The Sun.
London, England, 1860-07-26 00:00:00

THE SUN," :LONDON, THURSDAYLTEITENING, JULYPI -26, 1860.

TEE PRINCE'S VISIT TO AMERICA.

(From the Times' Correspondent.)
MONTREAL, JULY 12.
I have penetrated thus far in my search for the
first landing-place of the Prince of \Vales, crossing
in my tour at all points artists and correspondents
innumerable from the American newspapers, all
busy, in eager haste to strike upon the first tracks of
English Royalty. The Prince's visit, what he will
do, when he will come, and how long he will stay,
form just now the great topics of discussion. Not a
little diversity of opinion exists as to the spot he
will favour with his presence, and, according to
their own immediate location, people stoutly main-
tain all sorts of places, lying anywhere between New
Orleans and Hudson's Bay. In New York curiosity
is so strong that it has there quite overpowered even
the interest in the recent murders, and the fast-ap-
proaching execution of the pirate Hicks, whose last
diabolical assassinations on board the oyster sloop,
some two months back, your readers may possibly
recollect. Long before these lines reach England
this ruffian will have gone to his great account. If
his confession is to be relied upon it is a heavy one,
for the circumstances he has detailed leave no doubt
that he has actually murdered between 50 and 60
persons, many of whom were women, whom he had
captured in ships off the coast of Cuba, and to whom
death must have been a mercy, if his ghastly narra-
tive is to be depended on. It seems almost a kind
of wonder that in this age a man so bloody and so
remorseless could have pursued his career of mur-
der with such impunity, and still carry his lust for
blood to the very verge of eternity. I saw him be-
fore I left New York, and was told that even at
that dreadful time, when the very minutes of his
existence were numbered and fast passing away,
he seemed to derive a dreadful satisfaction in de-
tailing crimes from which the mind recoils in
amazement and horror. I had heard much of the
strict discipline of the American prisons, and was
anxious to see the chief one of New York, where,
amid the worst parts of the city, the great gaol,
known as the Tombs, now stands. With the ut-
most courtesy the chief warden at once granted my
request, and took the greatest pains to show all
that was to be seen inside the dreadful building.
The Tombs stand near the Five Points—a vile part
of the city, the St. Giles's of New York. The
,building itself is in the Egyptian style, massive
and colossal in its proportions as those rock-hewn
temples which appeal with such silent grandeur to
the tourist who " does" the Nile. The very aspect
of the huge structure is mournful. Not a window
lightens the monotony of its huge granite walls,
which have a blind impressive appearance that well
becomes the name, and makes it seem like what it
is in truth—a great sarcophagus of crime. All its
terrors, however, are external, and in this unlike
our Penitentiary at Millbank, where everything is
gloomy and silent as the grave, and where when
the great gates clang behind the visitor he feels
it jar upon his heart as if hope and happiness were
shut out for ever, and knows at once, by the cau-
tious vigilance of the well-armed warders, that he
is within the walls of a prison where the worst and
most dangerous of London villains are crushed into
a temporary submission. The entrance to the
Tombs is nothing like this. The way is open
enough, and a turnkey merely sits at a door to
take checks from visitors or passes from those
who have leave to visit their friends, and which,
to judge from the numbers inside the prison,
seem rather liberally given. Passing across a stone
courtyard, in the midst of which a little fountain
plays, and where an American eagle, chained by
the leg (though less vicious than any other inmate
within the walls), sits and droops his rusty wings
all day, the visitor enters another yard spanned
above by the Bridge of Sighs—a light iron path so
named from the fact of murderers after trial being
led back over it to their condemned cells. Entering
a narrow doorway he at once finds himself in a
handsome lofty passage with rows of strongly grated
doors at either side, wifh two light galleries above
communicating with similar cells in the walls.
