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Secretary of State, W. W. Screws, 87,673; for Auditor, Willis Brewer, 87,315; for Treasurer, I. H. Vincent, 88,231; for Attorney-General, H. C. Tompkins, 88,204. In the Senate fifteen members held over and eighteen were elected -all being Democrats but two. In the House there was a large majority of Democratic members. The election of members of Congress, under the act of Congress, was held on November 5th, and resulted in the choice of the Democratic candidates in every district except the Eighth, where the Independent candidate was chosen.

Previous to this election, and on October 3d, the following letter was sent by United States Attorney-General Devens to the United States attorneys in Alabama, Louisiana, and South Carolina :

DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, WASHINGTON, D. C., October 3d. To Charles E. Mayor, Esq., United States Attorney, Montgomery, Ala.

SIR: Information has been given me of certain outrages alleged to have been committed and threatened to be committed in northern and middle districts of Alabama, in connection with the approaching Congressional election. This information is of such a character that I deem it proper to call your attention to the laws of Congress intended to protect the purity of such elections. Proper steps must be taken to punish those who offend against them, and to secure to all citizens, without distinction of party, while the election is pending, their just rights. The statement of crimes against the elective franchise is condensed in chapter 7, title 70, of the Revised Statutes, and your attention is especially called to section 5520, which enacts: "If two or more persons in any State or Territory conspire to prevent, by force, intimidation, or threat, any citizen who is lawfully entitled to vote from giving his support or advocacy in a lawful manner toward or in favor of the election of any lawfully qualified person as elector for President or Vice-President, or as member of Congress or the United States, or to injure any citizen in person or property on account of such support or advocacy, each of such persons shall be punished by a fine of not less than $50 nor more than $500, or by imprisonment, with or without hard labor, not less than six months nor more than six years, or by both fine and imprisonment." The enforcement of this vision is essential to proper discussion of the merits of citizens who come forward as candidates for Congress. When, therefore, it is invaded by combinations or conspiracies, by force or threats, to prevent citizens from giving their support and advocacy to any lawfully qualified person as member of Congress, and sufficient evidence of this is brought to your attention, you will act energetically in bringing those entering into such conspiracies to justice, by causing warrants to be issued against them by some firm and impartial United States Commissioner, and by having such parties promptly brought before him to be dealt with according to law. Such warrants should be made returnable when you or your assistant can attend at the hearing. On account of the importance of the matter, I deem it proper also to add that in such cases you should endeavor to select those who you are satisfied are leaders in such conspiracies,

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rather than the mere followers. In no case will you permit any warrants to be wantonly or causelessly issued. The laws are to be executed firmly, but always fairly and impartially. You will show this letter to the Marshal, if you should have occasion to place warrants in his hands relating to this subject. Very respectfully, CHARLES DEVENS, Attorney-General.

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The biennial session of the Legislature commenced at Montgomery on November 12th. The Senate was organized by the choice of W. G. Little as President, and the House by the choice of David Clapton as Speaker. The Governor (Houston), in his message previous to the inauguration of his successor, thus described the internal condition of the State:

Peace being of the first importance to all governments, it is with pleasure I note the fact that never in its history has Alabama been freer from strifes and bloodshed, nor her citizens more orderly and law-abiding, than at the present time. The long and anxiously looked-for day when States can hold their elections without Federal interference, and regulate and control their internal affairs, has at last dawned upon us. The entire country is to be congratulated upon the fact that "government bacon" will no longer carry elections in Alabama, nor the arrests or threats of government officials deter voters and keep them from the polls; that the time has passed when armed soldiers of the Federal Government can enter and eject from the legislative halls of a State the legally elected representatives of the people; that Federal bayonets will never again keep the members of a Legislature out of the Capitol of their State. These are causes for congratulation. How these changes and grand reforms were accomplished, it is needless to say.

The embarrassments resulting from the depression of industrial and financial affairs have reached a large number of counties and cities in all parts of the United States. In Alabama many counties and cities failed to pay principal or interest on the bonds which they had issued for local improvements. The bonds be ing held outside the State, the bondholders commenced suits in the Federal Courts and obtained judgments. These were followed by a mandamus from the Court commanding a tax to be levied to pay the judgment. Various generally without success. measures were adopted to escape the tax, and The case of the city of Montgomery will serve as an illustration. A compromise of the city debt was proposed at a discount of one fourth. It amounted to $800,000. All the bondholders accepted except one, who obtained a judgment in the Federal Court. A mandamus was issued commanding the City Council to levy a tax to pay the judgment. A majority of the Council resigned, and were then fined by the Court for contempt. In Mobile, a proposition to ask the Legislature to repeal the city charter and place the city in the hands of a receiver was discussed. Numerous cases occurred in Arkansas. (See ARKANSAS.) Immediately after the opening of the legislative session, the sentiment of the people of the State was expressed in the following joint resolutions, offered in the Senate, instructing their Senators and Representatives in Congress to urge the enactment of such laws as may be necessary to prevent the exercise of jurisdiction by the Courts of the United States in suits against municipal corporations in the several States:

