The precarious position of Wellington's Ministry at home was offset by a firm policy abroad. In British India the new Governor-General, Lord Bentinck, upheld British prestige by his firm abolition of the native custom of burning widows and by his extermination of the roving gangs of Thugs. In regard to the Eastern Question and the war in the Balkans, England came to an agreement with Austria to frustrate Russia's plans with respect to Constantinople. Thanks to this _entente cordiale_ between the two countries, enterprising English capitalists and engineers were allowed to put into operation the first line of steamboats that plied the waters of the Danube. Among other minor events of interest to Englishmen during this year, may be mentioned the first public appearance of Fanny Kemble, the actress, and the earliest boat race between student crews from the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. England lost two of her famous scientists during this year--Sir Humphry Davy and Thomas Young. Davy was born in 1778 and died in Geneva. Besides inventing the miner's safety lamp, with which his name will be forever associated, he made valuable experiments in photography; discovered that the causes of chemical and electrical attraction are identical; produced potassium and sodium by the electric current; proved the transformation of energy into heat; formulated a theory of the properties of particles of matter (or atoms); and made remarkable experiments which led to the theory of the binary composition of chemical compounds. Young was born in 1773. At Cambridge they called him "Phenomenon Young," because he was said to know everything. In truth, Young developed into the most profound English scientist of the century. When only twenty he was asked to read papers before the Royal Society. In 1801 he delivered the Bakerian lecture, his subject being "The Theory of Light and Colors." That lecture marks an epoch in physical science; for it brought forward for the first time convincing proof of the correctness of the undulatory theory of light. The intangible substance which pulsates and undulates to produce light, Young christened the "luminiferous ether." And the term is still to be found in our scientific vocabulary.