Little slates over the entrance to each cell mark the
prisoners' names, for there are sometimes two or
three inmates. " But are they prisoners, and is this
a prison ?" is the first thought of the visitor as he
looks through the bars into the carpeted cells, and
sees their occupants, in every style of dress or un-
dress, lounging on their beds, smoking their pipes
and reading the morning papers, or laughing
merrily through the grating with friends (just then
at liberty), who have brought them in whatever they
may want. It seems incredible, but it is a fact, that
these miscreants are supplied with the daily jour-
nals, with novels, or with prayer-books, as their
tastes may lead them ; are allowed to smoke ad
libitum at all hours, are even supplied with drink,
should their profligate lives have rendered such
stimulants necessary to their comfort. In a word
they are less felons than pensioners boarded by the
State. lam told that in the islands in the river,
where the prisoners for life (always pardoned after
a few years) undergo their sentences the rules and
discipline are more rigid. This may and should be
true. I have not yet visited these islands, and can
only speak of what I saw at the Tombs. On the
lowest floor of the passage which the visitor first
enters the cells are all occupied by those under
sentence of death, of whom there are generally
but too many. Over one of these was written
the name of Albert Hicks, alias 'William Jack-
son. Our conductor tapped at the bars, and,
sliding back an iron door beyond, in answer
to the summons a tall, thin, athletic man,
dressed in a loose blue suit, came grinning forward,
from whose appearance, prisoner as he was, I shrank
back almost in fear. In all my life I had never seen
a human face on which the worst vices of our nature
were so terribly impressed. It seemed almost like
that of a baboon. The retreating forehead and pro-
jecting mouth, the restless, cruel, small black eyes,
the hard merciless grin upon the features, more dan-
gerous and fearful looking than any frown, were
awful to look upon. He seemed to enjoy the evi-
dent sensation of loathing and dismay which he ex-
cited, and as he stepped forward, with his hard
stony smile and rapid shifting look, hanging his
head on one side to get a better view through the
bars, his appearance was more that of a wild beast
than a human being. His long lean hands clutched
the bars eagerly, and, drawing himself up close, he
seemed suddenly to disregard us, and looked at the
bolts and fastenings with an eager kind of gaze that
was painful to watch, then, loosening his hold,
shrank back into the cell and shut the door, almost
as one could fancy in despair at being so powerless
for evil. 'What he may do eventually Heaven alone
knows, but up to the day I saw him be gloried in
his crimes and dwelt boastfully upon them to any
one who had nerve enough to listen to the awful tale.
A few minutes afterwards his wife and child came
to visit him, but two Sisters of Mercy were then in
his cell, and it may be hoped he was attending to
their exhortations, as after a few hurried words
with the poor little woman, and without casting a
glance on the child, who held to the bars and looked
up at him with a joyous smile, he shut his door
and retired again. The wife remained there, mute
and apparently absorbed, rocking her child to and
fro, and staring unmeaningly with red swollen eyes
at her husband's name over the massive grating.
Beyond there were two or three others under
sentence of death, and many of whom deserved
death as well as Hicks, but they almost laughed at
the idea of being hanged. And they were right,
1.,,?t the mistaken leniency of the law of the New
l°llt State requires that 12 months shall elapse
between
the sentence and execution. During this
interval s
p:f ricus philanthropy is sure to be exerted
in
behalf
the unfortunate wife and children of
the malefactor, and a commutation of the sentence
and subsequent pardon. after two or three years
become almost
en. Hicks will be hung under
the Federal Law, d
but for that and his being a
vagabond, -without friends or even his exe-
cution would be almost doubtful. The case of
Felix Sanchez, a half-
negro, who occupied a cell
near Hicks, was peculiar. He i
had murdered a
man in New York, but escaped, and went out west.
Here he made some lawless acquaintances,
who
persuaded him to travel south, and where, waking
up one morning after a riotous debauch, he found
that companions had done a neat stroke of busi-
,ness during his i ntoxication, and sold him to a dealer
for 1,500 dols. lie was already on his way to a

aa5e,,,........... ___
sugar plantation. He resisted, and was sent down
to another dealer (rather more strict with refractory
subjects) at New Orleans, where he managed to
communicate with the police, and gave himself up
for the murder rather than remain for life as a slave.
It was a wise choice, for he too, it is now certain,
will not be hanged, nor perhaps, considering the
circumstances under which he killed the man, is it
altogether right he should be, though he is quite
undeserving of the pardon he will no doubt succeed
in getting. Near these was young Jeffers, who is
accused of shooting dead his stepfather and another
gentlemen, who strove to capture him after commit-
ting the act in the streets of New York, only a few
days back. He seemed a mild, quiet-looking lad,
apparently only intent on his morning paper, in
which he was perusing an account of his own arrest,
examination, and personal appearance and general
antecedents, given with all the reiterated headings,
italic emphasis, and minute detail so peculiar to the
American journals. Above these cells were the pri-
soners awaiting trial for manslaughter, arson, for-
gery, burglary, or smashing, all comfortable alike in
their cells, lolling, reading, and smoking, and better
taken care of apparently than ever they were in their
lives before. On the women's side there were very
few criminals. The prison van—the "Black Maria,"
as it is termed—came in every now and then, dis-
gorging its 15 or 20 persons of both sexes and all
ages. All the wretched, outcast men, thus brought
to gaol were voters, it must be remembered, and,
as far as voting is concerned, have as much political
influence in New York as the President or Heenan
himself. The women, as might be expected, were
of every grade of misery and infamy, some so young
as to be mere children, some so old as to be all but
helpless, drunk and sober, magnificently dressed or
with scarcely enough to cover them ; but all were
brazen and unsubdued, and passed into a common
yard, where they basked in the sun, or, quietly de-
nuding themselves of their upper garments, pro-
ceeded to pin up the tawdry finery which had been
rent off their backs in some midnight brawl. On
the whole, the " Tombs," though curious and well
worth a visit from a stranger, is, after all, a fearful
place, and it is with a feeling of positive relief that
one emerges from its massive walls into the bright
sunshine, and tries to forget the load of guilt and
misery which it encloses.
