The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1879-05-24 00:00:00

AN EXTRAORDINARY PEDESTRIAN.

The pedestrian feats of the present day are, the
Boston Journal say's, cast into the shade by the
recorded exploits of Ernst Mermen, a Norwegian sail-r
in the English navy, early in the present century.
Mensen first attracted attention by running from Lon-
don to Portsmouth in nine hours, and soon • after ha
ran from London to Liverpool in thirty-two hours.
Having distinguished himself at the Battle of
Navarino, in 1827, he left the navy and became a pro-
fessional runner. After winning a number of matches
he undertook the feat of running from Paris to
Moscow. Starting from the. Place Vendbme at four
o'clock in the afternoon of June 11, 1831, he entered
the Kremlin at ten o'clock a.m. on June 25,
having accomplished the distance of. 1,760 miles
in thirteen days and eighteen hours. The
employment of Mensen as a courier-extraordinary
soon became a popular amusement in European Courts.
He ran from country to country, bearing messages of
congratulation. condolence, or despatches, and always
beat mounted couriers when matched against them.
He never walked, but invariably ran, his only refresh-
ment being one biscuit and an ounce of raspberry syrup
per day, and two short rests of ten or fifteen minutes
eaoh in twenty-four hours. These rests he took stand-
ing; and, leaning against a tree or other support, at
Such times he covered his face with a handkerchief,
and slept. After the nap he pursued his way as much
refreshed as though he had slept for hours. In
1836, while in the employ of the East India
Company, Mensen was charged with the con-
veying of despatches from Calcutta to Constanti-
nople through Central Asia. The distance is
5,615 miles, which the messenger accomplished in
fifty-nine days, or in one-third of the time made by
swiftest caravan. At last he was employed to discover
the source of the Nile. Setting out from Silesi%
May 11, 1843, he ran to Jerusalem, and thence to
Cairo and up the western bank of the river into Upper
Egypt. Here, just outside the village of Syang, he
was seen to stop and rest, leaning against a palm tree,
his face covered with a handkerchief. He rested BO
Jong that some persons tried to wake him; but they
ft: ioetdoifnthv
eaitnr,eefo, for witaws
adseayde.arsHbeefworaes
hbiusriferdienadt
sthine
Ilauropte.e knew what fate had befallen him,—Pall luau
vzet

ThE BISHOP OF PETERBOROUGH ON
ART.
The 64th anniversary dinner of the Artists' General
Benevolent Institution was held in London at Willis's Rooms
on Saturday. The Bishop of Peterborough presided. There
was a large company of noblemen and gentlemen, the num-
ber present beiug about 370.
The Right Rev. Chairman gave the usual loyal
toasts. In proposing the next toast he said,—l am
not sure what will be said of me, a man of peace and
a member of a peaceful profession, and by birth and
nationality, as you will please to remember, averse
from all contention (laughter), if I venture to propose
"The Army, the Navy, and the Reserve Forces,"
Still, will you allow me to say that it is really in my
capacity as a man of peace that I tiffr this toast, be-
cause, being, as I have said, naturally averse from
fighting, I have a very great respect and admiration
for those who do my fighting for mar (Laughter.)
Wthile human nature se what it is there must be
some fighting done in this world, and I am humbly