Whereas, Municipal corporations, namely, counties, cities, and towns, as organized in Alabama and other States, are integral parts of the State itself, and of

the government thereof, and in so far as such corporations exercise power, particularly the power to levy taxes, such power is part and parcel of the sovereign authority of the State in its highest prerogative; and

Whereas, The jurisdiction asserted by the Courts of the United States over suits against such corporations, and particularly the jurisdiction by writ of mandamus to compel such corporations to exercise sovereign power of levying taxes, in the opinion of the General Assembly, is an encroachment upon the rights of the States, preserved in the Constitution of the United States, and a plain violation of that clause of the Constitution which declares "that the judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States, by citizens of another State, or by citizens or subjects of any foreign state," because a suit or proceeding which compels the exercise of the highest attribute of sovereignty reserved to the State, namely, the power to levy taxes upon its citizens, is in substance and effect a suit or proceeding against the State, binding and controlling its action in the matter most vital to its existence; and Whereas, The continued exercise of such jurisdiction will doubtless lead in the future, as in the past, to unseemly conflict between Federal and State authority, detrimental to that respect for law and established authority which is the foundation of society and free government; and

Whereas, The General Assembly observes with great joy the increasing respect and reverence throughout the land for the form of government established by the fathers, and believes that it is the paramount will of all the people that this form of government shall be maintained in its true spirit intact for ever, and to accomplish this purpose the harmonious cooperation of State and Federal authority under the Constitution of the United States is indispensable: therefore,

Resolved by the General Assembly of Alabama, That our Senators in Congress be instructed, and our Representatives be requested, to urge the enactment of such laws as may be necessary to prevent the exercise of jurisdiction by the Courts of the United States of suits or proceedings against municipal corporations in the several States.

Resolved, That the Governor be requested to forward a copy of the foregoing preamble and resolution to Hon. John T. Morgan, of the Senate, and to each of the Representatives from this State in Congress.

Referred to the Committee on Federal Relations.

On November 27th Governor Cobb was inaugurated, and delivered an address to the Legislature. The retiring Governor, George S. Houston, was subsequently elected Senator to represent the State in the Federal Congress, in the place of George E. Spencer. Mr. Houston was elected in 1865, but not allowed to take

his seat.

ALICE MAUD MARY, Grand Duchess of Hesse-Darmstadt, Princess of England, second daughter of Queen Victoria, born at Windsor Castle, April 25, 1843, died December 14, 1878. Princess Alice was perhaps the best known and the best loved of all the daughters of Queen Victoria. She became especially endeared to the English people during her father's last illness, when her name became "synonymous with a father's farewell and a mother's consolation." On July 1, 1862, she was married to Prince Ludwig of Hesse-Darmstadt,

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the grandson of the Grand Duke Ludwig II. and nephew of the Grand Duke Ludwig III. As the position of her husband was not such as to compel his residence in his paternal dominions, the young couple remained more than a year in England, and their eldest daughter, Princess Victoria, was born at Windsor Castle, April 5, 1863. The married life of the Prin cess was very happy, and blessed with seven children, five girls and two boys. The eldest son, Prince Ernst Ludwig Karl Albrecht, was born November 25, 1868, and was consequently ten years old at the death of his mother. youngest son, Prince Friedrich Wilhelm August Victor Leopold Ludwig, born October 7, 1870, was accidentally killed by falling from a window, May 27, 1873. The youngest Princess, Marie Victoria Feodore Leopoldine, born May 24, 1874, died a few days before her mother, of diphtheria, the same disease to which her mother succumbed. Princess Alice made herself very popular in Germany by her activity in promoting hospital arrangements during the Franco-German war, when she was a constant visitor at the "Alice Hospital" in Darmstadt and President of the Alice Frauenverein or women's association for charitable purposes, affiliated to the Berlin Vaterländische Verein. She was also an earnest patron of education and literature, and zealously interested herself in many movements for liberal reform. She sent her oldest son for education to a kindergarten in Darmstadt, where at her express demand no distinction whatever was made between him and the other children. On June 13, 1877, her husband succeeded his childless uncle, Ludwig III., as Grand Duke of Hesse. Her death occurred on the anniversary of the death of her father, Prince Albert, when most of the royal family were assembled at Windsor Castle for the customary memorial services.

