Caroline Augusta, widow
of Francis I. of Austria, and grandmother of the reigning emperor,
died at Vienna. In Spain the abdication of Amadeo is an incident to
be mentioned in a year opening so ominously to crowned and discrowned
heads.

LITERATURE OF THE DAY.

Santo Domingo, Past and Present; with a Glance at Hayti. By
Samuel Hazard. New York: Harper & Brothers.

Mr. Hazard, who has already obliged us with one of the best accounts
of Cuba extant in modern literature, now does a similar service for
Santo Domingo, which he declares to be much more highly favored by
Nature, and which he examined with the United States commission of
1871. This book has the advantage of being prepared within reach of
the British Museum, whose stores of Americo-Spanish authorities have
enabled him to write up with much fullness the historical sketch which
occupies a third of his space. This is a fair, faithful and skillful
condensation, and the most readable narrative we have seen of poor
Dominica's tale of revolutions and wrongs. The personal portion begins
with the author's arrival at the Salt Keys and Puerto Plata, and
follows the steps of the commissioners, with a great many anecdotes
and a sprinkling of artistic sketches, to Samana and Santo Domingo
City; thence overland to the great inland tobacco-mart of Santiago;
and so back to Puerto Plata and Monte Christo, where the commission
ceased its labors, being discouraged by the Haytians from an
exploration within their domain; while Mr. Hazard, resuming his
capacity of private citizen, took his life in his hand and ventured
into the proud Mumbo-Jumbo republic. It is here that the really lively
part of the story commences, and the author becomes the hero of quite
a tragedy of errors. At the first Haytian port, Dauphin Bay, he meets
the port-captain who cannot read his passport, the port-general who
bows and sends him to the chef de police, the chef who asks for half
a dollar without countersigning the document, and lets the pilgrim
go on in quest of the American consul. The only hotel is closed and
"busted:" the consul indicates a billiard-room, whose proprietor feeds
the stranger, informing him at the same time that the authorities take
him for a United States commissioner, and have doubled the guards.
The next visit is to a banker, who plays him a curious practical joke.
Demanding Haytian bank-notes for a few hundred dollars on a letter of
credit, the tourist, after a t