The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1875-06-05 00:00:00

sing. On
shore.
three.,
thar-V.Diaa

miles. Anyhow they seemed to me to be .
longest three miles lever steered in all mylife. (Cheers
and laughter). I cannot conclude my remarks with-
out thanking the South Eastern Railway Company,
who have so nobly assisted me to carry out my promise
to go from the shores of France to the shores of your
dear old England. (Cheers.) I guess it is right
through them that I have succeeded in crossing-th.
Channel, and I should, therefore, like to propose the
health and prosperity of that company, and to
connect with the toast the name of Sir Editylts
Watkin, M.P., and the other gentlemen-who-ha*
been so very kind to me, and I do not forget my degr
friends, Captain Dane and Captain Jones, the harbour-
master.
The Hon. Mr. Byng.responded to .the tot; arid
, after several other toasts bad been given and duly
acknowledged the company separated, and captain
Boyton, his brother, And other friends, left for Lon-
don. The departureewas witnessed by a large number
• of speceaters,•wim cheered histily 'alt the train started
int of the etatioii. , Cr .
- t
THE DEPARTURE OF THE ARCTIC
- •
;I!
A . • • <
- At four o'clock bn Saturdarafternoon (the 29th), the Alert
and the Discovery left Portsmouth on the Arctic Expedi
tion, amid, the enthusiastic cheers of .the Men from the ships
-in 'harbour and from thousands of spectators who had
*gathered upon the ihoris —The following extracts.; desciip-
, tins of the departure; are from a very interesting sketch, by
:the. Special Correspondent of the .Daily. News :
r
t-4 •• • At ten o'clock [oirSaturday morning] thei‘firing
of the appropriate salute announced the arrival o their
lordships, of Whom there were present Mr. Yard
Hunt, the First Lord; Lord Gilford, Sir Alexander
Milne, Sir Massy Lope's, and M. Vernon Lushington.
Having breakfasted on board the Enchantress, their
lordships first proceeded to the Alert, on board of
which, as afterwards on the Discovery, they were re-
ceived with the prescribed honours. So far as regarded
the ships, the inspection was of a purely formal charao-;
ter. By the time of their official visit, all hands of both
ships' companies had sucsessfully come on board,
and the muster at quarters was therefore com-
plete. When the crews had been inspected, Mr.
Ward Hunt addressed them in a few appropriate
words, the tenor of which was identical on either ship.
With evident feeling, he said that the expedition had
been fitted out with every regard to the safety, well-
being, and comfort of those composing it; that the
eyes of the world were upon the expedition, and that
the prayers and best wishes of all their countrymen
for their success in their arduous undertaking would
accompany them. In conclusion, the right hon. gen-
tleman wished a hearty "God speed," and when he
and his colleagues had shaken hands with the officers,
they took their departure, the First Lord saying,
"Good-bye, men ! "as he crossedethe gangway. . . .
Notwithstanding the uncertainty and alterations as
to the hour for the departure of the expedition the
influx of visitors to Portsmouth was immense, and
commenced at quite an early hour. As for Ports-
mouth and the towns which surround it—they would
doubtless be offended were they styled suburbs—in
them the day was kept as a whole holiday. If the
departure of the Arctic Expedition was not to be
seen until a comparatively late .hour in the after-
noon, there was no need for the visitors in;
quest of spectacle to consider the early part-
of the day as wasted. The pomp and cir-
cumstance of a military parade was to be wit-
nessed on Southsea Common, and the firing of a
feu de joie by a considerable force, if well per-
formed, is as pretty a sight of its kind as need be. By
eleven o'clock regiments had marched on to the
Common, piled arms, and having "broken-off " till
the time came for marshalling the parade stood dis-
persed in picturesque confusion. Aides-de camp
gallopped to and fro, to the admiration of the fair
spectators, with a headlong ardour which betokened
portentous and all-important commissions. The sun
shone brightly on the water, studded with war-ships
"dressed" from deck to truck with flags in
honour of the Queen's birthday, and on the
broad common on the flat surface of which was
diversified by the gradually increasing masses of
troops and by the clumps of spectators gathered
about the saluting point and along the sea wall. These
gazed with interest and some bewilderment on the ap-
parently complicated manccuvres—wheelings, counter
marchings, and generally efforts to tie. themselves in
knots—by which the regiments brought about their
deployment into that long line which finally stood,
facing seaward, all the way from close to Southsea
pier to far eastward of the Castle. On the right of the
line was a battery of 16-pounder Armstrong guns, on
the left another, and the array consisted of five regi-
ments of infantry, a brigade depot of Royal Artillery,
Marine Infantry, and Marine Artillery-, and the Hants
Artillery Militia, at present embodied for training, a
regiment whose appearance on parade is a credit to
that branch of the service to which it belongs. ii-'eneral
Sir Hastings Doyle, who commands the district,
rode on to the geound shortly before noon, and pre-
cisely at that hour the guns of the harbour fortifica-
tions commenced firing the Royal salute. The fire
was taken up by the battery of artillery on the right
of the line, then followed the infantry feu de joie,
which flashed down the front and up the rear rank, and
the loyal powder burning, in which the ships of the
Royal Navy lying in the roadstead had participatedi,
was concluded by a final salvo from the guns of the
battery on the left of the line. The usual formal
march past, in which the marines showed to great
advantage, brought the Queen's birthday military
pageant to an appropriate termination, and the troops
returned to barracks, the postponement of the hour
for the departure.of the Arctic ships having frustrated
the intention of Sir Hastings Doyle to move the line
