The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1879-10-18 00:00:00

Sir Evelyn Wood said,—Sir Charles Du Cane,
Ladies and Gentlemen,—l thank you with all my
heart for your beautiful gift, and wish I had as many
hands as I have friends here that I might shake
hands wi 4h you all—(loud cheers)—for, indeed,
there are no words which can express my sense of your
kindness. Above all I do appreciate your cordial
and unanimous welcome. (Applause.) As long as I
can continue to serve my country the memory of to-
dy will be a stimulus to further exertion. (Cheers.)
Frequently when I have been absent from England on
active service I have had the pleasure of hearing of
friendly words and expressions of interest as uttered
by Essex men. Such words are not weakened by
distance. (Loud cheers.) On the contrary, they
eome with a force and a charm to the absentee which
you perhaps can scarcely realize. (Cheers.) The
merest scrap of news from the old place—the county
newspapers with their familiar names and interests—
how glad was every one to receive them. (Cheers.)
Very few men are so friendless as not to expect
some news from some sort of home; and I assure
such of you as may have friends and relatives on
active service, it is in your power to lessen consider-
ably that sense of loneliness which isolates a man even
in the hour of triumph if he has grown to believe that
no one cares what he does or what may become of him.
(Cheers.) As I have told ynu, I was often cheered by
hearing that my friends and neighbours took an in-
terest in our work. I thank you with all my he at
for your sympathy, for I am deeply moved by its
extent and intensity. (Cheers) I accept this hand-
some testimony of your goodwill as an additional proof
that the interests of the army and the country are
identical. (Cheers ) Whatever party, whatever policy
may direct the wars which are the result of Engiand's
Imperial range, the true soldier always fights for home
and country. (Loud cheers.) It was well said Pro
aris et focis is the life of patriotism. (Cheers.) Battles
are no longer fought on the hearthstones of these is-
lands, but on the boundaries where our vast rule has
extended; but whether it is in Africa or in Afghanis-
tan that the soldier fights, he resembles the spellbound
hero of old legends who travelled in a circle
over hundreds of miles but never got far away
from home. Nor is your interest impersonal, for
at Kanahnla there were privates from Essex in
both battalions, and more will be very welcome.
(Chesrs.) I know I am indebted to the nopularity
of my dear father, the lat 3 Rev. Sir John Wood (loud
and prolonged cheering), for much of your good feeling
towards me, for I have had but few opportunities of
cultivating neighbouring amenities; but especially
pleasant t) me is the thought that this old county,
which has been for generations in the van of civiliza.
Con, ,n which every cultured nook and corner is life-
sustaining, shows that it shares the manly feeling of
those early Romans who were not only soldiers but
agriculturist=, aid what they made worth having they
defended- (Loud cheers.) Ladies and gentlemen,
should I go again on active service I shall start well
equipped, foittfied by the memory of your great kind-
ness, an inspired by the possession of your splendid
gift. (Prolonged cheering.)
Sir Evelyn then drew the sword and held up both blade
and scabbard to the view of the people, who cheered loudly
again and again But having concluded his speech—which was
no easy matter amid the rather too enthusiastic demonstra-
tions of the crowd, his work was by no means done, and he
had long to stand on the platform shaking hands with people
In the crowd, who rushed forward eager to enjoy the privi-
lege of taking the Hero of Kambula by the hand.

On the motion of Mr. Coope, M.P., a vote of thanks was
passed to Sir Charles Da Cane.

THE BANQUET.

In the evening a banquet was given in the hall of the Corn
Eichange, when about 420 gentlemen sat down to table.
The hall, which is 100 ft, long by Oft. wide, was very taste-
fully and appropriately decorated by Messrs. Edgington. of
Smithfield, from designs by Mr. Chancellor, of Chelmsford.
The walls were draped to a height of 711. or Sft. from the
ground, with crimson cloth, and above was a diapered ma-
terial, festooned with crimson and yellow. The principals of
the arched roef were also hung with scarlet curtains,
trimmed with yellow fringe All round the hall, in ctiffrrent
compartments, were trophies containing shields, bearing
the names of the battles in which Sir Evelyn Wood
had distinguished himself in various parts of the
world Inkerman, tho Redan, 3ebastopol, BAghur,
Sind waho. Karee, Baroda, Essaman, Amoaful, Coomassie,
Zlobani, K ambula, Ulundi. At one end the three foreign
decorations be had gained—viz, the Legion of Honour, the
Turkish medal, and the order of the Medjidie—were com-
memorated ; at the other the Victoria Cross the Crimean
medal, the Indian medal, the Ashantee medal, and the
K.C.B. Behind the chair and right opposite were shields
surrounded with laurel, bearing the figure "90th," the
number of his regiment. On each side of the chair were
four Zulu shields, with assegais and knobkerries. In the
gallery over the entrance about 120 ladies were seated,
among whom was Lady Wood.