The beauties of American scenery are but too
little known among Europeans. English tourists
" do" the Nile or the Rhine, and imagine they have
visited the two rivers best worth seeing of their kind
in the world. It is an exception to find an English
tourist who knows the Hudson River, though. as far
as my somewhat large experience goes, there is none
to compare with it. The Rhine is as nothing, and
even the Bosphorus yields to its grand and stately
magnificence. Going on board one of those large
river steamboats which ply between New York and
Albany at the rate of 20 miles an hour, and which
in all other respects are among the luxuries of
American travel, the tourist passes through such
scenes of primeval beauty as can never be effaced
from his memory. The mighty river at first
is hemmed in by lofty cliffs called the Palisades,
which, striped with thin red and black strata, look
like coloured palings erected by nature to keep
within bounds the stream which pours so grandly
down beneath. These Palisades are, somehow, con.
sirlered the great beauty of the river, though really
far Inferior in grandeur to the scenes above, where
the spur of the Allegheny Mountains closes in upon
the flood. Occasionally glimpses of rich merchants'
villas are caught here and there, but they are few
and far between, and gradually disappear as the
boat progresses asith a stride that jerks everything
in the saloons, and the wild mountain regions are
gained, where the eagles still linger, and where the
face of the country is not changed from the time
when the first New England settlers drove the
Mohicans before them. At every turn you think
the very source of the Hudson is reached, as the
mountains close in fast. But still the river pours
between, under gigantic cliffs, as bare at the water's
edge as the bones of a dead world, and clothed
above in such a mass of verdure RS only the Hud-
son shows. Ravens start -up at every turn, and
hawks and buzzards wheel high in the air in circles,
as the beat of the paddles breaks on the deep
silence of the hills. It is a wild, but not a solitude.
Crags and rocks keep opening out ; here an island
rising in terraces of massive granite, and next a
little chain of aits, clad in the richest green, and
seeming a connecting link between the river and
lofty woodlands at either side. At West Point, the
scene of Arnold's meditated treason, where the
great Military Academy of the United States rises,
near Crouest mountain, 1,400 feet above the water,
the grand beauties of the Hudson culminate, and, as
the steamer winds between the Narrows and under
crags that so proudly tower over the stream, every
turn discloses fresh glimpses betweenthe heights, so
bright, so rich in their deep verdure, that one has
scarcely time to notice one before another presents
its silent claim to admiration. From West Point
the river widens to about three times the width of
the Thames at Gravesend, and continues, with vary-
ing breadth, though always wide, up to Albany,
some 150 miles from New York. Sometimes, as at
Tarrytown (where poor Major Andre was captured
and hung), at Yonkers, or at Peckshill, the views
are charming beyond all description, but after pass-
ing the Catskill Mountains, which rise blue, cool,
and misty-looking on the shore, the scenery gra-
dually settles down into rich woodland and cul-
tivated meadows, more varied in their extent,
though scarcely so well cultivated, as those of Eng-
land. lam not going to attempt a guide-book of
the Hudson, and will merely say that from these
points the traveller will have enough to occupy
his attention on the hot steamboat in looking
at Poughkeepsie, at Sunnyside, where Washington
Irving lived, or the place which is shown as the
Sleepy Hollow, where he builds the story of his
headless man. At last the tourist will get gra-
dually tired even of these ever-recurring nooks,
and hail with delight the aspect of the tall ware-
houses which, sweltering in the hot sun, rise over the
offensive, narrow, ill-paved streets of Albany, which
for filth and wretchedness of path and roadway are
more like the Grande Rue of Constantinople or
Cairo than the seat o Government of the New York
State. From this hot, dirty town, the discomforts
of American travelling commence. The Ameri-
cans are essentially gregarious. They live in
crowds, travel in crowds, sleep in crowds, and for
the present think in crowds, though, if signs
are to be depended on, a better time is coming for
the middle class, who make no secret now of their
aversion to the merciless domination of the mob in
the large cities. Their hotels are palaces, which
accommodate thousands, though in which, with one
or two exceptions, no more quiet is to be found
than under a roof in Cheapside. Their railway
cars are monstrous waggons on four wheels, where
a hundred passengers sit together (all at the same
fare, for there is no distinction of classes), and share
the dust and heat alike. There is much the same
feeling of recklessness and danger about the rail-
way travelling as attaches to :lively party driv-
ing home from the Derby, and the visitor must not
be much surprised if he sees on arriving at a junc-
tion that the points of the rails are shut and the
