It seems to me a defect in our much famed Constitution, to have to part with an admirable Govt like Ld Salisbury's for no question of any importance … - Victoria

I sympathise most deeply with your expressions on the horrors of war, than which no one can feel more strongly than I do; and earnestly hope that it may be averted. But I cannot abandon my own subjects who have appealed to me for protection. If President Kruger is reasonable, there will be no war, but the issue is in his hands.

I am most anxious to enlist everyone who can speak or write to join in checking this mad, wicked folly of "Women's Rights," with all its attendant horrors, on which her poor feeble sex is bent, forgetting every sense of womanly feelings and propriety. Feminists ought to get a good whipping. Were women to "unsex" themselves by claiming equality with men, they would become the most hateful, heathen, and disgusting of beings and would surely perish without male protection.

My dearest Uncle,- I have the greatest pleasure in announcing to you a piece of news which I know will give you as much satisfaction and relief as it does to us, and will do to the whole of the world. Lord Palmerston is no longer Foreign Secretary—and Lord Granville has already named his successor!