IN DAYS THAT HAVE GONE

Otago Witness, Issue 3031, 17 April 1912, Page 82

IN DAYS THAT HAVE GONE

THE WEEK'S ANNIVERSARIES. April 14.—Sir G. Grey born, 1512. Rangoon taken, 1852. Princess Henry of Battenberg born, 1857. North Island division ICth Contingent left Auckland, 1902. ! April 15.—Sir J. C. Goss born, 18C0. Mine. Tussard died, 1850. Lincoln died, 1865. j N.Z. International Exhibition closed, 1907. April 15.—Bishop Bossnet died, 1704 Culloden, 1746. ' Last appeal to "Wager of Battle," 1818. General Pollock enters Jellalabad, 1842. j Candahar evacuated, 1831. I April 17.—Richard Cunningham murdered , by blacks, 1833. Quebec made scat of Canadian Government, 1856. ; April 18.—John Foxe died. 1587. Erasmus Darwin died, 1802. G. H. Lewes born, 1817. Livingstone's funeral, 1874. April ] 9.—Battle of Lexington, 1775. | Primrose League Day, ISBI. April 20.—Paul Veronese died, 1588. Spanish fleet destroyed by Blake, 1657. Prince Metternich arrived a 3 fugitive in London, 1848. j Trial of Fenian prisoners, 1868. Sir George Grey, British Colonial Governor and statesman, was born at Lisbon on April 14, 1812. He was tho only son of Lieutenant-colonel Grey, of the 30th Foot, who just eight days previously had been killed at the storming of Badajos. Ho had a military training at Sandhurst, and obtained his captaincy in 1839, in which year he sold out and left the army. During his long public career he was many times entrusted by the Home Goverment with posts of exceptional difficulty in various colonies, and his association with the development of Now Zonland entitles him to a place of unique distinction among her early statesmen. The second Burmese war, which resulted in the annexation of Pegu, was started early in 1852, on a somewhat flimsy pretext. After some dispute about etiquette j a British commodore seized a Royal yacht . that lay in tho Irawadi River, and the angry Burmese opened fire on his ships from their forts. " With an unprecedented economy of time and trouble, writes W. M. Torrens, "in tho discovery or making of plausible pretexts, a second war with Burma-h was thus begun." On April 14 Rangoon was taken with trifling loss. In the following December a proclamation was issued informing tho inhabitants that tho Governor-in-Council had resolved that the maritime province of Pegu should henceforth form a portion of the British territories in tho East. Beatrice, bettor known as Princess Henry of Battenberg, was the youngest daughter of Queen Victoria, and was born on April 14, 1557. In July, 1885, she married Henry Maurice, Prince of Battenberg, who died at sea in 1896 when returning from active service in the Ashanti war. The only daughter of tho marriage was Victoria Eugenie, who was married in 1906 to Alphonso XIII. Kins of Spain. Exhibitions of models in wax were popular in the seventeoth and eighteeth centuries, but the most famous collection was made by Mme. Tussaud towards tho close of the eighteenth century. She was a skilful modeller, and exhibited her remarkable collection of models and casts of eminent persons with costumes and other interesting relics Lti the Boulevard du Temple, Paris, 1785. In 1802 she exhibited her collection at the Lyceum, Strand, London, and afterwards at other places. The interest of tho exhibition has been energetically sustained for very many years at Baker street, London W., and latterly at Marylebono road by Mme. Tussaud and her family. She (Hod on March 15, 1850, at tho advance age of 90 years. The Appeal, or " Wager of Battle," was the name given to an old law of England by which a man charged with murder nyght fight with the appellant thereby to make proof of his guilt of innocence. In 1817 a young maid named Mary Ashford was believed to have been violated and murdered by Abraham Thornton, who on trial was acquitted, In an appeal he claimed his right by wager of battle, which the: court allowed; but the appellant (the brother of the maid) refused tho challenge, and the accused was discharged on April 16, This was the last appeal to this law, and it was struck off the Statute Book in the following year. After the terrible annihilation of tho British army of 16,000, which sought early i:-i January," 1842, to retreat through tho mountain passes from Cabul to Jollalalwid, General Sale, who held Jellalabad, received intimation from Akbar Khan to go out and march towa.ds India. This ho properly dcclined to do, and announced his intention of holding tho city until he had received orders from his Government to the contrary. A succession of earthquake shocks shattered the walls of the place, and produced more terrible destruction than the most formidable guns of modern warfare could have done. But the garrison held out fearlessly; they restored the parapets, re-established every battery, retrenched the whole of the gates, and built up all the breaches. When at last it became certain that General Pollock was forcing tho Khybor Pass to come to their relief, they issued boldly out of their forts, forced a battle on tho Afghan chief, and completely defeated him. Before Pollock—having gallantly fought his way through the Khyber j Pass —had reached Jellalabad on April 16 j the beleaguering army had been entirely defeated and dispensed. Richard Cunningham was a brother of Allan Cunningham, the eminent botanist and Australian explorer, who undertook many during expeditions in Victoria and New South Wales nearly 100 years ago. Richard was one of a party led by Sir Thomas Mitchell in 1833 to explore the upper branches of the Darling; but the i expedition met with a sad loss when ho was murdered by the blacks near the Bogan River on April 17. John Foxe, the author of tho famous '"Book of Martyrs," was born at Boston, in Lincolnshire, in 1517. While ho was a young man at Oxford his views were considered so unorthodox that in 1545 he was deprived of his fellowship, and expelled from the university. In - 1563 tho first English edition of the " Books of Martyrs," in which soveral gross errors which had been exposed vere corrected, appeared from tho press of John Day, !

the only pinter of the day who could print the Anglo-Saxon characters. Its popularity among a people who had just passed through the horrors of the Maiian persecution was naturally immediate and signal. The Government commanded it to be placed in each parish church; and more than any other influence it fanned the flame of that fierce hatred of Spain and the Inquisition which was the master passion of the reign. Foxe died on April 18. 1587, at the age of 70, and was buried in the Church of St. Giles, Cripplegate. The Primrose League wa3 formed in 1884 in memory of the late lord Beaconsfield, with whom the primrose is said to have been a favourite flower, and in support of Conservative principles. Ho died on April 19, 1881, and the anniversary of that day is termed "Primrose Day," when the flower is generally worn by his admirers. The Marquis of Salisbury became Grand Master. In April, 1657. Admiral Blake, then in very ill-health, heard that the Plate fleet lay at anchor in the Bay of Santa Cruz, Teneriffe. The fleet of 16 Spanish ships lay drawn up under the shelter of a castle and several forte with guns. Captain Stayne'r was ordered to enter the bay and fall on the fleet. Blake followed him. Broadsides were poured into the castle and the forts at the same time; and soon nothing was left but ruined walls and charred fragments of burnt ships. The wind suddenly shifted, and carried the heroic Blako safely out to sea. "The whole action," says Clarendon, " was so incredible that all men men who knew the place wondered that any sober man, with what courage soever endowed, would ever have undertaken it." This wa3 the great admiral's last action. Prince Metternich was the First Minister of Austria from 1809 to 1848. The French Revolution of 1848, which convulsed almost the whole of Continental Europe, caused the Austrian Empire to totter to its foundations. It roused the people of Vienna into an immediate state of open rebellion, and the popular demonstrations caused Metternich to resign. His life was scarcely safe there, and he was compelled to make his way as a fugitive to London, which he leached on April 20, 1848. He lived on till June, 1859, and saw every great figure of his earlier life and many that had appeared on the horizon since his own prime pass away.