AMAT DI SAN FILIPPO E SORSO, LUIGI, Cardinal Bishop of Ostia and Velletri, Dean of the Sacred College, and Vice-Chancellor of the Holy Roman Church, born June 21, 1796, died March 30, 1878. After receiving his education in the ecclesiastical Academy of Noblemen, he was at the age of twenty-three appointed domestic prelate. On April 9, 1827, Leo XII. named him Archbishop of Nicea in partibus, and sent him as-Apostolical Nuncio to Naples. Subsequently this position was changed for that of Nuncio in Spain, where, in consequence of the will of Ferdinand VII., a civil war had broken out. At both courts he was quite successful, and the succeeding Popes, Pius VIII. and Gregory XVI., held him in high honor. In 1837 he was created Cardinal. In the following year he was sent as Apostolical Legate to Ravenna, where he remained six years, and became an intimate friend of Cardinal MastaiFerretti, who was then Archbishop of Imola (subsequently Pope Pius IX.). Having been recalled to Rome, he was made prefect of the economical department of the Propaganda and

president of the so-called "camera dei spogli." When Pius IX. ascended the throne, the legation at Bologna was intrusted to him. The revolutionary movements of 1848 having forced him to leave Bologna, he joined Pius IX. at Gaëta, and was in 1852 appointed to the two most lucrative positions at the Papal court, those of Vice-Chancellor of the Holy Roman Church and archivist of the apostolic letters. He retained both offices until his death, adding to them many others in the course of time. During the latter part of his life he twice had an apoplectic stroke, in consequence of which he was unable to leave his arm-chair; but the clearness of his mind remained unimpaired until his death. L. Teste, in his work, "Préface au Conclave" (Paris, 1877), says of his character, "He has always been looked upon as an able, amiable, and obliging man, of very independent character."

AMERICA. In the part of North America called the Dominion of Canada the year seems to have passed in a more quiet manner than usual. Some local excitements in July, which threatened for a moment something serious, happily passed away. The elections resulted in a Conservative victory, and the return of Sir John MacDonald to power. The principal issue advocated by the Conservatives was the protection of home industry. The administration of Lord Dufferin completed its sixth year, and he retired from the office of GovernorGeneral, and was succeeded by Sir John Douglas Sutherland Campbell, usually called the Marquis of Lorne. He is the husband of Louise, one of the daughters of Queen Victoria. Their arrival in December was an event of unusual interest throughout the Dominion.

In the United States, the depression in commercial affairs continued throughout the year. It was mitigated somewhat by an increased feeling of confidence toward the close, and by an improvement in many branches of industry. Prices of necessaries were greatly reduced, and the expenses of living diminished.

The returns of the State elections were less favorable to the Democratic party than in the previous year; but the latter still retained its strength in the Federal Legislature. Complaints were made by both the Republican and Democratic parties of local interference with electors, and measures were adopted by Congress for an investigation. The affairs in the Southern States have resumed a peaceful and industrious aspect.

Some Indian disturbances occurred among the remnants of the Western tribes, but of less importance than in previous years.

A very serious and afflictive visitation of the yellow fever occurred in the Southern States. It appeared in New Orleans about May 23d, and spread over a large section of country. The States of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee were the greatest sufferers. Nearly a hundred thousand cases occurred, and about twenty thousand deaths. The loss to industry

and property has been estimated at two hundred million dollars. Prompt contributions for the benefit of the suffering, and for defraying the expenses incident to the calamity, poured forth from every part of the country. The harvests of the year have been unusually abundant, and the exports far exceed the imports.

The year just past was marked by no international strife among the South and Central American states or Mexico; nor has internal dissension been frequent or of an alarming character in any of them. There was a momentary suspension of diplomatic relations between Chili and the Argentine Republic, the Santiago Government having repudiated the treaty of limits signed by the Chilian plenipotentiary, whose conduct was unanimously censured by the Legislature. Toward the end of the year, however, friendly negotiations were resumed.

Chili, so uniformly prosperous for a number of years, was plunged into financial troubles of no ordinary character, the full extent of which was realized in the second half of the year. Several unavoidable and a few avoidable causes contributed to bring about that state of things: failure of the wheat crop, fall in the price of copper, and decrease in the quantity of silver produced by the mines, construction of unproductive railways, maintenance of a useless navy, and extravagant expenditures in the various departments of the Government.