of. opinion that it is as lawful for a nation to de-
fend itself, its rights and its property, as it is for are
individual to do so. (Cheers,). And I venture to
think that those very peaceful gentlemen who are very
anxious for the dishandieg of our army and the dis-
mantling of our navy, and who will doubtless to-
morrow or the next day—fur Sunday is a day of rest—
denounce me as a Bishop who has been advocating
bloodshed (laughter), might well try a little disband
ing and dismantling on their own account. They
might carry out their own _ principles to the extent
of taking the lock off their area gate and re-
questing the policeman on his beat to ignore
their house. (Renewed laughter.) I think the re-
sult would be that having got rid of the 'armed
protector of property and life, which, after all, is
what our army and our navy are, the next thing you
would hear would be that there would be an invasion
of that particular house in the shape of the burglars;
and next that the owner of the house, a late convert to
the principle of fighting in defence of life, had bought
a revolver; and the next thieg would be that, not
being very skilled in the use •of deadly weapons, he
had grievously hurt himself or some innocent member
of his family in consequence of the revolver going off
by accident. (Laughter.) I think if we did disband our
army and dismantle our navy, the next thing would be a
burglarious invasion of the country, and then we should
all turn soldiers in the last resort, bishops and clergy
included, and some of us not being very skilful
soldiers, we might hurt ourselves or somebody else.
(Renewed laughter) Gentleman, I prefer the army
aid the navy. (Cheers.) I believe that war has its
virtues as swell as peace. (Cheers.) Within the last
few weeks in places where our forces are engaged in
defending the honour and the possessions of Great
Britain, we have seen instances of the virtues
of war—of its heroism, its discipline, and its
sacrifice of life for the sake of others—that are very
noble, and that demand the admiration of all
of us. (Cheers.) When I read of the heroism of
those two youths, Bromhead and Chard (loud
cheers); when I heard of a gallant officer compelled to
flee for his life from an overwhelming horde of savages
stopping to help a poor wounded bandsman of his regi-
ment, or of a military surgeon stopping to bind up the
wounds of a dying man and sacrificing his life in
so doing, I was disposed to take off my hat to my
brother preachers who had preached a lesson of heroism
and courage ani self-denial I should not be ashamed
to preach from my pulpit. (Cheers.)
The Right Rev. Chairman also proposed "Prosperity
to the Artists' General Benevolent Institution.' In the
course of his speech he said :—"limagine that thegreat
aim of art in the first place is to please, and to make
those who contemplate your works for the moment
happy. lam very far from saying it may not have
higher aims, and that you may not desire to instruct
and elevate. But, after all, unless you please ;:n
the first instance, you will not instruct and
elevate.. (Hear, hear.) Therefore, in order to in-
struct you begin with pleasing, and it is your very
great privilege that you very largely increase the
happigess of the age in which you live. (Hear,
hear,) And let me see, that all aloe 'este
do so purely and nobly confer a real benefit
upon the age: Whatever takes us out of our-
selves and throws us back into the past or forward
into the future, or gives us nobler or more graceful or
more beautiful ideas of the age in which we live and
the nature by which we are surroundecl, does pa goed,
if it makes us peter a few happier hours and relieves
us from the weary monotony and the heavy pressure
and the drudgery of life. In that respect Ido think
you confer a very great and a very deep benefit
upon the world at large. I a,m sure thet you 4
this in all the branches of are- peintieg, sculpture,
and architecture—which I see represented here to-
day. I am quite sure when you gentlemen who
are painters give us upon our walls a bit of imprisoned
sunshiee that lasts all the year round, through the
gloomy winter season of ours, we feel the satisfaction of
that, and when you give us the grass that is always
green and the foliage that is always Quivering in its
beauty in the breeze, and that we cap find th re at all
times; and when you gentlemen, sculptors, give us
those enduring forms of beauty that always command
our attention and breathe repose into our life; and
when you gentlemen, architects, in the •midst of the
great dreary highways of our great citiee, give ts Vise
beauty of external form and of internal harmony and
proportion, you make our lives pleasanter, happier,
more gracious, more refined."
The Bishop then proceeded to refer to the influence of art,
and the enjoyment he perspnally derlye4 therefrom, in allu-
Mon to which he observed that he had hhaself pnrchased
some years since a painting from the Academy, which,
although portraying but a few trees, a glimpse of a stream,
ai.4 a bit of sunset, taken on,the Thames, yet fully conveyed
the idea of exquisite repose and peace and rest. Ms lord-
ship continued :

