The Empire reports that Queen Victoria has donated signed copies of The Early Years of His Royal Highness the Prince Consort and Leaves from the Journal of Our Life in the Highlands to her subjects in New South Wales. A despatch from the Colonial Secretary reads, in part: 'Her Majesty desires that these books may be placed in the following Libraries – The Sydney University Library, Parliamentary Library of Sydney, and the Public Library of Sydney ... both as tokens of the interest with which her Majesty regards the development of institutions which tend to the spread of knowledge and intelligence in her colonial possessions, and because she believes that these records of the earlier days of their Sovereign and the Prince Consort will not fail to be valued by her subjects in New South Wales.'