[34] Hodder’s Life of Lord Shaftesbury, Vol. III., p. 303.
[35] Life of Bishop Wilberforce, Vol. III., p. 394.
[36] Daily Telegraph, 28th February, 1872.
[37] The boy was said to be a nephew of Feargus O’Connor, and was a clerk in an oil-shop in the Borough. He had tried to reach the Queen’s carriage on Thanksgiving Day, but the density of the crowd prevented him. O’Connor, curiously enough, was not a Fenian or a Catholic, but a Protestant youth who had turned crazy by reading “penny dreadfuls.” In April he was tried and sentenced to one year’s imprisonment and twenty strokes with the birch. The Queen, who had long been desirous of bestowing medals for long and faithful domestic service in her employment, found in the attack by O’Connor an opportunity for carrying out her idea. Her personal attendants were Highland gillies from her Aberdeenshire estates. They had been most active in protecting her when she was menaced by O’Connor, and on John Brown, who had been more prominent than the others, her Majesty conferred this gold medal and an annuity of £25. Brown had been the Prince Consort’s favourite gillie, and, though his rough Northern manners were somewhat unprepossessing, his personal courage, stolid fidelity, shrewd judgment, and blunt honesty of speech, had rendered him a great favourite in the Queen’s family.
[38] Life of Bishop Wilberforce, Vol. III., p. 393.
[39] England was admittedly not responsible for the escape of this vessel. But the Tribunal held that because a British Colony reinforced her crew at Melbourne after she carried the Confederate flag, responsibility accrued.
[40] The first Election under the Ballot was at Pontefract, when Mr. Childers was returned against Lord Pollington by a vote of 658 to 578—the registered Electors being 1,960. The Election was conducted with unusual order, and there was no bribery or intimidation, and less violence and drunkenness than usual.
[41] This Bill was, of course, much less drastic than the one which Mr. Bruce withdrew in 1871. It reduced the hours of sale, strengthened the hands of the authorities as regards supervision and the granting of new licences, but as a sop to the Liquor Trade it gave the well-conducted publican a kind of tenant-right by practically securing to him a renewal of his licence.
[42] Had an Admiral with good administrative ability been appointed Permanent Secretary to the department instead of Mr. Lushington, the collapse of Mr. Childers’ scheme, when he was invalided, might have been averted.
[43] Sir Massey Lopes desired that the cost of administering justice, and the Lunacy and Police Acts—then charged on the rates—should be thrown on the Consolidated Fund, i.e., transferred from the ratepayer to the tax-payer. The county members on both sides objected to the whole system of rating which fell not on personal, but real property, and which threw on rates the cost of doing work which was done not merely for the locality, but for the community at large. The Ministry maintained that it was impossible to give effect to Sir Massey Lopes’ ideas till the whole question of Local Government and Rating was taken up and settled on a sound basis.