train has to wait while the conductor alights to
open them. Why the Americans like large cars
and large hotels, and generally take such pains to
congregate together, it is hard to say. Certainly
it is not from any enjoyment of each other's
society, for a more silent people when travelling, or
one generally less given to mirth and fun, in the
English acceptation of the term, it would be hard
to name. Breakfast, even at the large hotels, is a
solemn and impressive ceremonial ; while dinner,
especially on board the steamboats, is enough to
bring tears into your eyes. Running from Albany
the train crosses a high viaduct in front of the falls
of the Cohoes, where a river a hundred yards wide
stuggles over a cliff, and, dashed into a steaming
mass of spray, looks like a fall of clouds. The rest
of the country to Saratoga is uninteresting enough.
Occasionally the line winds through the primitive
forest, with little clearings here and there in bright
green patches, where the charred stumps of the
trees are almost hidden by the mass of Indian corn,
but, as a rule, is dull and dirty. Saratoga, as a
place of fashionable resort, is, in the season, one of
the most extraordinary places of its kind, perhaps,
in the world. The village is a mere accident of the
situation ; the hotels are Saratoga, and they are
such hotels as only America can show. After liv-
ing at those magnificent palaces at New York, the
St. Nicholas, the Fifth Avenue, the New York, or
the Clarendon, in each of which a thousand guests
(and in the St. Nicholas often double that number)
are constantly stopping', one is apt to imagine that
there is nothing further to be learnt of these " in-
stitutions" of America. But at Saratoga your ideas
on such subjects receive an immense development.
The hotels are as grand, though totally different
from all others. Two of them, the United States
anti Union Hall, occupy five acres of ground ! Their
dining saloons are bigger than the Floral-hall, and
are laid with tables to dine 1,000 people ; the danc-
ing rooms arc larger, loftier, and handsornee than
any two public rooms of the kind we have in ail
London. The grounds attached to these are almost
litte parks, where between the trees are detached
cottages, all belonging to the hotel, and occupied
by wealthy Southerners, and others willing to pat
any price for that inestimable luxury in America—
a little privacy, To these hotels, and to Saratoga
generally, some 25,000 people come in the iik .i,fi on to
drink the waters, to dress, drive, lounge, gamble, and ,
go away again, after a six weeks' stay, to Newport,
Niagara,or any other place where American citizens
in a holiday can enjoy that idle and luxuriouz life to
which they seem particularly given. The waters at
Saratoga, unlike the nauseous doses 'so mercilessly
crammed down visitors at other places, arc ).lot only
really good, but, what is more, are really nice, sown-
thing like Seltzer water and Johannisberg.. Visitors

get a perfect passion for drinking it, and, as it should
be taken in moderation, the effect on some fashionable
devotees who throng the fountain in the park all day
and drink till you yet alarmed for their safety is,
of course, anything but beneficial. Taken mode-
rately, to the extent of two or three glasses of a
morning, they are, I believe, justly reputed to be of
the greatest benefit, and some thousands of dozens
of Congress water, as it is called, are annually
bottled and sent off to England. In the evening
Saratoga seems a charming place—a kind of rural
Baden. Everybody sits under the colonnades of
their hotels till the sun goes down, when the ladies
saunter through the streets in evening dress, pass-
ing with their friends from hotel to hotel, joining
in dances, or listlessly promenading between the
trees. Sometimes when I look on this hotel life,
brilliant as it is, I cannot help congratulating my-
self that we have no such hotels in England. To
an Englishman it seems an artificial, dressy state
of existence—a kind of high-comedy life where the
curtain is always raised and a critical more than
an admiring audience sits, judges, praises, or con-
demns. What it may be behind the scenes I do not
know or care to ascertain, beyond that all the bet-
ter class of educated and travelled Americans dis-
like hotel life for families, and can give their reasons
for it. As for Saratoga, of course, such a spot is
necessary, and seems charming enough, net that it
is gay. There may be excitement, but there seems
no amusement. The ladies dress " magnificently"
three or four times a-day,though there are only two
or three promenades through which to loiter and
display the toilettes—for the well in the morning, for
the drive, for dinner, and for the evening. Gentle-
men of course find it a great centre of attraction,
and the place is even more filled with them than
with ladies ; and Saratoga in the evening, when
the colonnades are lit, the visitors all abroad, the
bands playing and saloons filled withwaltzers, looks
wonderfully well. In a word, it is at this season
not only the fashion but the rage, and no visitor
who wants to see the out-of•town amusements of
the Americans on the greatest and what passes here
for their gayest scale should omit a visit to Saratoga.
