ly
guarded against. They are peculiarly likely to happen now, as the
cuttings have been recently and hastily made, the banks are very
steep, and the season has been peculiarly wet, interrupted by severe
frosts.

Lord Melbourne received the deputation from Derby, a large and
respectable one, here on Monday last. The address was very guarded,
temperate, and judicious, and Lord Melbourne strove to construct his
answer in the same manner.

[Footnote 163: This accident took place on 24th December in
the Sonning Hill cutting, two and a half miles from Reading.
Eight persons were killed on the spot.]

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

TO CHAPTER XI

THE session was mainly occupied by the great Ministerial measure of
finance, direct taxation by means of income tax being imposed, and the
import duties on a large number of articles being removed or relaxed,
Mr Gladstone, now at the Board of Trade, taking charge of the bills.
Two more attempts on the Queen's life were made, the former again on
Constitution Hill by one Francis, whose capital sentence was commuted;
the latter by a hunchback, Bean, who was sentenced to eighteen months'
imprisonment. An Act was promptly passed to deal with such outrages
in future as misdemeanours, without giving them the importance of high
treason. Lord Ashley's Bill was passed, prohibiting woman and child
labour in mines and collieries. But the Anti-Corn Law League of
Manchester was not satisfied with the policy of the Government and
objected to the income tax; while riots broke out in the manufacturing
districts of the North.

In Afghanistan, the disasters of the previous year were retrieved; Sir
Robert Sale, who was gallantly defending Jellalabad, made a _sortie_
and defeated Akbar Khan; General Nott arrived at Ghuznee, but found it
evacuated; he destroyed the citadel and removed the Gates of Somnauth.
General Pollock swept the Khyber Pass and entered Cabul. The captives
taken on the retreat from Cabul were recovered--Lady Macnaghten and
Lady Sale among them. In retribution for the murder of Macnaghten,
the great bazaar of Cabul, where his remains had been dishonoured,
was destroyed by Pollock; the British force was then withdrawn. Dost
Mahommed made himself again ruler of Cabul, and a proclamation of
Lord Ellenborough announced that the British Government accepted any
Sovereign and Constitution approved by the Afghans themselves.

In China, also, operations were successfully termina