question of the destruction of the rolling stock, blockage of the lines of rail, and the hundred and one comcomitants of what are known as "smash-ups." Canadian Pacifics are slowly but surely recovering from the effects of the bear raid made upon them during the early months of the current year, and have advanced from 51, at which we suggested an immediate purchase, to their present quotation of 54. We think this price will be readily passed, nor shall we be a bit surprised to find them quoted at close upon 60 before the half yearly account arrives.

Market.

THIS market continues in the same deThe Mining pressed condition as when we last wrote, and the prospects of any immediate recovery are not promising. It is safe to say that mines will not be active until other markets get duller. In South Africans another fall has to be noted, and Goldfields of South Africa have lost as much as £1 per share. Durban-Roodepoort shares have dropped, and Modderfonteins remain at last week's price. There is no share offering in this particular market better worthy of purchase as Modderfonteins, and they may any day be quoted at £5 or £6. Great Britains are also off colour,as after being returned at 303.,they are now down to 12s. Salisbury, however, are the most seriously affected of all the South African companies; these shares, a month ago, run up as high as £27, they are now down to £16, with every prospect of going lower. Robinson's once touched £63, though they could readily be got now at £45. Mysore Gold shares are particularly steady; judging by the reports from the mines, we may expect to see some improvement in these securities.

WALL STREET never allows itself to be outdone by Capel Court, and as the latter created a precedent for itself by shutting up shop at Easter for four days, so has the former created a precedent in the States by closing for four days over the Washington celebration. The principal thing that has kept London from booming Americans during this holiday, has been the knowledge that the New York brokers were counting upon getting prices sufficiently high to enable them to jump on them to some effect next Thursday morning. We have been caught so often before in one way or another that we are getting exceedingly cautious about taking the lead in Yankee Rails.

THERE is likely to be a falling off in the number of new companies in the immediate future, the cause of which is to be found in the slow but sure tightening of the

money market that is going on. The stags have got almost as much on their hands as they care to have for the present, and as special settlements are slow in coming along, the venturesome buyers for premiums stand just about as deep as they can afford to. Good concerns will of course continue to find a ready market, but shaky schemes will probably be shelved for some time.

THE following report of the Yuruari Company has been received :-"Chili, April 1, 1889.-Water Shaft -Shaft now 90 ft. below platform No. 4. Progress during the month, 15 ft. When I commenced sinking the shaft on March 21 no lode was in site, but I am pleased to report that the lode has now become filled with quartz, and I have every reason to expect, as I have already reported, to strike the pay-shoot with very little further sinking. I have commenced cutting a platform, and started a drift eastward close to the bottom of the shaft. This drift will be 85 ft. below No. 4 drift, and will be on the same level as No. 8 from Cenicero. The lode here is the best in the shaft, being 4 ft. thick, walls well defined, slightly mixed with blue stone, but improving as the drift advances. It will take me a few days to finish the platform, after which I shall continue to sink the shaft, Stope back, No. 4 drift east, 110 ft. from centre of shaft-Progress during month, 22 ft. 6 in.; lode well defined, 3 ft. in thickness, showing visible gold in the stope. Drift No. 4 during the month, 11 ft., showing a good lode, carrying east, length 183 ft. from centre of shaft-Progress visible gold, 2 ft. 6 in. in thickness. Cenicero Shaft, stope No. 10 east, 200 ft. from centre of shaft-Progress made during the month, 11 ft. 6 in. The lode in this stope is very good, and averages 6 ft. in thickness, with well-defined hanging and foot-walls, showing visible gold throughout the stope. Stope No. 12 east, 308 ft. from centre of shaft-Progress made during the month, 70 ft. The lode in this stope also looks well, with an average thickness of 5 ft. 2 in. Stope bottom. No. 9 west, 600 ft. from centre of shaft-Progress made during the month, 12 ft. 6 in. The lode in this stope is well defined with an average thickness of 6 ft. 2 in. I am now driving drifts Nos. 8, 9, and 10 west, and the cross-cut south of No. 11 drift east. No. 8 drift west, length 631 ft. 6 in. from centre of shaft-Progress made during the month, 16 ft. The lode at end of this drift is 2 ft. 6 in. thick, with well-defined footwalls, quartz of good quality, showing visible gold. Drift No. 9 west, length 730 ft. 6 in. from centre of shaft-Progress during the month, 20 ft. Since commencing to drive this drift the lode has become better defined, and has increased in width, being now 3ft., with quartz of good quality. Drift No. 10 west, 601 ft. 6in. from centre of shaft-Progress during the month, 18ft. This lode has improved in width, with well-defined footwall; quartz of good quality, expected to reach this latter reef for some little time yet; but success has already crowned the works westward. As the stone shows free gold, crushings will doubtless quickly follow, and probably some of the old returns will be seen. We are informed that almost the whole of the £14,000 to £15,000 the company retained in hand remains intact, the work of the battery crushing for other companies having almost paid all the expenses of the extensive developments."

