The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1873-04-05 00:00:00

_
VISIT OF TO ()Np VICTORIA
LONDON.
The news that lher Majesty would visit the hand-
some park in the east of London that bears her name
was received Nr ith great enthusiasm by the residents
of the East of London, who made as many prspnra
time as the short notice would enairie thew to munce
fear royalty to awed 'respect for their -Sovereign. The
route chosen was a very lor g one, extenoing over
several miles, and Lad the advantage, a great one in a
crowded metropolis, of distributing over a large space
of ground the crowds that in a small one would perhaps
become dangerous to life; for every occasion on wildch
bee Majenty appears in public proves the attachment
toiler and the institutions of w*h she is the illus-
trious bead.
The morning promised • msgoilic.nt day. It ass,
of course, "Queen's weather.' Log before the hour
fixed for ataxia*, a large umber of persons had al-
aembled in the large o, en space in front of Bucking-
ham Palm, and along the Mall. Up to the last
minute, it was not known, even by the officials at the
ue the precession would do nosspessil. A.
_sr of persons assembled along Constitution.
bill, by the Marble Arch, and Oxford street.
At a quarter to eleven the procession—if such it
could be called, consisting as it did simply of two oars
riages—started from the Garden Gate of the Palace.
In the first carriage were her Majesty, Princess
Beatrice, Lady Biddulph, and Lady Churchill. In
the second carriage were lady Caroline Barrington,
and other attendants upon her Majesty. Amid great
cheering the carriages passed up Pall-mall to Waterloos
place, with no escort but halfm dozen outriders.
_ _ .

kagacoJl4re
great ntn.ny
_1

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The inhabitants of Bethnall• green, Shoreditch, and
Hackney turned out in immense crowds all along the
line of route, bunting was profusely displayed, and
the streets beyond the "Angel" towards Victoria
Park were lined with an enthusiastic crowd. Many
persons had assembled at the Marble Arch expecting
the Queen to come that way, but her Majesty
passed through Pall-mall into Regent-street and
thence through Portland-place and by the Marylebone
and Easton-roada to King's-crose: The whole way her
Majesty was loyally salutes. At King's-cross there was
so large a concourse that the Royal progress was de.
'eyed. From this point the principal shops were closed
and decorated. Frain private houses also hung
streamers and flags. At the Angel anoiher large crowd,
1110fe under control, welcomed her Majesty. The
enthusiasm increesed until the park was reached. The
path in the Essex-road was occupied by a number of
school children, who sang the National Anthem as her
Majesty passed. The procession went rapidly into
Hackney, where all the excitement of a fete day was
manifested.

The procession halted at the Hackney Town-hall,
and her Majesty was presented with a bouquet of
flowers. A large tent bacl been erected at the entrance
to the Victoria Park, where the Queen alighted. Her
Majesty was at that moment presented by the mere.
bere for hackney, on behalf of the committee represent-
ing the three parishes of Hackney, Bethnal-green, and
shoreditch, with an appropriate address.
The address was not read, and her Majesty said that
a reply would be sent to it. Miss Reed, the daughter of
Mr. Reed, M.P., had then the honour of being intro-
duced to the Queen and presenting to her a magnifi-
cent boao pet. Her Majesty was heard to express her
pleasure at the cordial reception she had met with at
all points of the route, and said she was ex.
tremely pleased that the day hal proved so fine for
the people. After this the cal riage was imme-
diately drawn away and entered the Park, escorted
by a detachment of the lat Life if mrda. The
rate at which the Royal carriages were driven was
rather rapid, and the dense 1318.8ses of persons who
had congregated on either side had but a small oppor-
tunity of catching a glimpoe of her Majesty's features
and those of the Princess Beatrice. The time occupied
in driving round the Park was about ten minutes, and
the Queen left by the Approach-road. Here the crowd
was packed as closely as possible, and every available
spot had been taken possession of from which a view
could be obtained. The pressure of the people was so
great that it was with the utmost difficulty that the
cavalry and mounted police were able to prevent the
ranks from being broken. Traversing the Cambridge-
heath-read, her Majesty entered the Hackney road.
What was wanting in the way of house deooratie n in
the Hackney road and sther East-end streets, was,
however, fully made up for in the genuinecharacter of the
loyalty and enthusiasm of the large crowds who lined
both sides of the thoroughfares. Every court and
alley of this densely populated portion of the metro-
'', Ifs poured' forth its masses of mole and female oc-
cupants, who vied with each other in the luoty ex-
pression of their loyalty and enthusiasm. Considering
how closely packed the crowd were in the Hackney-
road and along Shoreditch, it was very wonderful how
orderly the people were, and the policemen, who were
stationed a few yards apart on both sides of the street,
had little trouble in keeping them in their places. Pass-
ing through Threadneedle street amilst the joyous
peals of the bells of some of the City churches, her
Majesty easily reached Victoria-street and the Embank-
ment, along which she was driven at the same rapid
rate as she had been in other parts of the journey.
Buckingham Palace being reached about one o'clock.

ri Dail, Tekgraph, in anticipation of Her Ma-
e., ty's v isit:penned the following appropriate leader
_

