“Sir Charles Phipps has received the commands of her Majesty the Queen to call the attention of the directors of the ---- to the increasing number of accidents which have lately occurred upon different lines of railroad, and to express her Majesty’s warmest hope that the directors of the ---- will carefully consider every means of guarding against these misfortunes, which are not at all the necessary accompaniments of railway travelling. It is not for her own safety that the Queen has wished to provide in thus calling the attention of the Company to the late disasters. Her Majesty is aware that when she travels extraordinary precautions are taken, but it is on account of her family, of those travelling upon her service, and of her [Illustration: THE QUEEN UNVEILING THE STATUE OF THE PRINCE CONSORT AT COBURG.] people generally, that she expresses the hope that the same security may be insured for all as is so carefully provided for herself. The Queen hopes it is unnecessary for her to recall to the recollection of the railway directors the heavy responsibility which they have assumed since they have succeeded in securing the monopoly of the means of travelling of almost the entire population of the country.” On the other hand, evidence was not wanting that her Majesty’s retirement had led to laxity of administration in her household. On the 4th of March, for example, Lord Malmesbury writes in his Diary:--“All London is talking of the way in which the Corps Diplomatique has been invited to the Queen’s reception. It was, as far as I could understand, in these terms:--‘That the Queen would graciously receive them, _male_ and _female_, at a Court to be held at Buckingham Palace.’ All those concerned are trying to shift the responsibility upon one another. The diplomatists have sent their cards of invitation to their respective Courts, and therefore it has produced a great sensation all over the world, as the term _mâle et femelle_ is never used in French, except in speaking of animals.”[237] But her Majesty’s kind and gracious bearing at this reception, which was held on the 13th of March, did much to neutralise the impression produced by the rudeness of the Lord Chamberlain’s Department. On the 14th of March the Queen visited the Consumptive Hospital at Brompton, bestowing on the patients in the various wards kindly words of sympathy. Circumstances prevented her from undertaking a journey to Ireland, where the people would have been pleased to have welcomed her at the inauguration of an International Exhibition. She, however, testified her interest in that enterprise by requesting the Prince of Wales to open the exhibition in Dublin on the 9th of May. Another son was born to the Prince and Princess on the 3rd of June, and on the 7th of July the infant was baptized in the chapel at Windsor in presence of the Queen, who named him George Frederick Ernest