After his tour through Canada the Prince will pro-
bably remain there for a day. The finest route from
Saratoga to Quebec is via Whitehall through Lake
George and Lake Champlain to Montreal. Lake
George and Lake Champlain are the two chief gems
of American scenery, and have more historical as-
sociations connected with them than any other spots
which tourists " do" in North America. No one can
describe the former lovely sheet of water beyond
saying that of its kind it is without an equal. The
whole surface of the lake is studded with exquisite
little islands of every height and form, from little
sloping banks like villa lawns, to huge romantic
crags, standing bare and gaunt as granite castles or
covered from base to summit with magnificent
trees, laced together in a rich green network that
keeps the sun from penetrating, and makes them
dark as tombs inside. The vistas that open up be-
tween these islands, with all their wonderful effects
of light and shade, would throw the whole school of
, pre-Raphaelites into despair to ever realise on can-
. v ass. Mountains close in the lake on either side,
and between the wild and rich though gloomy-
looking defiles of one of these in bygone times stood
. Fort William Henry, the scene of that tremendous
massacre of the English by the Indians, which left
so dark a stain on the memory of Montcalm. It is
a mere wild now, and scarcely any traces of that
long-contested earthwork remain to mark the
fatal spot, on the events connected with which
the ablest American tale of fiction has been
built. It is curious that, though Lake George is
only separated from Lake Champlain by about four
miles of mountain, its waters are nevertheless 200
feet above the level of the latter, into which it pours
at one small outlet in a picturesque cataract. Near
this fall ie a rough, gibbetdooking pile of massive
half-ruined chiraneys, surrounded with fragments
of stone, irregular mounds of earth, and scrubby
patches of wind underwood, where rattlesnakes
may now be found. This is all that now remains
of what was once the keystone of British power in
America—the world-famous fort of Ticonderoga, so
often taken and retaken in the long struggles be-
tween the English and French, till finally in the
War of Independence it was surprised one night
by Colonel Allan, and given up to him, as he said,
" In the name of Jehovah and the Constitutional
Congress." Two or three shanties are erected in
this wild on the borders of Lake Champlain, where
tourists leave their luggage and inspect the silent
ruins, the name of which is still woven in gold on
some regimental colours, and which seem to possess
a melancholy interest for all. The upper part of
Lake Champlain is quite equal to Lake George.
Below Ticonderoga it widens out into a noble sheet
of water, some 12 miles broad, shut in by lofty
cliffs, and the beautiful outlines of the green moun-
tains of Vermont, and the mountains of Adirondac
rising steep on either shore. Gradually, however,
the coast gets flatter and less cultivated till Rouse's
Point, where the boat stops, and where returning
civilisation suddenly manifests itself by the pre-
sence of Custom-house officers. It is the Canadian
frontier, where English institutions prevail, and,
of course, where the railways are good, and the
hotels mean and ill-smelling.
Montreal is just now in a high state of ferment
and excitement, which is manifested at once by the
people occasionally coming out into the ordinarily
deserted streets. There is a ball-room being pre-
pared, a banquet room for the intended dinners,
a reception room for the levees, addresses to be
read, a fete to be given in honour of the opening of
the Victoria-bridge, an Industrial Exhibition to be
inaugurated, a grand steamboat procession to meet
the squadron on the St. Lawrence, fireworks to be
let off, reviews to be held, the town to be illuminated,
and Montreal generally, from its tin roofs to its
wooden footpaths, to be dressed and decorated in its
best to welcome the Prince of Wales. There would
be great doings anywhere. Judge, then, of their
effect so long expected and at last so near at Mon-
treal ! All the arrangements connected with the
reception of the Prince have been committed en-
tirely to the care of the Hon. George Rose, the Chief
Commissioner of Works in Canada. That gentleman
has, of course, a hard time of it just now, and
seems to permeate all Canada, so rapid are his
movements, so wide-spread and well organised are
his arrangements throughout. While in this city
the Prince will stay in Mr. Rose's own private resi-
dence, a beautifully situated mansion a short dis-
tance fro:n the town. Not much reliable informa-
tion is to be obtained here as to the future move•
ments of the Prince; I, however, start for Quebec
this evening, where Mr. Rose is, and shall have
time, I hope, to send an accurate detail of the in-
tended progress through the provinces before the
mail leaves.

