The Express.
London, England, 1868-04-20 00:00:00

NEEDLESS ALARMS.

Du. Warrs, or some other pious moralist in

verse, tells us that we are "beset with snares on
" every hand," and the assertion is as true as it is
commonplace. Dangers of all kinds, foreseen and
THE heir to the throne has never been more
undreamt of, surround us in our passage through
fittingly employed than during the peat week. To life, and against many of them our best security
share heartily in the amusements of his country- is our ignorance. Existence would be unendurable
men, to show that he is not abcxe taking his fall if it were not for the happy uncertainty of the
part in the sports which entertain the crowd, to future, and it is well known that the man who is
be present on the race-course or the river, not the most apprehensive of peril is the most likely to
merely as a statesman making a concession to a suffer from the evil that he dreads. There are
need for popularity, but as a young man who is many people--" old maids " chiefly of both sexes
himself interested in the spectacle—is to adopt one
—who will not travel by railroad for fear of a
of the simplest, and at the same time one of the collision, who are afraid of unshed beds, who, him
surest means of making loyalty a present feeling Dr, grrelimmg, take the most painful precautions
instead of a past tradition. When the Prince of against robbers ; or, like the poet GRAY, dare not
WALE., is thus occupied in Ireland, he ill discharging I keep a dog, lest some day it should go mad and
a double duty. He finds himself confronted bite them. Everybody knows how fussy and an-
with subjects whose hearts have to be won, not uoyiug such people are. They " die many times
merely to be retained. The sentiment which is " before their death," and they do the best they
indigenous in England is still an exotic in Ireland, can to make their friends die also. The oar-
and it needs to be cherished wish all the care and I respondence in a contemporary with regard to
skill which a plant demands when it is yet new to the propagation of fever will cause much nervous
the soil. It is well to bear this in mind, even anxiety to croakers such as these. And the =le-
mons all the pomp of a royal visit, and all the fortune is that their alarm in this instance, as in
enthusiasm of a popular welcome. Nothing can Iso many others, is not wholly unreasonable. If
promise better for the future than the obvious I one ventures to laugh at them for imaginary fears,
willingness of the Irish people, so far as it is re- they will retort by a well-authenticated narrative
presented by the crowds in Dublin or at Punches- I. of some unfortunate victim who did venture too
town, to let byegones be byegones, and to date a near the jaws of the lion, and was devoured in
new era for Ireland from the Easter of 1868. But consequence. Indeed, they have always soar
we shall draw a deceptive lesson from the facts if story resdyto prove the reasonableness of their can-
we accept forgetfulness of the past as implying tion. How they will enjoy to relate, although
oondonation for the future. To do this would be with fear and trembling, the anecdote of the lady
to disregard the peculiar circumstances of who died in consequence of using blankets which
the royal visit, and to attach an unreal value to had been infected by scarlet fever fourteen months
• popular manifestations. By a fortunate coincidence before ; and how they will delight in reiterating
the Prince's arrival was heralded by a great and the assertion made by a Fellow of the College of
unmistakeable proof of the determination of the Physicians, that " the railways continually scatter
House of Commons to deal with Ireland in a " scarlet fever over the country " By all
new spirit. He came as repre,en'ing the Bove- means let us take reasonable precautions
reign of a country whose legislature had just taken against the spread of infectious disorders. But do
. the first step in what promise, to be lona . what we may we must needs be dependent in large
career of justice and wisdom. We have tie right measure upon the indifference or the thoughtful•
to presume that the enthusiasm called forth by this 000 s of others' It
is
well
that awful information

THE PRINCE OF WALES IN IRELAND.