"it Is a long way from Belgravia to Bethnal-green."
Years have passed since, in us. of hit most moving speeches,
Mr. Bright familiarised us with those pregnant words. For
many generations—that la to say, since the days when the
Huguenots, expelled from France, there laid the foundation
ut the silk and velvet weaving trades of this vast metropolis
—liethish.green and its manufacturing neighbour Splint-
het te have been synonyms for hard work and frequent
miser/. It takes but an hour for a wayfarer to pass
frow the luxurious squares ana brilliant thoroughfares
of the West-end to the crowded, teeming Louie,
where men, women, and children ovehlow, as De
Cuipcey has it, into poverty. Few, indeed, are those
who have practically realised, in the words of a modern
writer, that "at one o'clock in the afternoon you may be
listening to pleasant and prosperous soon Is, Winkling sweet
odours, and gazdig upon sights rapestive of wealth and
happiness, and at two you may plant yourself before a
rag and bone shop, with a print in the window of
Justice, with tightly.bandaged ayes, weighing a pound
of dripping in her scales, and offernig It at the
lowest hgure oompailble with reasonable profit." Mr.
Bright's words were spoken, the distance between Bel-
gravia and Bethnal-green has been bridged by orthicon
whose names have become" household words" In the East
no less than in the West-end. Foremost among them, Lady
Burdett Coutts has made Columbia square in Bethnal-green
the object of her judicious bounty ; and Sir Richard Wallace
has offered to the gratuitous Inspection of eyes once too fa.
rattier with sights of sordid want, winks of art upon
which Kings and millionaires cannot look without
envy. 'Royal progresses" have again and again brought
our Sovereigns into contact with their subject' ; but
no Sovereign of the past ever undertook a pilgrim.
ago of grace, which will better serve to bring Belgravia
and Bethnal-green together, than that which was accom-
plished by the Royal Lady fruni whom the park she is to
visit has borrowed its name. To many among the idle
denizens who spend a few months of every year in the squares
of the West-end, the very names of the regions through
which the queen passed as she approached and returned
from Victoria l'srk, are almost unknown. The visit of
Royalty to the East will teach many inhabitants of
London the too often forgotten truth that we live within
the same city which shelters thousands of our bre-
thren and sistere, who dwell in Holston, Hackney,
Whltechapel Waterloo Town, Ilomerteu, Kinghood,
Shoreditch, Spiteltlelds, sad Bettnuttgreen. Through the
heart of the lung-established homes of silk and velvet
weavers, of cabinet-makers and carvers, of sugar bakers and
refiners, of toy, makers and doll-dressers, of working shoe
and boot sinkers, of potters and glass spinners, of iron-
founders, suchorsmiths, shipwrights, riggers, and boiler
makers, of tanners, parchment-makers and skin-dressers—ln
short, through those purely ruanufa,turing parts of London
which lie between the City and the eastern and northern
suburbs, the Royal cortege, within a few hours, will wend its
unaccustomed way.
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Victoria Park—a locality unknown to many who have
wandered with delight through the pleaauragrounda of Path,
Vienna, Potence, and New York—has for more than a
quarter of a century been to the toilworn inhabitants of
the Eastsend what Hyde Park, is to Tyburnia, Belgravia,
and Mayfair. Situated upon what were once Bishop Bonnes
fields, the ground in question was purchased by the
tiovernment with the £72,000 received by the Crown
from the late Duke of Sutherland in exchange for Stafford
House. The park was opened in 1847, and although it took
its name from the Queen, has sever until to-day been
honoured by a Royal visit. But the memory of the gracious
reception accorded to Royalty by the assembled myriads who
were present when the Bethnal green Museum was opened,
and upon the Thanksgiving Day for the restoration ol the
Prince of Wales to health, has naturally warrue I the heart
of the IFlees towards thousands of her subjects, by many of
whom her face has never been seen. . . . In this free and pros-
perous laud there is no need for the departments of State
officially to manufacture the cheers with which the Royal
visitor will be greeted. In the eyes of those who are familiar
with the so-called "liberty" of Republics she is the living
embodiment of the truth that England is the only land where-
in, whether "girt by friends or foes, a man may speak the
thing he will.' In the humblest home of Bethnal-green it is
known that her pure example is wet thy of studious itnita-
tion, and she has elevated loyalty—always dear in the ab-
stract to English hearts—into a sentiment pasionately
cherished by nine-tenths of her subjects. By moat of them
the truth has Vng been aczepted that the "part which
Kings or laws can cause or elect' is but an itillaitesilnal
portion of' all that human hearts endure." The Queen comes
among them a living tape of high °nice spotlessly born., of
suffering deeply felt, of self-racrilleing abnegation, of
steady duet Moo to duty. Since the day when a dark
shadow passed tive r her life, she has been able to say
that, not inexperienced In woe, she knows how to feel
for the wretched. Among the countless wives of
working men who will this morning anxiously watch
for her coming, there is not one who has been
more bowed by grief than the Royal Widow, who, in
the closing words of the book which she devoted to her lost
husband, speaks of herself as being alone upon earth. In
the cheers with which she is always greeted when permitted
by her health to take part in politic ceremonials, the
thought of the great sorrow by which her life has been sad.
defied Is rarely absent from the minds of thousands to whom
her presence is ever welcome. The frequent cordial receptions
gioon to her M elegy during the first most joyful years of her
reign have been in later times unfortunately softened w ith
grief but to-day there will not be lees tenderness evinced
by the working leylons of Bait I, melon than her presence
has often evoked from those who, though born to ease,
have no monopoly of the loyalty and affection which the
English people had never ceased to bestow upon the
Que-n.