King or Queen is on board." [Footnote 14: See Sir C. Hanbury Williams' Poems.] Among the odds and ends of news in this year was the opening of Hungerford Market, on July 2nd, amidst great festivity, which included a balloon ascent, and a ball and fireworks at night. It was situated on the site now occupied by the Charing Cross Station, and was demolished in 1862. On the 29th of July died William Wilberforce, the distinguished philanthropist, memorable especially for his exertions in the abolition of slavery. He was buried on August 4th, in Westminster Abbey, the pall-bearers being the Lord Chancellor, the Speaker of the House of Commons, Lord Bexley, the Marquis of Westminster, the Right Hon. Charles Grant, Sir Robert Inglis, Mr. W. Smith, and His Royal Highness the Duke of Gloucester. Among the mourners were the peers, at the head of whom were the Dukes of Sussex and Wellington, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and most of the bishops, and, lastly, the members of the House of Commons. It seems hard that he was denied the pleasure of seeing that come to pass, the forwarding of which had occupied so great a part of his life, viz. the abolition of slavery. In 1807 the importation of slaves into our colonies was decreed; but men's minds were exercised as to the lawfulness of keeping slaves at all, and an Anti-Slavery Society was established in 1823, the principal members of which were Wilberforce, Buxton, Zachary Macaulay, Lord Suffield, and Dr. Lushington, and in that year a movement was made in Parliament in furtherance of this object, but for some years the cause made little progress, until 1830, when it was again taken up. But, in 1833, the Government took it seriously in hand, and the abolition of slavery was carried with comparatively little opposition. True, Mr. W. E. Gladstone, in a debate thereon, on June 3rd, defended his father as a slave owner--he having an estate at Demerara, called Vreeden's Hoop--but he had a bad cause to back up, and his speech was practically nullified by Lord Howick's reply. The opponents of the Bill talked of the helplessness of the negroes, who had always had everything found them, and prophesied that they would starve; indeed, an anonymous artist produced the accompanying picture of "An Emancipated Negro," who is reduced to catching butterflies for food. [Illustration: "An Emancipated Negro."] The Bill passed the House of Commons on August 7th, and received the Royal Assent on August 28th. It is 3 and 4 Gul. IV. c. 73, and is entitled "An Act for the Abolition of Slavery throughout the _British_ Colonies; for promoting the industry of the manumitted slaves; and for compensating the persons hitherto entitled to the services of such slaves." It is a long Act, but the following is a synopsis.