilisation. England, in spite,of herself is extendi**? her. posts and str«tchihg W limh£. Year by year, jis toZA in these pages, the ckMces mar not be rapid, audde.i, or unaccountable; the,development seem measured and even slow; butrihoy who can\ .-call th* general 3tato of feeling thistrery day twenty-five yeses sinc*oiay remember that England was looking with not a. little incredulity, andracn apathy in some qnarMrs. to tic completion of a ttateriat effort—tlie I- xlubition ,in Hyde Park, expectitig .not very* much from it, but one thing, at all events—the substitution of for .vrar, and tue arts of puice fcr th. se of war l.y all civiJiscd nations. Uttle ai4 it.sas of tho marvellous tenoui, and st.ll oore marrtdlous episodes of the tisio'that.was coming. Little as we .can forecast the jsamfold:sood and 1U due to uc by .the first Kw of human probjibuiti.es m the course of the.nest twenty-five years. We are not aware that a copy of this most repriat can be had at any Auckland, booksellers', although the more polite speculative literature cau be obtained there in abundance. For those who would' take an glance the stupendous platform of .-Europe during the period indicated, and observe the Passage of its vast .paaorama of events* w© of no better guide than tliis .small Wit