PUMP COURT ACROSTICS.

RELDAS and CACTUS have agreed to divide the Third Prize of the Quarterly. This leaves us now with the sole duty of disposing of the Second and Third Prizes of the Annual, for which purpose the following Special Acrostic is set for solution by the tied competitors named in the issue of March 13th:

Special Acrostic.

If you wish to know my strength,
Seek me at Niag'ra's Falls.

1. So is a well-known isle described.
2. You'll find me in the Lord's Prayer.

ever, we are exceedingly sceptical, as we have favourable accounts of this judge's health, and hope to see him again at his post in a couple of weeks. How all these vacancies are to be properly filled up is matter for anxiety, but peradventure, the Lord will provide.

IN re The Missouri Steamship Company (Limited), the Court of Appeal had before them the question as to the law governing a control of affreightment. long ago as 1864, in Lloyd v. Guibert, 33 L.J. (N.S.), Q.B., 241, affirmed L.R., 1 Q.B., 115, it was laid down that the operation of a contract of affreightment depends on the law of the flag, i.e., on the personal law of the ship owner. This was first put on the ground that the master's authority to bind the owner towards the charterer depends on the law of the flag, in accordance with Pope v. Nickerson, 3 Story, 465, and afterwards on appeal the court enunciated the view that the owner could have equally relied by way of defence on the law of his flag if he had been present in the foreign port, and made the contract of affreightment himself. In re The Missouri Steamship Company (Limited), the facts were shortly that Monroe, a domiciled American citizen, made a contract of affreightment with the agent of the above mentioned company at Boston. The Company itself was registered in England and owned the Missouri, registered in Liverpool, sailing under the British flag, and trading between, amongst other ports, Liverpool and Boston. The voyage was from Boston to Liverpool, and by the contract of affreightment, whereby certain cattle were to be carried to Liverpool, it was expressly provided that the ship owners should not be liable for loss or damage arising from the negligence of the master or crew, and the bills of lading contained a similar stipulation, pursuant to provisions in the contract. The ship sailed and was stranded, it being admitted for the purposes of the case that the stranding occurred through causes within the exception from, or provision against, liability, viz., negligence of the master or crew. The shipper now made a claim in the winding-up of the company, which was being voluntarily liquidated. By the law obtaining at Boston and the rest of the State of Massachusetts, such a stipulation against liability is held invalid and void as contrary to public policy; by the law of England, however, such a limitation of liability is valid, and Chitty, J., disallowed the claim on the ground that the legality of the contract was governed by the law of the flag, and also that the contract showed an intention on the part of the contracting parties to contract with reference to the laws of England, and the Court of Appeal (Lord Halsbury, L.C., Cotton and Fry, L.JJ.) affirmed this decision.

WE hear upon very good authority that the social event of the season will be the announcement of the engagement of Prince Albert Victor of Wales, and that it will be found that the lady to whom the honour of an alliance with the future King of England and Emperor of India has fallen, is gifted by nature with much beauty and by fortune with many "goot gifts and possibilities" of the kind dear to the soul of Dr. Hugh Evans.

IT is not generally known, but it is none the less a fact, that the name of Albert was given to the eldest son of the Prince of Wales at the special wish of the Queen, who is most anxious that there should some day be a King Albert, while Her Majesty is well aware that her eldest son has obstinately decided to mount the throne as Edward, being prejudiced against "Albert" as an un-English and therefore not improbably unpopular name for an English monarch. It has been whispered that when Her Majesty's last will and testament comes to be read-may the day be long distant!-it will be found to contain weighty reasons why Prince Edward, as he is persistently called in his home circle, will not refuse to carry out the wishes of his august grandmamma.

