Books: News Album

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1844.—"On Monday evening an inquest was held ... as to the death of Miss Elizabeth Allen, aged 22, a pupil of Madame Devey . . . the fashionable milliner. . . . [The doctor] had measured her corset, which was 1 foot 11 inches round, and on her body it would not meet in the smallest part by 2 inches. He was not aware if that was the usual way they were made, but if so, it was certainly too much contracted. The jury returned a verdict of 'Died by the visitation of God.' "

1846.—"The last of the coaches running from this town [in Essex] to the metropolis, driven for the last sixteen or seventeen years by George Bird, than whom a more obliging and respected coachman never sat upon a box, has struck its colours to 'all potent steam.'"

1849.—"Amongst the miscellaneous proceedings of the United States Congress are projects to establish a telegraphic communication across the Atlantic to Europe, to form a similar line across the American continent, and also a project to form a line of railway from the Lakes of Michigan to the Pacific."

1850.—As Queen Victoria was leaving her uncle's house "a person respectably dressed, and about six feet two inches high, advanced two or three paces, and with a small black cane, which he held in his hand, struck a sharp blow at the Queen. The blow took effect upon the upper part of her Majesty's forehead, and upon her bonnet, which being of a light texture was driven in by its force." (In 1882 the Times reported "the seventh occasion on which HER MAJESTY has been exposed to danger or outrage by the act of one of her subjects.")

1855.—"Mrs. H. B. Stowe has received from her publishers, Messrs. Jewett and Co., of Boston, the sum of $10,000, this being her second payment as copyright on 'Uncle Tom's Cabin,' making upwards of $20,000 received by her in nine months."

1868.—"The regulation of the street traffic of the metropolis . . . seems likely now to receive an important auxiliary . . . a column 20 feet high, with a spacious gaslamp near the top. . . . The lamp will usually present to view a green light, which will serve to foot passengers by way of caution, and at the same time remind drivers of vehicles and equestrians that they ought at this point to slacken their speed. The effect of substituting a red light for the green one and of raising the arms of the semaphore—a simultaneous operation —will be to arrest the traffic on each side."

1878.—U. S. Inventor Alexander Graham Bell exhibited his telephone to Queen Victoria. "Her Majesty conversed with Sir Thomas and Lady Biddulph, and later Miss Kate Field, who was at Osborne-cottage, sang 'Kathleen Mavourneen,' for which Her Majesty returned gracious thanks telephonically through the Duke of Connaught."

^{*Editor ffrench's compromise with the Welsh double F.}