IN DAYS THAT HAVE GONE.

Otago Witness, Issue 2983, 17 May 1911, Page 71

IN DAYS THAT HAVE GONE.

THE WEEK'S ANNIVERSARIES. May 14.—Battle of Lewes, 1264. Sydney Mint established, 1855. Edward Fitzgerald, died, 1883. Royal Commission on conduct of London police appointed, 1906. May 15.—Foundation stone of first Sydney Government House laid, 1788. Sir George Grey appointed Governor of South Australia, 1841. Daniel O'Connell died, 1847. Railwayman's strike in Victoria ended, 1903. First Imperial Conference closed, 1907. May 16.—Bishop Butler born, 1692. Battle of Albuera, 1811. Mrs F. D. Hemans died, 1835. Mr Chamberlain's first Protection ■speech, 1903. May 17. Dr Jenner born, 1749. Revised Version New Testament published, 1881. Alphonso XIII of Spain born, 1886. Mafeking relieved, 1900. May 18.—Murder of Edward the Martyr, 978. Warren Hastings born, 1733. Napoleon I proclaimed Emperor of .the French, 1804. Czar of Russia born, 1868. Meredith died, 1909. May 19.—Commonwealth declared under Cromwell, 1649. Boswell died, 1795. Nathaniel Hawthorne died, 1E64. Gladstone died, 1898. May 20.--Columbus died, 1506. _ Mecklenburg declaration <of in-. dependence, 1775. Gold discovered at Gabriel's Gully, 1861. King Edward VII buried, 1910.

During the reign of Henry 111 occurred the great struggle between the King and the bairons The wholesale invasion of England by friends of Henry's French wife Eleanor, and the corrupt government of the King precipitated the crisis. The barons, under Simon de Montfort, confronted the Royalist forces at Lewes. The result was a great victory for the barons. Henry was captured and his son Edward surrendered shortly afterwards. One of the results of this battle was the decision that a council should be called to help the King in the government of the country.. This led to the first Parliament being formed. Daniel O'Connell, the celetnated Irish barrister and agitator, was born in the County of Kerry in August, 1775. He was educated at Roman Catholic schools in Ireland and in France, and by the time he was 25 he had become one of the most promising and energetic of Catholic leaders. He devoted his singular abilities with great vigour to the cause .of Catholic emancipation. In 1828 he was elected to the House of Commons, though he could not take his seat, and in ,the following year the claim for emancipation was granted, the Duke of Wellington declaring that he mu§_t either grant it or risk a civil war. O'Connell attained a position of great eminence in the House of Commons; as a debater he stood in the very first rank, though he had entered St. Stephens after he was- 50; and his oratory, massive and strong in argument, although too often scurrilous and coarse, and marred by a bearing in which cringing flattery and rude bullying were strangely blended, made a powerful if not pleasing impression. In 1847 he set out on a visit to Italy, intending to proceed to Rome, but lie only reached Genoa, where he died on May 15 of that year . ~ Early iw May, 1903, a very senoU6 disorganisation of the Victorian railway service took place owing to the railway employees refusing to accede to the. Government's ultii matum° to secede from the Trades Hall. The hastily-organised strike service failed" to prevent very serious inconvenience and loss throughout the State. Parliament was summoned to pass special legislation, and on May 15 the settlement of the-strike was arranged at a conference between the Prime Minister (Mr Irvine), the Minister of RailI ways, the Leader of the Opposition, and the i Labour party, Mr Duffy, Sir John Madden, j and the president and secretary of the | Engine-drivers' Association. The men made I an unconditional acceptance of the Govern- ! ment's terms and declared the strike off.

During the Peninsular war, while Badajoz was being besieged by the English, a French artmy, under Marshal Soult, was sent to. its relief. Beresford, the British general, who had with him only 7000 English troops and

unreliable Spaniards, took up a strong posl> tion on heights protected in front by the Albuera River, Soult attached with great vigour, but the bravery of the English regiments decided the contest in favour o( Beresford, and Soult was compelled tc march away and abandon all hopes of re* lieving Badajoz. The loss on both side* was very heavy. Edward Jenner, ar. English physician of the eighteenth century, owes his celebrity to his having introduced the practice of vaccination aa a preventive of smallpox. The diploma constituting him Doctor of Medicine was presented to Jenner as a tribute to his talents by tho University of Oxford. In 1802 a parliamentary grant' of £IO,OOO was made to him, and five years later he received a second grant of £20,000. He died of apoplexy in 1823. The relief of Mafeking caused a wilder joy in England than any other event of tho Boer war. There had been painful anxiety on account of the besieged in that remote town in the far corner of Bechuanaland, so far from help and so stoutly defended for seven weary months by a very small force. A flying column of mounted men under Colonel Mahon started from Kimberley on May 4, 1900. < On the 15th, when 20 miles west of Mafeking, they were joined by another detachment under Colonel Plumer. The two advanced on the works of the besiegers, drove them out by hard fighting, and entered the town on May 18. Meantime another column under General Hunter- had been securing and opening the railway to bring up the sorclyneoded supplies for the famished and wornout garrison and people of the town. The defence of Mafeking was one of the finest performances of the war, and gave dis« tinction to Colonel Baden-Powell, who led the defenders. In March. .180*, the Due d'Enjchien was seized by Napoleon's orders and shot and buried in a moat on a. charge of having borne arms against the Republic. Thia affair led immediately to the thought of giving heredity to Napoleon's power. To propitiate the army ho chose from tho title* suggested to him that of Emperor. Except obtaining the regal title no attempt was made to conceal tire abolition of republicanism. Tho change was made by the constituent power of tho State, and tho Senatus-consulte is dated May 18, 1804. In the following December Napoleon was crowned by the Pope—or, to be exact, he crowned himself in the presence of the Pope—in the ancient, cathedral of Notre Dame. William Ewart Gladstone, the most prominent English statesman of tho latfcef part of last century, was born in Liverpool on December 29, 1809. He .was educared at Eton and Oxford, and first entered Parliament in 1832 as Tory member for Newark. His political opinions changed in after years, and he oceanic the famous leader of the Liberal party. Mr Gladstone hold office as Prime Minister on four occasions—in 1868, 1880, 1886. and 1892. A pax* from his fame as a statesman "Mr Gladstone has left behind him a great reputation a< a writer, especially on Homeric studied and theological subjects. He died at hii home at Ha warden on May 19, 1393. His physical vigour in old aare earned him, the popular nickname, of the Grand Old Man. Christopher Columbus was born in Genoa in 1437, and from his earliest year's he evinced a strong pamsion for geographical knowledge. Ho first crossed the Atlantic in 1492. when he discovered the West Indies. He did not visit the mainland of America till 1498. In 1504 he arrived in Spain sick and exhausted. The death of his constant friend, the Queen of Spain, soon followed ; and after two years of illness, humiliations, and despondency Columbus died at Valladolid on May 20, 1506. His remains were transported, according to his will, to the cifcv of «r. Domingo, but on the cession of Hifna.niola to the French they were removed with exeat pomp in 1796. to the cathedral of Havannah, in Cuba. His conduct waa characterised by the grandeur of his views, and the magnanimitv of his spirit. He was pre-eminently fitted for the task Vw» created for himself. Through deceit a&d opprobrium and disdain he pushed on toward the consummation of his desire, and when the hour for action came the man was not found wanting.