Three years after she became Queen, Victoria married her cousin, Prince Albert, who belonged to the family of German princes from which her mother came.

Her mar

home life.

They had many children, and their family life riage and was a very happy one. The Prince was a good father and a good husband; he was also a wise and a well educated man, and aided the Queen very much in carrying on the government. He died in 1861, and

Queen Victoria never got over her grief for him. For many years afterwards, she appeared in public only when it was absolutely necessary.

Throughout her long reign, Queen Victoria loyally played the part of a constitutional sovereign. She chose her ministers, now from the Whigs (or "Liberals," as they began to be called), and now from the Tories (or

"Conservatives"), whichever had a majority in the House of Commons. In this way Parliament, especially the House of Commons, came more and more to rule the country; and the old idea of George III., that the personal will of the King should rule, was very largely

given up.

The long reign of Queen Victoria saw a constant succession of new inventions, which increased man's mastery over nature.

By Victoria's time, artificial gaslights had taken the place of the old whale-oil lamps, with which formerly the streets of London were dimly lighted. Gaslight was also generally used in

shops, and in the better class of houses. It was not until her reign was two-thirds over that electric lighting came into use.

In 1814 George Stephenson, the son

The railway

"PUFFING BILLY"

of a poor English miner, constructed a locoand steam- motive engine, which people called "Puffing boat. Billy," on account of the noise which it made. Little by little the locomotive was improved, until Stephenson's "Rocket" could run at the rate of thirtyfive miles an hour. The first railway for passengers was opened in 1829. The year after Victoria became Queen, a railway was opened clear through from London to Liverpool, and it became possible to cover, in ten hours, a distance which had taken sixty hours by the fastest stage coach. The steamboat had already been invented, by Fulton in America (1807), and by Bell in Scotland (1812); and in 1838 vessels under steam power

began to cross the Atlantic Ocean.

The influence of these inventions, in changing all the conditions of life, was only second in importance to the introduction of machinery in manufacturing.

introduced.

Formerly, the person who received a letter paid the postage, which varied with the distance. A letter from London to Scotland cost more than a shilling Penny (twenty-five cents) and poor people often postage could not afford to receive letters. In 1839, however, gummed postage stamps were introduced, with which the sender paid the postage; and in 1840 the rate was made one penny (two cents) for letters throughout Great Britain and Ireland. Since then cheap postage has spread all over the world, until in 1908 the rate was made two cents even to America. This cheapening of postage brought people closer together, and also aided the spread of information, through the circulation of cheap newspapers and magazines.

Of even greater importance was the introduction of the electric telegraph, at the beginning of Victoria's reign. An American, Samuel Morse, invented

The tele

telephone.

an electric telegraph in 1835; but, before he graph and could patent his invention in Great Britain, two Englishmen had worked out an invention of their own and patented it. Within a short time the whole country was covered with telegraph wires, and messages could be flashed in a moment's time from one end of it to another. In 1858, an electric cable was first laid, connecting Great Britain and America; but this soon broke, and it was not until 1866 that it became possible to send messages regularly between the Old World and the New. The telegraphs became the property of the government, in Great Britain, and are managed as a part of the Post Office. When the telephone was introduced, after

1880, this also passed largely into the hands of the government.

When Victoria had been Queen nine years, a great famine came upon Ireland, which caused the loss of thousands of lives, and led several million persons to emigrate from Ireland to the United States.

Famine in

Ireland

The famine was due to a failure of the potato crop, which furnished the chief food of the Irish people. After a cold and late spring, it began to rain. In some places, the sun was scarcely seen from (1845). the end of May till the next spring. Here and there brown spots began to appear on the leaves of the potato plants. They grew black and spread, and soon whole fields were blighted. At night, a field might appear green and flourishing, and the next morning all be blight and decay. The food. upon which the people depended to carry them through the winter rotted in the ground. The whole land was soon face to face with starvation.

For some years an "Anti-Corn-Law League" had been working in England to secure the repeal of the "Corn Laws," which laid heavy tariff duties on imported grain. They held great public meetings, they printed pamphlets, and they published bitter rhymes, like this:

"Avenge the plunder'd poor, Oh Lord!
But not with fire, but not with sword,-
Not as at 'Peterloo' they died,
Beneath the hoofs of coward pride.
Avenge our rags, our chains, our sighs,
The famine in our children's eyes!
But not with sword-no, not with fire!

Let them in outraged mercy trust,
And find that mercy they deny!"

Sir Robert Peel, who was now Prime Minister at the head of the Tory party, believed in free trade in everything except grain. As to grain, he believed

that every country must raise its own food, or it could be starved out in war time.

Repeal of the "Corn Laws"

But (1846).

now, the famine in Ireland showed him the necessity of free trade in grain also.

So, Peel carried through Parliament a measure repealing the Corn Laws (1846). Many of his followers deserted him on this measure, for cheaper grain meant less profits to the landlord class; but the Whigs aided him. This law made England a freetrade country; and it has remained such from that day to this. Soon after this, the Whigs and Protectionist Tories overthrew

SIR ROBERT PEEL

Peel's government, and he never regained power. Since the overthrow of Napoleon, in 1815, Great Britain had fought several small wars in Asia and in Africa, but had not been at war with any European power. From 1854 to 1856, however, she fought Russia, in the "Crimean War," so called because it was fought mainly in the Crimea peninsula, in the Black Sea.