In Colombia, public affairs had been gradually returning to their former satisfactory condition, overturned for a while by the late disastrous revolution.

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ANGLICAN CHURCHES. The Convoca- and rearranged." Further, the Convocation tion of Canterbury met on February 12th. A resolved that "some regulating power is nepetition was presented, signed by 15,008 of the cessary by means of which, while the faith and clergy and 30,140 of the laity of the Church doctrine of the Church remain unaltered, she of England, declaring that "we consider the may be enabled to adapt her ceremonies to the churchyards, subject to the legal right of the changing circumstances of the time," and reparishioners to interment, to be the property quested the Bishop of Carlisle to embody the of the Church of England; that we are op- provisions of the scheme which he proposed in, posed to any legislation which shall permit the form of a draft bill, to be submitted to persons, not being ministers of that Church, Convocation, and if approved by it introduced to claim as a right to officiate in our church- into Parliament. yards, and to use forms and ceremonies therein which are not sanctioned by the English Church." A committee which had been appointed in the Lower House in June preceding, on the subject of the "burials question." made a report holding that the present law was the only security against the making of the graveyards the scene of strife and unchristian controversy. A resolution was adopted asserting that the Church can not, without a breach of faith, permit in its own burial grounds services not its own, but suggesting that the difficulties of nonconformists might be met by an alternative service. A report on ecclesiastical law was adopted in the Lower House, providing that the Convocation might frame canons to be, by permission of the Queen in Privy Council, laid before Parliament, when, if not objected to, they might by royal license become a law. The Upper House approved the report, and recommended that a draft of a bill be made in accordance with its suggestions, and submitted to Parliament. A committee was appointed to prepare forms of family and private prayer, to be considered, and if thought fit authorized, by Convocation. The Convocation met again May 14th. The Lower House adopted recommendations for the amendment of the Lectionary, to the effect that in the course of the lessons the Gospel should be read thrice in the year instead of twice as at present, and the whole of the Apocalypse should be read. It also requested the Upper House to take means to obtain an improved form of baptismal register. In the Upper House, a report was presented which recommended an increase in the amount of stipends to curates in parishes where the incumbent is non-resident, and that in no case should it be less than £120, or the amount of the income of the incumbent. Some attention was given to the proceedings of the Reformed Episcopal Church, which had been recently organized in the kingdom, under the superintendence of Bishop Gregg, and a committee was appointed to consider the matter.

The Convocation of York met February 19th. The Bishop of Carlisle introduced resolutions proposing a scheme of changes in legislation, of which the first was amended and adopted, declaring that "in the judgment of this Convocation the time has arrived when it has become necessary that the mode of legislation upon matters affecting the spiritual affairs of the Church of England should be reviewed

The seventy-ninth annual meeting of the Church Missionary Society was held in London, April 30th. The Earl of Chichester presided. The general receipts of the Society for the year had been £207,053; adding what had been received for the India and China famine funds, and for special missions, the whole amount intrusted to the Society had been £223,038. The total expenditures had been £208,346. The total number of clergymen employed by the Society was 385, of whom 203 were Europeans, and 182 native clergy. Fifty-seven European laymen were also at work under the direction of the Society. A report was made of the condition of the missions in West and East Africa, Turkey, Persia, northern, southern, and western India, Ceylon, Mauritius, the Seychelles islands, China, Japan, New Zealand, and northwest America. Some steps had been taken toward completing the independence of the church in Sierra Leone. Converts from Islam had publicly professed Christianity at Lagos. Measures had been taken for consolidating and extending the Niger mission. Two of the agents connected with the mission on the Victoria Nyanza Lake had been killed in an affray with which the mission had no direct connection, but men were to be sent immediately to take their places. The troubles which had interrupted the progress of the work at the Tamil Cooly mission in Ceylon during the past two years had been settled, and the Bishop of Colombo had consented to give to the mission the same recognition as had been accorded to it by his predecessors, upon a guarantee being giver that it should be conducted consistently with the principles of the Church of England.

The total receipts of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts for the year ending in May, 1878, were £148,438, of which £17,000 were given for distribution by missionaries of the Society to sufferers from the Indian famine. There were 547 missionaries and about 1,100 catechists and lay teachers employed by the Society during the year. Of the missionaries, one was engaged in Europe, 64 labored in Australia and the Pacific, 120 in Africa, 135 in Asia, and 227 in America and the West Indies. The Society had also 255 students in colleges abroad. Hindoo students of Bishop's College, Calcutta, had begun to pass the preliminary theological examination of the University of Cambridge. The ordination of Peter Masiza as a priest in

Caffraria was mentioned as the first instance of a Caffre admitted to the priesthood. The work of the missionaries in China had suffered from the famine, that in South Africa from the Caffre insurrection, and that in the West Indies from the struggle with the difficulties of disendowment. Favorable reports were made of the condition of missions in Australia, New Zealand, and Japan. The anniversary meeting of the Society, which is usually held in April, was postponed till the last of June, so that the colonial and American bishops who were then to be present at the Pan-Anglican Synod might attend it.