QUEBEC, JULY 13.

I have at last, through the kindness and cour-
tesy of Mr. Rose, got the clue through the laby-
rinth of visits and progresses which his Royal
Highness will make during his stay in these
provinces.. It has not long been decided on,
and, allowing for the difference of a day sooner
or later in his arrival at Newfoundland, it will
be observed accurately throughout. The squadron,
with his Royal Highness and suite, is expected
at St. John's, Newfoundland, about the 23d.
Here, while the vessels coal, the Prince pays a short
visit to St. John's. On the following day the
squadron sails for the Bay of Pictou, about 40 miles
north of Halifax, where the Prince disembarks and
proceeds by rail and carriage across the country to
Halifax. Already a great gathering of mayors and
civic dignitaries is assembling there to meet him
with becoming state and ceremonial. After a stay
of nearly two days at Halitax he proceeds by land
to Frederickton, and thence to St. John's, New
Brunswick, stopping at each place a whole day at
least. He again embarks on board the Hero and
visits Charlottetown, the capital of Prince Edward's
Island, where he remains the greater part of two
days. From Prince Ed ward's Island he proceeds
with the fleet to Gaspe Bay, at the mouth of the
St. Lawrence, where the Governor-General. of
Canada, Lord Lyons, the Minister to Washington,
and the chief members of the Canadian Government
proceed by sea to receive him. Thence he comes by
the St. Lawrence to the mouth of the Saguenay
River, up which he will steam for the best part of
a day, to see the wild and sombre magnificence of
its rocky shores. From the Saguenay he comes
straight to Quebec, where he is expected to arrive
about the 12th of August. He will, it is believed,
remain at Quebec at least five days, during which
time there will be a ball arid a levee. His High-
ness will also visit the Falls of Montmorenci, and
the still more beautiful and extraordinary rocks
called the Natural Steps, above that cataract. If
there is time he will visit the Falls of St. Anne,
which, always excepting Niagara, are considered
the finest and. most beautiful in America. He will
leave Quebec on the evening of the 18th or
19th, and as. through the care of the colonial Go-
vernment, the bad of the St. Lawrence has during
the last few years been much deepened, ho will be
able to proceed in the Ariadne to Montreal. He
anchors for the night about 31 miles below that
city, whence a fleet of river cteamers, with visitors,
has been arranged to go out and meet him, At
Montreal he I'6lll2ins some days, one day being de-
voted to opening the Exi,tibition of Arts and Manu-
factures, another to opening thaa Victoria bridge.
On other days there will be levees, batiquets, and
hails. As, haweyer, Princes—even though of
Wales—must rest, two are set apart for riding
out privately (if possible), anti viailing the fine
scenery round Montreal.
Fifteen splendid Lams have already been pro-
vided for the Prince and hi. ;sulta fgr this purpose.
