The longest session Congress ever held closed on October 20th, having lasted 321 days. Its most interesting features were the tariff discussion and the unparalleled deadlock in the consideration of the direct-tax bill. With the short session which begins on December 4th the present Democratic ascendancy will come to an end, as the Republicans will have a good working majority of at least thirteen in the Fifty-first Congress.
The diplomatic world is laughing at Lord Sackville for his foolishness in falling into a Republican trap, and his summary dismissal by President Cleveland. In answer to an unknown correspondent in California, the English minister wrote expressing his views as to the pending Presidential election—a thing in violation of all diplomatic custom. The letter was published and used as a campaign document. President Cleveland at once demanded his recall, and Lord Salisbury not acting with sufficient promptness, the unlucky minister was given his passport on October 30th.
England and Germany are contending for supremacy in East Africa, the latter by bombarding the natives of Zanzibar into submission, and the former by the peaceful methods of trade. Portugal is to join England and Germany in a naval blockade of Zanzibar to suppress slave-dealing, and the Pope has sent $60,000 to Cardinal Lavigerie for the same purpose. The Cardinal is raising a volunteer corps with which to fight the slave-dealers of Central Africa. The Congo Free State, the only absolute free-trade country in all the world, is being rapidly opened. The first section of the trans-African railway, from St. Paul de Loanda to Ambaca, has been completed. Stanley has been heard from indirectly, but the news is eleven months old and his present position is unknown.
Russia came near losing her ruler in a railway accident not far from Tiflis on October 29th. As the Czar and Czarina were returning from the Caspian to the Black Sea, the train left the rails and was wrecked. Twenty-one persons were killed and thirty-seven injured, but the Czar escaped with a slight injury to his foot. Balkan questions still cloud the political horizon. Austria is contemplating the occupation of Servia, a step which would be followed immediately by Russia occupying Bulgaria. King Milan has got his divorce from Queen Natalie. He pointed out to the Metropolitan of the Servian Church that the sovereign of course was superior to all law in such little matters as marriage-ties, and the Metropolitan obediently issued a decree granting the divorce. Queen Natalie has appealed to the Greek Patriarch at Constantinople. Meanwhile Roumania is trying an experiment in self-government, having introduced a system of elections for members of a Chamber of Deputies, for which all citizens paying taxes are electors.
Emperor William has returned from his junketing tour. His reception by the Italian people was enthusiastic, but his interview with the Pope was hardly a love-feast. Pope and Kaiser met face to face for the first time since Henry IV. of Germany did penance at Canossa before Gregory Hildebrand in 1077. A curious incident that happened just after the Emperor's visit was the breaking out of a fire in a wing of the Quirinal, in which the pontifical escutcheon affixed to the palace was burned. Another historical event occurred on October 17th, when Hamburg joined the German customs union, giving up its privileges as a free port. Bismarck's policy proved stronger than that of the free-traders in the Reichstag, and German custom-houses now cast their shadows on the waters of the Elbe.
In France the government proposals for a revision of the constitution seem to be in a fair way towards adoption. They include a fixed term for the ministers and curtailment of the Senate's powers. The senators oppose the plan, not caring to be "revised" out of their privileges. The Haytien republic has nearly finished its revolution. General Salomon, the exiled president, died in Paris on October 19th, and General Télémaque was killed in an attack on Port au Prince. The only other candidate for the presidency, General François Denys Légitime, was elected by the National Assembly on October 17th. The efforts of Manitoba to reach a foreign market without being subjected to the odious monopoly of the Canadian Pacific Railway may have serious consequences. The Province is building a railway to connect with the American lines, and the Canadian Pacific refuses to let them cross their tracks. Both sides threaten to fight.
Business is quiet but steady. Wall Street sharpers are anticipating a boom, as it is not expected that the new administration will do anything to hurt the monopolies. The shares of those trusts listed on the New York Stock Exchange—American Cotton Oil trust and Chicago Gas trust—have advanced in price. "Old Hutch" of Chicago is said to be engineering a corner in December wheat and January pork. Mr. John Taylor, of Chicago, who lost his fortune in "Old Hutch's" last corner, shot himself in a railway train while travelling from Paris to Marseilles, making the second suicidal crime attributable to this commercial freebooter. The investigation of the will of Mrs. Stewart, who was left a fortune of twenty-five million dollars by her husband, and died ten years afterward in debt over one million to her friend, ex-Judge Hilton, who managed her estate, is developing a remarkable system of book-keeping. All her investments ceased to pay, and her adviser even charged interest for her husband's funeral expenses. The directors of the Richmond Terminal Company have obtained control of the Georgia Central Railroad, with seven thousand miles of track and $9,000,000 gross earnings, and its ocean steamship line of ten steamers, plying between Savannah, Baltimore, New York, and Boston. Half the South is thus put under one gigantic railroad monopoly.
London has been startled by another horrible murder in Whitechapel, the ninth committed by an unknown assassin. All the victims have been unfortunate women of the streets, and all have been horribly butchered. The criminal record is enlarged by the flight of City Treasurer Thomas Axworthy of Cleveland, Ohio, who was nearly a million dollars short in his accounts, and whose defalcation temporarily bankrupted the city.
An accident which proves the value of water-tight compartments occurred on November 10th near Sandy Hook. The Umbria had just begun her voyage to Queenstown when she ran across the freight steamer Iberia during a fog, cutting her in two. Both parts of the Iberia floated away and kept above water for hours, allowing the rescue of all hands. Not so lucky was the Russian steamer Archangel, which collided with the Glasgow steamer Neptune in Christiana Bay on October 19th, losing her captain and seventeen of the crew. Another steamer disaster was the burning of the Ville de Calais, owing to an explosion of petroleum gas while in port at Calais. Over a dozen lives were lost. As an excursion train was returning from the fêtes at Naples, a landslide occurred, crushing the train, and killing ninety persons and wounding seventy. By an explosion in a mine at Frontenac, Kansas, one hundred and eighty persons were buried, not more than fifty of whom were taken out alive. A similar explosion occurred in the Campagnac coal-pit, Aveyron, France, in which eighty miners were killed. Yellow fever still lingers in Florida. It has claimed 384 victims out of a total of 4,469 cases up to November 10th.
The theatrical season thus far is somewhat dull. Gilbert and Sullivan's "Yeomen of the Guard" was brought out at the New York Casino about a week after its production in London, and met with no better success. The lively sparkle of "Pinafore" and "Patience" is missing. London has a new playhouse, the Shaftesbury Theatre, opened on October 20th with "As You Like It." New-Yorkers feel a pardonable pride in the success of the "Giants" in obtaining the League baseball championship. Starting third in the race, they obtained first place in the last week in July and held it until the end. Sporting men have been wondering at the remarkable jump of Steve Brodie from the Poughkeepsie bridge into the Hudson River, a distance of 212 feet. Mr. Richard K. Fox, by an offer of $500 and a gold medal, incited this foolhardy attempt, but the boy escaped with slight injuries. Two other Foxes, the famous sisters who forty years ago founded spiritualism, have created a sensation by telling how they humbugged people into believing what they now style a monstrous imposition. An attraction for lovers of art have been the paintings of Vasili Verestchagin, the Russian artist, which are being exhibited in New York. Critics pronounce them marvels of strength in delineation, but a little too realistic for the most refined taste.