FAR be it from us to treat the holy estate of matrimony with unbecoming flippancy under any conceiv

able circumstances, for if there were no marriages there would be no Divorce Court, and what would some of us do then? But it is difficult to repress an innocent smile at the announcement of the banns of marriage of that swarthy conspirator the Maharajah Dhuleep Singh, as noted by the one and only Blowitz of the Times, whose eagle eye, withdrawn for the moment from watching monarchs and diplomatists at the world-compelling work, "spotted " the announcement outside the Mairie in the Rue d'Anjon.

IT seems that Dhuleep Singh, "profession, Maharajah; son of Runjeet Singh, deceased, and widower of Bamba Muller," intends to marry a lady described as "daughter of Charles Douglas Wetherell, deceased, and Sarah Charlotte, his wife, of Greemmorn, England." Can this be our dear departed, "Cremorne," transformed during its passage across the Channel? At any rate, this notification of banns may possibly account for the Maharajah's recent insolent demand for the Koh-i-noor, or its ready-money equivalent. No doubt the historic gem, which the Maharajah covets, would make a very pretty "family diamond" for his new Maharanee, or, failing that, the twenty thousand pounds or so which it represents would, no doubt, set the loving couple up in housekeeping very comfortably, even for a Maharajah "out of employ."

LORD WALTER CAMPBELL, whose premature death we record with regret, was one of the most active of all the Duke of Argyll's energetic sons. Lord Walter was a member of the Stock Exchange, and recently went to South Africa, where, if all one hears is to be believed, fortunes are to be had well nigh for the asking. But poor young Lord Walter-he was only forty-one -had only been in the Transvaal some three months when he sickened and died, at Johannesberg, the very centre of the mining mania and the South African Eldorado. Lord Walter Campbell leaves a son and a daughter to mourn his early death.

IT looks as if it were true that the Prince of Wales did "make a pile" over "Nitrates," as His Royal Highness is going to patronise the next smoking concert of the Stock Exchange Orchestral Society, at Princes' Hall, on Saturday. The Prince was expected at Colonel North's great ball at the Metropole, but did not put in an appearance. Let us hope the S. E. O. S. will be more fortunate. The Prince could do with a few good "tips" occasionally, for his pocket is not too deep for the many calls made upon it.

THE general opinion is that, in spite of its influential backing, the Bills introduced into the House of Lords and the House of Commons, by Lord Meath, Mr. Channing, Mr. Firth, Sir John Lubbock, and others, to Council, will be rejected. The law has spoken, and qualify women for seat on the London County unless very cogent and convincing arguments upon the other side are brought to bear, it is most probable that Lady Sandhurst's disqualification will be upheld, and all other Eves excluded from the Metropolitan Paradise, over which Lord Rosebery presides with so much tact and taste.

IT is not to be altogether regretted if such should prove the case. Women are being thrust a little too

IT is opined that when the inevitable retirement of Baron Huddleston takes place-which may not be until February next, when he will become entitled to his pension-he will be succeeded by Mr. F. A. Bosanquet, Q.C., of the Oxford Circuit, who has just been appointed a Commissioner for the Spring Assizes on the Northern Circuit.

A DIVISIONAL Court to hear Bankruptcy Appeals from County Courts will sit on Monday, May 13th. The Court for the Consideration of Crown Cases Reserved on Saturday, May 11th. The United Law Clerks' Society will have their annual Festival at the Freemasons' Tavern on Wednesday, June 26th, at which Lord Herschell will preside. The anniversary Festival of the Solicitors' Benevolent Association will be held at the Hotel Metropole on June 27th, and Sir Arnold W. White will preside.

THE ladies' concert of the Bar Musical Society will be given in Lincoln's Inn Hall (by permission of the Treasurer and Masters of the Bench), on Wednesday, May 29th; visitors' tickets, 58. each, available for either ladies or gentlemen. Tickets should be applied for not later than Wednesday, May 22nd, to the secretary, E. J. Payne, 2, Stone Buildings, Lincoln's Inn. The chorus will meet for practice every Tuesday evening until the concert.

EASTBOURNE has been particularly favoured by our profession during Easter-tide this year, amongst the notable visitors being Sir J. C. and Lady Day, Mr. Phipson Beale, Q.C., and Mr. Underhill, Q.C.

UNDER THE PUMP.