The Home Reunion Society is the name of an organization which has been formed for the purpose of presenting the Church of England in a conciliatory aspect toward those who regard themselves as outside of its pale, and of promoting the corporate reunion of all Christians holding the doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation and Atonement. The Bishop of Winchester is president, and several other bishops are members of the council. The Society professes that, although it can not support any scheme of comprehension which compromises the three creeds or the Episcopal Constitution of the Church, it "is prepared to advocate all reasonable liberty in matters not contravening the Church's faith, order, or discipline." The annual meeting of the Society was held in London, July 10th, when a report was presented of its progress during the year, and addresses were made by the Bishop of Winchester, the Bishop of Louisiana, and others.

The annual meeting of the Society for the Liberation of Religion from State Control was held in London, May 15th. Mr. Henry Lee of Manchester presided, in the absence of Sir Wilfred Lawson, Bart., the actual president. The income of the Society for the year had been £16,000. Nine hundred and thirty meetings and lectures had been held under its direction during the year, and 2,320,000 copies of publications had been issued, of which a considerable number had been circulated in the agricultural districts. Suggestions had been published as to the mode in which disestablishment could be effected. The organization for promoting the objects of the Society had been advanced in London by the formation of a council in each of the metropolitan constituencies. The movement for disestablishment in Scotland had made great progress, notice of which was taken in one of the resolutions adopted at the meeting. Another resolution, referring to the repeal of the Corporation and Test acts, whose fiftieth anniversary was near, expressed thanks to Earl Russell and "to others associated with him in that great struggle who still survive," for their successful exertions "to diminish the civil disabilities in flicted or maintained in the interest of the Church Establishment."

The Right Rev. George Augustus Selwyn,

Bishop of Lichfield, died in April. The Rev. William Dalrymple Maclagan, vicar of Kensington, prebendary of St. Paul's Cathedral, chaplain to the Bishop of London, and honorary chaplain to the Queen, was appointed to succeed him as Bishop of Lichfield, and was consecrated to that office on the 24th of June.

A final decision was given by the Queen's Bench Division of the High Court of Justice in the case of Martin vs. Mackonochie, which has been in the ecclesiastical courts of England for several years. The original suit in this case was begun in June, 1874, in the shape of a prosecution under the Church Discipline act (3 and 4 Vict., c. 86), against the Rev. Mr. Mackonochie, of St. Alban's, Holborn, for breaches of the ecclesiastical law, principally in the use of ornaments by the minister and in the church. The case was heard in December of the same year, and the defendant was suspended from his office for six weeks. Continuing his alleged breaches of the law after his return to his church, he was served in March, 1878, with a notice to appear before Lord Penzance in the Court of Arches; and paying no attention to this, he was served in the same month with a second monition, warning him to abstain from the practices mentioned in the former notice. He was also served with a further notice to appear in the Court of Arches on the 11th of May, but did not appear. Lord Penzance thereupon proceeded to deal with the case in his absence, and in time issued a decree suspending him ab officio et a beneficio for three years, as a punishment for his contempt of the decree of the Dean of Arches and the monition of Lord Penzance, warning him to pay obedience to the previous monition. Mr. Mackonochie then applied to the Queen's Bench Division for a writ of prohibition to restrain Lord Penzance from publishing and proceeding with the decree of suspension. The decree of the Court was given by a majority of one of the judges, and was based upon technical grounds having no reference to the merits of the case. The Lord Chief Justice and Chief Justice Mellor, forming the majority of the Court, and whose opinion carried the decision, held that the monition issued to Mr. Mackonochie in the first instance was in the nature of a penalty, and ended the proceeding against him; and that, therefore, no further penalty could be inflicted upon him without beginning a new suit. The sentence of three years' suspension, being in form a continuance of a suit that had been closed, was upon this view void.

A general conference of the bishops of the Church of England, and of the American and colonial churches affiliated, with the missionary bishops, currently spoken of as the PanAnglican Synod, or Conference, met upon invitation of the Archbishop of Canterbury at Lambeth Palace, July 2d. The council had no authority, but was a purely voluntary meeting

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