"I assufe you that sometimes when I am wearied
with work, vexed, perhaps, by a correspondence With
some nlergyman who is not blessed with a sense of im-
plicit obedience to his bishop (laughter), or perhaps, by
a quAtion of the colour of some vestment worn by one
who has an artistic eye (a laugh), I come out and look
at this picture, which seems to me to mirror the
stream oi life as it draws peacefully towards its
evening. There is something in it that rests and
suits me, sad, if you will believe me, at that
moment a curate might play with me with safety.
(Loud laughter.) Let M 3 thank you, in the name
of the outer world, not merely on behalf of those who
may be able to indulge in the luxury of a beautiful
painting, but op behalf of those whose homes are not
unfamiliar to me as one bound especially to care for the
poor; let we thank you for the beauty, for the grace,
for the er,joyment that art pours into the home of the
poor man in our English life. Ido not suppose there
is any nation that feels more the charm, the grace,
the repose, the enjoyment that art brings into domestic
life than does the poor man, the artisan in this Eng.
land of ours, with the gray weary monotony, with the
hard toil, with something, as it may be, of the dull
Philistinism which soma are wont to discover in the
nature of the uncultured Englishman, I believe that
you do an immense kindness when your works, by the
skill of the engraver or the humbler art of the photo-
grapher, 4nd. their place on the walls of the poor man
and give a grace and beauty to hie life of toil. (Rear,
hear,) We are always glad and think it a hopeful sign
when we come to a poor man's home and see flowers in
the garden and pictures or engravings on the wall. It
seems to Ile there la something there that raises the
poor man above his daily toil and has elevated him one
step in civilization, refinement, and happiness. Then
on behali, gentlemen, of the public, whose happiness
you so largely augment, I am here to. night to thank
you and requite, as far as my poor words can do so,
the debt of gratitude we owe you Though I have
snoken of the gratitude .of the public, I am a raid
the public is not always mindful of the gratitude
it owes. I do not think the English people are
naturally an ungrateful people, but they are a
very hurried and busy people and are apt to enjoy
the results presented to them, and not to give
much serious thought or consideration to the pains,
the care, the efforts of those who produce these results.
I am afraid that is true in other matters than the world
of art. Those who enjoy a book are not always mindful
of the anxieties in the mind of the unhappy author, or
of the proof sheets and the settling of the account with
the publisher. (Laughter.) lam afraid an ungrateful
and irreverent public does not sufficiently appreciate
the care and the labour and the effort that produce a
bishop's charge. (Renewed laughter.) I think it is
quite posiible there may be some here tunight Who
are not sufficiently grateful for the pains and the
anxieties of the hanging committee of the Academy,
There are unrequited and forgotten labours in the
world, and I fear that as we enjoy some masterpiece
of art, or some work which is not a masterpiece, but
which is, nevertheless, beautiful and pleasing, the
artist is too often forgotten in toe work." . . . .

The right rev. prelate then referred to the ideal artist as
described in works of fiction, and went on to Bay

"The real artist is one who is engaged inn laborious,
in an anxious, in a painstaking profession, which, like
all other professions, must have not only its successes,
but sometimes its failures, and always its struggles.
The struggles of the artist riming to eminence, the
harder and more painful struggle it may be, of the
artist who has failed to attain the eminence that rose
before his youthful vision, and finds himself in mature
years slowly but gradually descending tha hill of life,
content to take a humbler position than he once
pictured to himself as his own future—we should
remember that for such men there must be trying,
anxious, distressful moments in life, whether they
are on the high road to success or whether they are
upon the descending road to failure, or even walking
along that middle road of moderate success, for
successful progress in which at least, the artist gives
his health, his strength, and an unclouded and
unanxious mind. I remember reading in one of the
charming stories of one who once presided here, but
who has now poised away—the great artist of words,
Dickens—the story of a poor man who describes him-
self as living in an uncomfortable and dilapidated
house, *hich, he said, the artists like to sketch, he
supposed because there was always fine weather in
their pictures. I believe there is often glowing sun-
shine and a cloudless sky in the picture of many an
artist on whose life clouds have gathered and the
storms of adversity are beating." The Bishop in conclu-
sion, made an earnest appeal on behalf of the needy
brethren of the chisel, brush, and pencil, to whose
hrtistic labours the public are indebted for so much
iunocent and elevating pleasure.