forward into the south sea wall, and line that eminence
with the soldiers while the vessels in their progresi
from the harbour should stand along the coast.
Not yet a year has passed away since Portsmouth
witnessed and was thrilled by a departure not less me.:
morable in its way, although that way was a different
one, than that departure, the farewell cheers tba4
swelled in the wake of which are still ringing in my;
ears. If the cheering that greeted the Flack Watch;
as the gallant regiment tramped through the towni
which was to convey it to the swamps of Fanteeland,
and the hot fighting of Amoaful and Coomassie, found
but a mournful echo in the sad foreboding hearts
whose tenderest fibres were mangled by the parting,
it was with pomp and circumstances, to the
clash of military music, and to the stirring
strains of the bagpipes, that the soldiers strode
along to their departure on that warpath along which
lie too thickly their graves. If within the Cambridge•
barracks, ere yet the bugles had sounded the assembly,
there had been many a pathetic leavetaking, many a
heart-wrench as the last good-bye was uttered, the
last kiss or the last handgrip exchanged, there had
followed something of an outmarching pageant, which
stirred another emotion, and roused the ardour for
military glory. No pageant infused an adventitious
thrill into the departure of to-day. It was not
in the music of a martial band that the seamen of
the Arctic expedition bade good-bye to "the girls
they left behind them." Nothing superficially
could have been more prosaic and matter-of-fact
than the incidents of the departure, with the sole
exception of the final progress seaward, and even
that was chiefly impressive, not from any set cere-
monial, but by reason of the spontaneous enthusiasm of
the vast crowds of spectators. But below all that was
prosaic, and not a little that in its way was genuinely
comic, there lay a serious interest more engrossing,
and a pathos that was more moving than if the final
scenes had been of a melodramatic character. The
dockyard was closed to the public, admission being
granted only to the friends and relatives of the crews,
and thus the little gatherings on the jetty and on
board the ships were almost of a family kind. When
I returned to the Alert after witnessing the parade on
Southsea Common, most of the officers had gone to
say their last farewells. For a week past the hotels
in Portsmouth and Southsea have been full of the
relatives of the officers of the expedition. In the
gathering on the deck smiles and tears were
strangely blended. The sailors kept a stiff upper lip
and strove hard to wear an aspect of jollity. Some
succeeded to admiration, and one worthy bravely
chanted a comic song; but his efforts to amuse were
not universally appreciated. In one corner an old
mother sat with an arm around the neck of her stal-
wart son. A Marine Artilleryman, with that solemn
aspect which seems peculiar to this branch of the ser-
vice, was gravely performing "a spell of drynursing "
as he himself phrased it, dandling his infant in a
curiously clumsy manner, as if he did not like to sur-
render it, and yet was in mortal terror of letting it
drop, while his wife hung on to his arm, clearly with
but little between her and a burst of sobbing. Every now
and then there was a final parting, but this seldom oc-
curred on board. Husband and wife, the former carry-
ing the baby, would pass up the gangway to the jetty,
and stroll a little way apart out of sight, and presently
the man would come back alone, not inclined to be
very free of speech just yet awhile, and with a tell-
tale quiver about the mouth. There was no work to be
done, and the unattached men, who had probably
already said their farewells, and, at all events, had no
sweethearts or wives on board, made themselves
demonstratively useful among the children, relieving
mothers from the cares of watching that they came to
no harm by falling down hatchways or finding a pre-
mature grave under coal-sacks. There was one seeming
miBanthrophe, a dry, saturnine man, who took no heed
of stray children, clasped no friendly baud in a
hearty farewell, but sat grimly and companion-
less smoking a solitary pipe. Yet who knows? The
seeming misanthrope may have had a heart too
full for intercommunion with his kind, and as he
sat thus isolated and apparently self-centred, may
have been mentally recalling with an exceeding
wistfulness the last look from out loving eyes, that last
I caress the touch of which he seems to feel upon him
still. It is altogether a strange scene to stand and
watch—a scene with its prosaic surface, its undercur-
rent of deep emotion. A husband and wife sat with
clasped hands each on a great tin of colza oil; a little
woman suddenly breaks down, and sobbingly sinks,
white print skirts and all, on the top of a coal sack.
The children are playing at horses on the still taut
chain cable. There is a policeman on board, Int the
guardian of the peace has come, not sternly to repress
disturbance, not intent on running any body in, but
simply to exchange a warm handshake with the Marine.
who, it appears, is his old chum. Old shipmates come
aboard, and, in a rollicking nautical fashion, wish
well to fellows who have cruised with them in thSs
Duncan, the Sultan, or the Minotaur. „Dowd
below in the 'tween decks, where, amid confu-
sion worse confounded, a lumber of kits, lumps of
meat, sailors in odd corners sleeping off the effects of
overmuch rum, the cook is engaged in cooking a dinner
for which, to all appearance, there will be but few
claimants, a sanguine tar is attempting to coax cheer-
ful strains out of a rather wheezy accordion with a
perseverance which merits happier results. Here,
too, amid all the confusion, quiet couples are sitting
talking earnestly, and are not to be distracted from
their conversation either by "The Men of Earlech,"

in crossing-the Bnnyaw-iff:.toneid&-ev-- iitTenZelit9o9-ule‘a.r-i-ty

.eepim the
spiritikof• "Our minim ' and to distract thEflittle
wom !front tit - throe of the inexitable
-4r ti B"rd thlt

i.zest
Tefff(

11183,11 z well-i-Deperthei - The wor)
th