Page:The Annual Register 1899.djvu/456

 32 CHRONICLE. [jtjmb

5. The Czar, after a long investigation of the students' movement, announced his dissatisfaction with the authorities and professors of the universities, severely rebuked the police for their conduct, and held the students' conduct in some degree excusable.

6. In the House of Commons, on the report stage of the London Government Bill, a clause enabling women to serve as councillors and aldermen was carried by 196 to 161 votes.

— The conference at Bloemfontein between President Kruger and Sir A. Milner brought to a close, no basis of an agreement having been reached on the franchise question, and the President's suggestion of arbitration having been put aside.

— Captain Dreyfus embarked for France, having been over four years a prisoner, subjected to the most rigorous treatment, on the lie du Diable, off Cayenne.

— General Luna, chief field officer of the Philippine Insurgent Army, assassinated at Cabanatuan by officers of Aquinaldo's bodyguard.

7. Celebrations in honour of the centenary of the birth of Pushkin, the Russian poet and novelist, held throughout Russia, the rejoicings being of a truly national character.

— The Russian Government broke off all diplomatic relations with the city of Bremen, relations which had been maintained through the Minister to the Grand Duchy of Oldenburg. The cause was the arrest of a Russian pope or priest on suspicion of theft, who had vainly claimed compensation.

— Several cases of plague, of whom six died, notified as having occurred in Alexandria during the week.

8. The thanks of both Houses of Parliament given to Lord Kitchener, the officers and forces engaged in the Soudan expedition. The resolu- tion was carried unanimously in the Upper House, and in the Commons by 347 to 18 votes.

— At Sandwich the open golf championship won by the actual holder, H. Vardon of Scarborough.

— M. Zola returned to Paris after a prolonged stay in England, and was at once served with notice of the finding of the Versailles Assize Court, of which the judgment could not be executed in his absence.

9. In Paris the Indictment Chamber ordered the provisional release of Colonel Picquart, who had been detained nearly a year in prison awaiting his trial on charges brought by the general staff.

— The long-standing difficulty of the Ausgleich between Austria and Hungary settled in principle between the two Premiers on the advice of the Emperor-King, and in accordance with a compromise suggested by him.

— Several mayors in various parts of France suspended for refusing to placard the Dreyfus judgment.