Twa flays are also devoted to a visit to Brockville,
to witness Ldiata games, and to go thence by water
down the rapids of the St. Lawrence to Montreal
aZai44, From Montreal he jourpeys by water direct

up the Ottawa river to Ottawa. At this, the pre-
sent capital of Canada, he remains two days, and
lays the foundation-stone of the noble Parliament
buildings to be erected there. On the Ottawa river
he will be met by a large gathering of the lumber-
men in their canoes. From Ottawa he journeys to
Kingston, and remains a day, and makes an excur-
sion up the Lake of the Thousand Isles. His next
visit will be to the Bay of Quinte, where he joins
the Grand Trunk Railway, and goes up to Toronto,
where he will remain, it is expected, for four days
or more. While here he makes an excursion to
Lake Simeoe, and to Collingwood, on the shores of
Lake Huron. After this he 'goes to Sarnia, near
Lake Huron, where there will be a large muster of
the chief Indian tribes in their canoes, to show
their games of strength and skill, and otherwise
do homage and obeisance. From Sarnia he visits
London for a day, and also Brentford, and se on
to Hamilton, where he rests for a few days, and
there opens the Agricultural Exhibition of Upper
Canada. While here he will make another short
excursion through the woods in the neighbour-
hood. From Hamilton the Royal progress con-
tinues to Niagara, and there he will remain pro-
bably for a week. This tour will occupy alto-
gether to the end of September or begin
ning of October, and of course his arrange-
ments after that are as yet unknown, though it is
now supposed to be certain that he will visit both
Washington and New York. His route to the for-
mer city is most likely to be from the neighbour-
hood of Niagara to Saratoga by rail, and thence by
the tourist road 1 have already described by White-
hall to Lakes George and Champlain, and back from
Whitehall to Albany and Washington. From
Washington he wilt travel privately as Baron Ren-
frew to New York, where, it is anticipated, he will
remain for a few days. The port of his departure
has not yet been fixed. The date is not likely to
be much before the middle of October; and, unless
his Highness uses great speed„it may probably be
even later. He is certain, throughout both Canada
and the States, to be received with almost bound-
Less enthusiasm.

REFORMS IN THE NAVY.

There are at least some advantages in that see-
saw system of party Government which wastes our
time and spoils the best measures by the necessity
for opposition, and which prevents a Minister from
proposing any substantial good if he should foresee
that it is open to some plausible objection. It is
true that a party Government is the most conserva-
tive in the whole world, for every little interest has
the power of delaying any reform, and things which
shock every one's common sense continue unchecked
and unchanged because it would eost a fight to re-
move them. But still all this curious zigzag plan of
Ins and Outs has its advantages. Thus, when a
statesman is in office he sees a great many evils he
cannot hope to remedy, and endeavours only to
cover up carefully and keep concealed ; but the turn
of the balance comes, and out he goes free as air,
primed with all he has learnt, and with full right to
use it against his enemy who has just taken his
place. Forthwith all those vested abuses which were
his terror and his objects of concealment when a
Minister become his friends, his allies, his stock in
trade for opposition. As a Minister be would have
exposed them if he had dared to assume the task of
correcting them ; as an opposition leader it is at
once his duty and his policy to expose them, and to
cast them in the face of his successor. Thus the pub
lic know what otherwise the public never would
have known. Thus attention is drawn to dark spots
in our body politic, which, if we had those life-long
Ministers, such as Sully, or Richelieu, or Mazarin, or
Dubois, might have gangrened to the death. While
we complain of the evils, let us remember the ad-
vantagss of a Constitution which, with all its
faults, we are not the less attached to because we
are all continually grumbling at its imperfections.
A rare illustration of the energy which a cold
bath of opposition infuses into a statesman occurred
in the House of Commons on Tuesday night. It is
not a very long time ago since Sir John Pakington
wag First Lord of the Admiralty, and by common
consent he was one of the most energetic First
Lords who have held that post in recent times. He
did not jump into the place upon. the competitive
system, bidding high, promising clouds and moun-
tains, and doing nothing or worse than nothing.
Sir John Pakington at least did something, or
rather he proposed to do something,—nothing like
what ought to be done, but still he proposed to do
something. His successor in the office of expound-
ing Admiralty councils to the Commons proposes
to do practically nothing. Moved by this weak
compliance of the present Secretary to the Ad-
miralty, Sir John now comes forward and makes
a clean breast of it ; tells us why it is our Admirals
are fit for nothing but to be wheeled about in
Bath-chairs ; why our Vice-Admirals and Rear-,
Admirals are, as a rule, fit only for home appoint-
ments; how it happens that our Senior Captains
are, for the most part, not fit to go to sea ;
why our best officers are, practically, turned out
of the service ; and why the commands of
our ships of war are given—and are compul-
sorily given—and through no fault of the Minister,
but through the workings of an evil system—not
to the best officers, but to the richest men. The
English people love their navy, but if they read Sir
John Pakington's speech, and refer to a Nary List
as they proceed, they will wonder that any service
at all can subsist under such a system as that now
at work. The Old Britannia should be taken into
dock and thoroughly cleansed. Her copper is so
foul that there is no speed left in her ; it is crusted
all over with parasitical sea creatures, which stick
tight even though life seems to hate gone out of
them. You may rig her as you like and arm her as
you like, and put any quantity of steam power
into her, but she will never go, so long as you can-
not see her copper for the barnacles and the weeds.