The Repentance of Paul Wentworth. By an anonymous author. London : Richard Bentley and Son. 3 vols. If a refinement of style rare in these days of careless slipshod writing, a sufficiently interesting plot, and a group of admirably drawn characters can command the attention of the reading public, The Repentance of Paul Wentworth should be a success, and the author may, with some confidence, discard the veil of anonymity from behind which has been launched, a book which, if it be a maiden effort, is full of richest promise. In the meantime its performance in the present is excellent. To those jaded with the respective flippancy, vulgarity, morbid sensationalism, or dead-level dulness of much of the modern school of fiction, this story will come as a distinct pleasure. Paul Wentworth, the hero, is a barrister-brilliant, successful, wealthy, but wretched. He has married a beautiful woman, cold as ice, irresponsive as a statue, while his own temperament is ardent and generously sensuous to a degree. And so it comes about that the wife goes her own way and the husband his, with the

inevitable result, that by-and-bye, after his bruised heart has been tenanted by many fleeting and unworthy passions, the love of his life comes to him in a Swiss village, in the person of a gentle, clever English maiden, for whom he promptly conceives une grande passion, which she, unhappily, and under the delusion that he is a widower, returns. With admirable delicacy, and no mean amount of subtlety, the author analyses the various moral phases through which Paul and his inamorata pass, and while skilfully maintaining the human interest, by making the psychology of the study manifest in the action of the characters, the author steers clear of all offence in a plot and situations risqués to a marked extent. The character of the brilliant barrister, so envied yet so unhappy, so intellectually perfect yet so morally weak, so apt to fall into unworthy liaisons yet devoted with so pure a love to his little daughters, and later, to the girl who is fated to recomponse him for the loss of the earlier years of his married life, is admirably drawn, and enlists the sympathy of the reader at once. Nor is the picture of Muriel Ferrars, the heroine, less fascinating; while a quaint, charming Scotch professor and his devoted wife, and the callous, worldly Alice Wentworth, are very clever studies, and the pretty pictures of Swiss scenery help to enliven the pages and to make up what is quite one of the ablest and pleasantest novels of the season.

A Babe in Bohemia. By Frank Danby. London: Spencer Blackett. 1 vol.-When that remarkable story "Dr. Phillips" fluttered the dovecotes of Maida Vale by its irresistible cleverness and cruel satire, everyone was on tiptoe to know what particular phase of society the author would next elect to scarify. We had not long to wait before little ballons d'essai went floating up in the journalistic ether, and we were made to understand that Frank Danby's next volume would let us see something of life behind the scenes in that curious world which passes in London of to-day for the equivalent, which it by no means is, of the Parisian Bohemia of Henri Mürgu. The revelations, if revelations they are, of Frank Danby, are startling and repulsive, so startling and so repulsive that we shall be surprised if A Babe in Bohemia is not the sensation of the season. In its pages the author professes to give us a picture of life as it is in the rowdy, vicious, vulgar world of sporting and fast journalists, ladies of the ballet, demi-mondaines, drunken lordlings, tipsters, and all the vile crew who move in certain social circles, in a material atmosphere of whisky fumes and cigarette smoke, and a moral atmosphere of blasphemy and vicious indulgence. There are one or two beautiful and pathetic studies of character in the book, but they only seem to throw into higher relief the vileness of the rest of the crew. The cleverness of the author is once more conspicuous, and, whatever faults may be found with the method, it is impossible not to think that the moral of the book is distinctly good. For if anything could make the would-be-man-about-town, the callow youth yearning to see life, turn in utter disgust from the "Bohemia" which seemed to his inexperience so full of brilliant promises of intense if unhallowed delights, this book will of a surety do it. Space will not permit us to refer other than in the briefest fashion to the handsome, manly Mordaunt Rivers of the wrecked life, big heart, and brilliant brain; to the weak, maudlin, self-indulgent Rolly Lewesham; the flabbily sensual Sinclair Furley; the vulgar, heartless Nettie; the pathetic figure of Lucilla Lewesham, and other strongly individualised figures which flit through the author's pages. Nor can we do more than mention the realistic pictures of the horrors of epilepsy and the degradation of drunkenness which are to be found in the book. But we must add a word to express our opinion that A Babe in Bohemia is a book which should be read by all sorts and conditions of men, if only that they may learn how meretricious is the glitter, how debased the real inner life of that peculiar social region of which "the latitude's very uncertain and the longitude