lling to
concede lower rents, and kept up those which were brought about by war
prices during the great struggle with France. Hence a protectionist
agitation pervaded the country, unsettling the minds of the farmers,
inspiring false hopes, irritating the trading classes, producing counter
agitation, and by all these means inflicting injury upon the country.

THE CHOLERA.

The cholera, which broke out at the close of 1848, slumbered during
the winter and spring, 1849, and then ravaged the country, continued to
afflict, more or less, during this year also. The mitigation and removal
of the disease during the year enabled medical and scientific men to
give more calm and undisturbed investigation as to its phenomena. Some
of the laws which characterized its advance, prevalence, and removal,
were discovered and brought before the public; but the cause or source
of the pestilence still remained a mystery, and no specific treatment
was discovered. It was remarked that it appeared generally in the same
districts, towns, streets, houses, and some persons affirmed, even
apartments, which had entered in the year 1832.

PAPAL AGGRESSION.

The most striking home incident of the year, was the event which
went generally under the name of papal aggression. England, since the
Reformation, had been exceedingly jealous of any exercise of authority
by the Roman pontiff within her dominions, and in consequence of this
feeling it had been deemed politic at Rome to govern the Roman Catholics
of England by vicars apostolic. For some years, however, the church
and court of Rome had been encouraged by the Romanist tendencies of
the "High Anglican" and Puseyite parties in the English church. Many
clergymen and laymen went over to Rome, especially of the former, and
very many more were known to be inclined to follow. It was also alleged
that a large body of the clergy and gentry were favourable to a union of
the Church of England with the Church of Rome. In many of the churches,
the communion-table was turned into an altar; lighted candles were
employed in the daytime, crucifixes were placed above what was called
the altar, and the clergy practised genuflexions and intonations which
were supposed to be peculiar to Roman Catholicism. All these things
prepared the minds of the people, who were in the main attached
to Evangelism, and were steady in their Protestantism, to meet any
aggressive action on the part of Rome with anger, and