The chair was taken shortly before six o'clock by Sir
Charles Du Cane. On his right were Sir Evelyn Wood, the
Bishop of St. Albans, Lord Eustace Cecil, M.P., Admiral
Luard, C. 8., General Mark Wood, and Colonel Ruggles-
Brise, M.P. on his left, Lord Headley, Sir H. &twin.
Ibbetson, M.P_, Sir T. Fowell Buxton, and Mr. C. P. Wood.
Among the company were the Rev. Sir J. C. Hawkins,
Colonel Learmontb, M.P, Lleuteriaut-Colonel W. M. Tufnell,
Sir Matthew Wood, General Fytche, C.S 1., and Lieutenant-
Colonel hi skins, M.P., (tc , (Ste., d:c.
Alter the usual loyal toasts,

The Chairman, iu proposing the toast of the evening,
said he was not surprised at the cheering with which the
bare mention of the name of Sir Evelyn Wood had been
received, for he knew in his own humble experience in
times past how ready and willing Essex men at all times
were to do honour to any one who in their opinion ren-
dered cervices, however slight to their country. He thought
if they were to search the annals of Essex from its earliest
history they would not end one who had rendered to his
country services more conspicuous than his in whose
honour they were assembled. (Cheers) In the face of the
vast and surging concourse gathered from all parts of the
county be had once before that day touched upon the lead-
ing events of that which all would agree with him in re-
garding as one of the most remarkable careers of our time—
a career which, it it did nothing else, would illucrate
the vast extent of our empire, and how a soldier was
called upon to serve his country and win for himself
honour iu every part of the habitable globe. It he were
to endeavour to describe that career by a single
word, he would be inclined to ge back to hitt old
classical studies, sled to borrow that epithet which the
greatest epic poet of all time loved to apply to those
heroes who were engaged in a ten years' war before the walls
of Troy—the epithet " blameless " (Cheers) For it ever
there was a career to which that epithet might justly be ap-
plied it was that of the man in whose honour they were
assembled that evening For it did hot mean merely a career
of unbroken success or brilliant achievements, but rather
that of a knight upon whose shield there rested sod stain end
in whom lien-hearted courage was combined with an utter
abnegation of self, and with all those gentler and softer
qualities of head feed heart that won for a man not merely
the love and the devotion but the obedience to the death
of those with whom he was associated in action. (Loud
cheers.) Having alluded to the it gal studies of Sir Evelyn
Wood; the chairman remarked that he did not probsbly in-
tend to relinquish the marshal's baton for the woolsack, and
yet Use idea Of the woolsack was rot so chimerical, for the
name of Lerd Chelmsford would remind them not merely of
the gallant conqueror of Ulundi—(eittlinaiastic and pro-
longed cheering) -but also of his eminent father, who began
life us a midshipman in th 3 navy, fought at Copenhagen, and
finished his career by becoming twice Lord Chancellor of
England. (Loud cheers)

Sir EVELYN WOOD, who on rising to return thanks
W3B received with prolonged cheering, said,—

My friends,—l hope you will allow me to sail you
so (cheers)—for indeed I feel every one here present
to-day comes as a friend to me and to the profession to
which I have the honour to belong. (Cheers.) I
could have had no idea during the 18 arduous months
I was spending away from my native county and my
home of the warm welcome that was awaiting me
here • nor if I had known of your generous sympathy
can I say whether it would have made much difference
to me then, although it makes so great a difference
to me new (cheese), for to do one's duty to the
best of one's power is, I believe, every honest worker's
chief aim. (Loud cheers.) It is the fashion now to dis-
credit some of our beet traditions, but I hope our
schoolboys will never cease to believe in the glorioug,
homely words, "England expects that every man will
do his duty." (Loud cheers.) I had not the honour
of being associated with any of my former mess-
mates during this last war; but having commenced
life as a sailor, and served with naval brigades in
the Crimea and India, I trust I may be pardoned
when I mention their services. You have all
heard of the hard work they did in bridging
the Tugela, and of their determined conduct at
'nye' x sue and Ekowe, but you have probably not
heard of their patience in sickness, the brightest
example, perhap, of this English-like trait being
Mr. Coker, who rests, alms! in the graveyard at Ekowe,
I have kno an many men of all ranks who have patiently
lived and ungrudgingly died for no more brilliant
reward than the quiet approve' of the "still small
voice." (Cheers) Some, alas! like Ronald Campbell,
have gone away so quickly in their noble haste that
they havaot eyed heard the "well done !" of their
,eorrmiele-g (load oheers)-;• but theisi'examp!e has: act,
been lost. (Loud choere.) When the noise and the
excitement of the war is over the soldier viho has
seen men die for each other, or for duty's sake, can
never again be altogether unheroic in his life. (Loud
cheers,) One well known for his courageous nature,
and who is by right of his graphic genius far better
fitted to describe life and character than I—l allude to
Mr. Archibald Forbea—has said that "there is rao:0