5. Final abandonment announced of "The Romance of India," a spectacle projected at Earl's Court, and designed by a well-known artist, Mr. R. Caton Woodville, but objected to by the India Office and Indian residents in London as likely to give offence to Hindus and others. Several hundred performers were left destitute.
—The tank steamer Oklahoma was broken in two by a wave fifty miles off Sandy Hook and sunk; seven lives saved, about thirty-two lost.
—At Johannesburg, the third Cricket Test Match was won by England by ninety-one runs. England had now won the first three.
7. Announcement that Sir R. H. Brade had been appointed Secretary of the War Office and the Army Council vice Colonel Sir Edward Ward, retired.
—Announcement that Mr. Joseph Chamberlain would retire from Parliament at the next general election.
—Railway strike in South Africa. (See post, For. and Col. Hist., Pt. I., Chap. VII.)
—At the King's Hall, Covent Garden, a mock trial was held of John Jasper for the murder of Edwin Drood, the hero of Dickens' last and unfinished novel. The literary problem involved in the book, the subject of much speculation, was not solved. Mr. G. K. Chesterton was Judge, Mr. George Bernard Shaw foreman of the Jury. The verdict was manslaughter, but the Judge committed all those present for contempt.
—Attempt to blow up Territorial barracks at Leeds, temporarily used as police quarters; damage slight.
8. Fire at St. Paul's Training College, Cheltenham; damage over 5,000l.
9. At Cambridge, Dr. Henry Frederick Baker, D.Sc., F.R.S., Fellow and Tutor of St. John's College, was elected Lowndean Professor of Astronomy and Geometry, vice Sir Robert Ball, deceased.