Little remains to be said as to the political events of the year. Mr. Ward Hunt, in producing his Budget on the 24th of April, admitted that the expenditure had increased from £66,780,000 in 1866-67 to £71,236,242 in 1867-68. The revenue received in the past year having only amounted to £69,600,000, there was a deficit of £1,636,000. Of course the £2,000,000 voted for the Abyssinian War accounted for part of the increased expenditure. For the rest, most of it arose from the carelessness of the Government in not insisting on keeping down the expenditure within the fixed limit of the estimates.[285] As for the coming year, Mr. Ward Hunt’s estimated expenditure was £70,428,000. To this had to be added £3,000,000 for the Abyssinian War. From Revenue he expected to get £71,350,000, so that there was a deficit to make good. He therefore added twopence to the Income Tax, which within the year he expected to yield £1,800,000, but which still left him with a probable deficit to carry over of £278,000. Apart from the increased expenditure the Budget was a sensible one. On the 9th of June Mr. Hunt also moved the Second Reading of a Bill enabling the Government to buy all the telegraph lines in the hands of private companies at their highest price before the 25th of May next, estimating the cost at between £3,000,000 and £4,000,000. Reference has already been, made to the Abyssinian Expedition. At first the public took a dismal view of the enterprise. It was said that the mixed native and European force would fight well, but that on the road from the sea to King Theodore’s fortress, it would be bled to death by mismanagement and maladministration. The result of the expedition was entirely satisfactory; indeed, there was but one fault to find with it, namely, that it had cost too much. The Viceroy of India and the Duke of Cambridge selected one of the ablest engineers in India--Sir Robert Napier--as Commander-in-Chief, and gave him _carte blanche_. His task was described as that of building a bridge four hundred miles long between Annesley Bay and Magdala. As to the road he had to traverse, when one of the soldiers was told he was marching over the table-land of Abyssinia, he replied, “Well, the table must have been turned upside down, and we’re now a-marching over the legs!” Between Napier and his enemy there were many formidable native chiefs, who could only be conciliated by consummate diplomatic skill. How he succeeded in doing that, and in dragging his guns over the mountains by means of elephants, then used for the first time in African warfare since the days of Carthage; how he supplied his [Illustration: THE QUEEN REVIEWING THE VOLUNTEERS IN THE GREAT PARK, WINDSOR. (_See p._ 318.)]