The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1871-11-25 00:00:00

DR. NORMAN MACLEOD ON HER
MAJESTY'S HEALTH.

On Friday afternoon in bud week, after the ceremony
of cutting the first sod of the ground on which the
Manmy lunatic Asylum at Lenzie, near ( Ilasgow, is to
be built, the health of the Queen was preposel, and
enthusiastically responded to. In proposing "The
other membets of the Royal Family" the chairman
(Mr. Menzies) requested the Rev. Or. Norman Mae.
leod, Queen's chaplain, to reply to the toast, awl to
give them sonic information about the state of her
Majesty's health.

lli ;venal.' gentleman, in respomling,

"I had no intention whatever of making any remarks
about her Majesty. I think this is the Mat time I have done
it in public ; lost as the chairman has called upon me so
pointedly to confirm his statements, I beg, having just re-
turned from Balmoral, to say that I am very glad to uuith
with any friends here in drinking Ls, the health of the Royal
Family but I trust Providence has given me such an
amount of common 501150 as not to presume to return
thanks for them As you have alluded to the Queen's
health in connectism with some information I have
given you. I beg to say this, and to gay it very emphati•
cslly, that what is meant by her Majesty's having liven
morally sir mentally incapacitated for any work I leave
to Mr. Disraeli to explain, for I cannot comprehend it. I
have hall the honour, in the providence of ficisl, of minis-
tering to her Majesty, 11l public and private, for the
last thirteen or fourteen years ; I have seen her in
every variety of circumstance, from the highest prosperity
and happiness which any married woman, not to
speak of a Queen, could enjoy, aml also In the
depth of her distress. I declare most solemnly I have
never, in the greatest privacy and in the most intimate
communion that • subject or a clergyman can have,
heard, one word offered, or one sentiment expressed,
, which slid not do the highest honour to her Majesty, both
as a Queen and as a woman; I have never seen the re-
motest trace of any moral or mental weakness, but I have
seen in every instance, ildwn to the last moment, remark-
able evidence of moral ansl mental strength and capihrity.
I am very glad to say that from the severe attack of neu-
ralgia and rheumatic gout (which has as effected her hands
that for a thile she was utterly unable even to sign her
name she has entirely recovered. I have never seen her in
better spirits aryl stronger in Mind than she is at present.
At the game time I am far from saying that she has recovered
hee. strength so as to be aisle to do more than she is doihg.
. . . .

_
Indeed, I am certain that the Queen has done all that her
nervous energy permits her to tin; for I make bold to any
that none of no have the slightest conception of the un-
ceasing demand that is made upon a person in her high
position of attending to Innumerable details, of carrying
bunions on her mind without the slightest possibility of one
moment's rest. hut own wives find how trying upon the
nervous energy are the constant cares of a large family, hut
when we think what she has to do as a mother, with her
children occupying such important position in ninety; what
she had to do on being compelled often to think about the
affairs of the nation, to whose interest she is profoundly
devoted ; when we think of the constant weight that must
ever he upon her mind, the wonder is that she is able to per.
form her duties as she has done. Anyone who knows the
Queen knows that she would do all that is possible for her
to to, and no one who knows her ha amazed at her extra-
ordinary considerateness for everyone' how she occupies her
thoughts upon every subject, and 110 W she attends to
such minute details of her duty and I will take it upon me
to say that the case of the poorest subject in her kingdom
if made known to her would receive her immediate attention.
(Ulcers.) let me also say that it is a cruel and cowardly in.
justice the manner in which her Majesty is often criticised,
when neither as a Queen, nor as a woman ran she make any
reply, but must endure in silence. But while these criti-
cisms are made by the few, I feel certain that the hugs
majority of this nation so revere the Monarch who occupies
the throne that dates for a thousand years, and so admire
her unblemished personal character, and the manner in which
during her reign she has discharged her public and private
duties, that could they utter it, one voice would unite with
ours when we say, "God save the Queen, may she long be
preserved to the Nation." (Loud cheers.)

A request has been sent to the newspapers to state
that the words imputed to Mr. Disraeli by Dr. Norman
Macleod, with respect to Her Majesty's "incapacity
for work," were never used by that gentleman. His
expressions were in a directly contrary sense—vir-,
that I ter Majesty's capacity for business, distinguished
nom the first by method and promptness, had now by
long experience become so eminent that it greatly
assisted and facilitated the conduct of public affairs.