been most mischievous, and this especially where it affected her Prusso-German relatives. In the case of Denmark attacked by Prussia and Austria, and in the case of the Franco-Prussian War, English Court influences have most indecently affected our foreign relations.

When Her Majesty travels in England great precautions are taken to prevent her from coming into contact with the common people who are her loyal and devoted subjects. When Her Majesty is abroad, the natives of foreign parts, being much superior to the ordinary type of Briton, are allowed greater indulgence. In England railway stations are cleared, piers and docks are carefully purged of the presence of the vulgar British subject. In Germany Her Majesty is amongst those she loves, and there the same rigid exclusiveness is not maintained.

Her Majesty is enormously rich, and—as she is like her Royal grandmother-grows richer daily. She is generous, and a year or two since gave not quite half a day's income to the starving poor of India. A few months prior to this, many thousands of pounds were wasted in formally proclaiming her imperial title.

When Her Majesty ascended the throne, poor rates averaged 5s. 4 d. per head per annum; to-day they exceed 7s. The average Imperial taxation during the first ten years of Her Majesty's reign was under £50,000,000 a year. The taxation at the present day is over £81,000,000 a year. Pauperism and local and Imperial taxation are all on the increase, and despite agricultural laborers' outcries and workmen's strikes, it is agreed that Her Majesty's reign has brought us many blessings.

It is charged against me that I have unfairly touched private character. In no instance have I done so, except when the conduct of the individuals attacked affected the honor and welfare of the nation. My sayings and writings are denounced in many journals, and in Parliament, as seditious, and even treasonable. My answer is that fortunately Hardy, Tooke and Thelwall heard "Not guilty" given as a shield against a criticism which dared to experiment on prosecution. In case of need I rely on a like deliverance. I do not pretend here to have pleaded for Republicanism—I have only pleaded against the

K

White Horse of Hanover. I loathe these small German breastbestarred wanderers, whose only merit is their loving hatred of one another. In their own land they vegetate and wither unnoticed; here we pay them highly to marry and perpetuate a pauper prince-race. If they do nothing, they are "good". If they do ill, loyalty gilds the vice till it looks like virtue.

APPENDIX.

TO-DAY the Civil List means only a portion of the sum appropriated for the maintenance and support of the Sovereign and Royal Household. Formerly the whole expenditure of the nation other than for naval and military purposes was included in the Civil List. Prior to Cromwell, the Civil List did not exist at all. The King was supposed to provide for all national expenditure out of his land and hereditary revenues, and any extra war expenditure was contributed by the various feudal lords, under the conditions of their several tenures. Deficiencies were made up, sometimes by forced loans, sometimes by Parliamentary grants, which, however, were by no means voted as a matter of course. Parliaments, less obsequious than at present, often refused to vote moneys which then came in great part from the pockets of their own class. The first recorded vote of a specific annual sum was in 1660 to King Charles II of £1,200,000, which continued through his reign; a like sum was voted to James II, and on the 2nd March, 1689, the Commons voted the same amount to William and Mary. To use the words of the Parliamentary Blue Book, "this amount was intended to meet the whole public expenditure”—that is, ît was to cover the national outlay of every kind, whether civil or military. The first vote, especially distinguishing its applicability to the purposes of Civil Government, was a little later, in 1689, and probably arose through the war in Ireland and that with France. On the 25th of April, 1689, £600,000 was specifically voted for the Civil Government; but this included not only the cost of the Royal Family, but also every other disbursement for the purposes of Civil Government. On the 20th December, 1697, this vote was increased to £700,000, and the first Civil List Act which was ever passed is 9 and 10 William III, c. 23. The printed estimates show that

this Civil List included the whole Foreign Office expenditure, the Treasury and other offices of State, commissioners of trade, the whole of the judges, all the pensions, secret service money, rewards for apprehending ordinary criminals, extraordinary commissions, State printers' bill, etc. To-day the cost of the Royal Family alone is much more than the whole amount of the Civil List of 1699. The second Civil List Act, giving an equal grant during the reign of Anne, is the first which is in part preserved in the printed volumes of statutes, and is dated the 21st May, 1702. The sections remaining,. however, only restrain grants and alienations of Crown lands or hereditary revenues. Queen Anne set an example which has not since been imitated. Queen Anne returned to the nation by way of donation towards public expenditure a very large proportion of her private savings. George I had a Civil List of £700,000 a year; but during his reign of twelve and a-halfTM years Civil List debts were paid, amounting in all to at least £1,300,000. The imperfectly edited remains of the Acts of Parliament contained in the Statute Book, 7 George I, cap. 27, and 12 George I, cap. 2, and the reference to 11 George I,. cap. 17, would make the Civil List debts defrayed by Parliament amount to £1,500,000. On the accession of George II, the Civil List was increased to £800,000. In 1720, Civil List debts were paid to the amount of £115,000, and in 1747 a. further sum of £456,734. It was during the reign of George III that the robbery of the people, under the name of the Civil List, grew into a science. On the 24th October, 1760, the Civil List was fixed at £800,000, which was increased to £900,000, from the 5th January, 1777; a further increase of £60,000 a year was made in 1803 (this, we are inclined to think, being for the Prince of Wales), and £70,000 more was added on the Regency. If we understand the statutes rightly, £13,000 a year was also added from 1783 to 1815, when this sum grew into £48,000 per annum.

In addition to these increased allowances, the following sums were voted by Parliament for payment of the Civil List debts, a great deal of the early money being spent in bribing Peers and Commons:-1769, £513,511; 1777, £618,340; 1784,

£60,000; 1786, £200,000; 1802, £990,053; 1804, £591,842; 1805, £10,458; 1814, £218,857; 1816, £185,000; making a total of £3,398,061 of debts, in addition to the annual allowance and this not including the enormous payments of the debts of George Prince of Wales. But even these were trifles compared with the present rate of expenditure. In 1816, the Civil List underwent modification, items being now taken out of it, and transferred to the Consolidated Fund. On the accession of George IV, the Civil List, now including Ireland, was fixed at £1,166,000, of which £207,000 was for Ireland. This £207,000 was, with the exception of the pension list, wholly appropriated to Civil Government in Ireland. The sum of £109,000 was for Scotland, leaving for England £850,000; but this item still included the Foreign Office disbursements, now amounting to about £277,000, the salaries of all the judges, nearly £33,000, the pension list, the salaries of the Ministers of State, and other items. Between 1820 and 1830 the Casual Revenues produced £326,055 6s. 9d. of which the sum of £17,648 11s. 9d. figured under the head of charities; the executors of the Duke of York took £6,440 12S., and his Majesty, the First Gentleman in Europe, absorbed the remainder. On the accession of William IV, a pretended reduction, but real increase, of the Civil List took place.

A Parliamentary return, ordered to be printed by the House of Commons on the 26th July 1869, contains the only accessible official information as to the origin of the Civil List. On the 19th March, 1872, Sir Charles Dilke, in the House of Commons, treated the subject at great length in a vain endeavor to obtain Parliamentary investigation or more complete official

returns.

As the national accounts are at present published, it is quite impossible for any unofficial person to learn the exact annual cost of the Royal Family. Part of the amount is given in the Finance Accounts on succeeding pages under the heading: "Civil List," £385,000; and " Annuities to the Royal Family ", £161,000. These together, omitting the Civil List pensions, amounted, on 31st March 1882 to £546,000, and are now increased by the additional £10,000 voted last Session to Prince