But another cause has perhaps had a deeper and more lasting effect. The abolition of the stamp duty upon newspapers, and the consequent advent of a cheap press, enabling every working man to see his daily paper, and to know what is going on, has carried into effect, silently, a revolution, complete and thorough, in English thought and manners, in relation to political matters. Every man now sees that, differing as Englishmen do, and always will, upon some matters, they all agree as to one object. That object is, "the greatest good to the greatest number" of their fellow countrymen. The pride of all Englishmen now, is in the glory that their great country has achieved in peaceful directions. Their ardent desire and prayer is, that the benefits they have secured for themselves in the last few and fruitful years of judicious legislation, may descend with ever-widening beneficent influences to succeeding generations. GOSSIP ABOUT ROYALTY. As I sit down to write, on the stormy evening of this twenty-ninth day of January, 1877, I bethink me that it is fifty-seven years to-day since death terminated a life and a reign alike unexampled for their length in the history of English monarchs. King George the Third died on the 29th of January, 1820. I remember the day perfectly. I, a child not quite five years old, was sitting with my parents in a room, the windows of which looked upon the street of a pleasant town in Kent. Snow was falling fast, and lay thick upon the ground outside. The weather was intensely cold, and we crowded round the fire for warmth and comfort. Suddenly there was a crash: a snowball fell in our midst, and the fragments of a windowpane were scattered in the room. My father rose in anger to go to catch the culprit who had thrown. He was unsuccessful; but in his short visit to the street he had learned some news, for when he returned he told us that the King was dead. The King dead? I had heard of "the King" of course, but what _it_ was I had never thought of. To me it represented strength and omnipotent protection, but it was an abstraction only; an undefined something of awful portent; and that _it_ could die was very mysterious, and set me wondering what we should do now. My father explained at once, that the King was only a man; that his sons and daughters, even, were old people now; that one of the sons died only a week ago, and wasn't buried yet; and that this son had left, fatherless, a little baby girl, not much over six months old, who, if she should live, might one day become the Queen of England. Such is my earliest recollection in connection with the illustrious lady who still, happily, sits upon the English throne.