We have at this moment 107 admirals of the three
ranks, and 101 senior captains, of whom about 30
perhaps aro good fora five-years' seagoing commis-
sion, but who, if we may judge from what happened
in the Black Sea, would break down and invalid
after a very little real hard service. The others
have no thought of ever serving again, and live on
for the single object of outliving each other, and of
enjoying at last for a little span the great emolu-
ments of Admiral of the Fleet, or the princely
establishment which forms one of the crying abuses
of Green wichllospital. Poor old gentlemen ! they
are still climbing the tree towards these great prizes.
It will be 20 years yet before the last present in-
efficient will be seated in the crow's nest on its top,
and by that period time will have created a long
line of inefficients to covet his place, and to pick up
the number of his berth. Sir John Pakington tells
us that when he went to the Admiralty " his first
experience was that the service had reached a state
of absolute stagnation of promotion which was de-
pressing to the spirit of officers and injurious to
the welfare of the navy." He certainly did
modestly propose that officers should be compelled
to retire from " active" service at 70, but he went
no further than this, and even this was too bold an
innovation. Lord Clarence Paget, the present re-
presentative in the House of Commons of the Ad-
miralty Board—his very grave and reverend good
masters, whose tottering counsels he seems willing
to work out—leaves all these 208 articles of vertu
precisely as they were, and propounds a scheme
whereby a Captain shall not command a ship after
60, but may become an Admiral and command a
fleet at 100.
All this Sir John Pakington, being in opposition,
reveals and developes, and spreads before the public
eye. He does not draw the somewhat evident con-
clusion that, while there are offices of high emolu-
ment which induce 208 old gentlemen to hang on
to the service after the majority of them have be-
come incapable of unaided locomotion, there must
be some sinecures in the navy very capable of bei▪
ng
abolished. He does not suggest that if the command
i
of the Fleet were made nominal in pay, as it sin
duties, and if the funds of Greenwich Hospi▪ tal
were applied to the purposes of its foundation,
and if some few other sinecures were reduced to
their proper proportions, the present aversion to
superannuation might be overcome. Sir John
Pakington does not suggest this, but he proceeds
to show us very clearly to what purpose the savings
that could be made by any such reforms might be
most usefully applied. He demonstrates to us that
while we tempt old men to choke the profession
we starve and drive away the young men, who
would sustain its renown. This is an evil which
was pressed upon Sir J. Pakington in office, but
which he only reveals in opposition. We are a?-
custorned to boast of our Navy, that promotion is
without purchase—and so it is. But yet it happens
that promotion can only be desired as a professional
advantage by rich men ; for immediately a Lieu-
tenant.eu-
tenant becomes a Commander active service is
.a
luxury only to be enjoyed in proportion to
private means. If he be a poor, hard-Working
officer, who has climbed up the ladder by diligence
and good conduct, and perhaps by having seized
one of the rare opportunities that occur for doing
some dashing deed, he must go ashore, live on
half-pay till he is 00 years of age, and then retire
from the eaene. We shall be told, perhaps, that
the public voice will protect him from such a fate ;
that in these days of publicity his gallantry will
be known, and his countrytnsn will insist upon
his being pieced in active command. The public
voice, even if it came in one universal shout
from every town and hamlet in England, would
have no effect in this matter. If a man lad &me
egregious service, the Admiralty weld tie ready
enong4 to
offer hire a ship;
but he couldn't take
her. He has ng prey. Ue coßld pot fit hpr
out. Where is he to get £4OO to commission a
ship ? There is nothing for him, but either to

resign with a sigh the object of his dearest wishes, '
or to take his ship, and involve himself in pecuniary
embarrassments, which can only end in personal
misery and in professional disgrace. All this was
pointed out in the report of the Wellington Com-
mission 20 years ago ; and, surviving Sir J. Paking-
ton's official life at the Admiralty, it has gone on
ever since unremedied. Sir J. Pakington in a pre-
vious debate cited actual cases, such as that we have

just put, where officers of great ability refused
commands because they could not afford to accept
them. On Tuesday night he had many others to
produce in corroboration. One letter from an
Admiral,whom the profession will readily recognise
from Sir John's mention of him, states that the
writer had spent more than £4,000 of his private
means upon the seven commands which he had
held between the day he was made a Commander
and that on which he got his flag. This, however,
is only the common case of an officer of good pri-
vate means rising in his profession. But Sir John
was able also to give us instances of the mortifica-
tions that occur to a poor man commanding a ship
of war even after he had succeeded in raising the
money absolutely sufficient to put to sea. Sir
John had given a ship to an officer in these circum-
stances, and that o'flcer writes to him :—" An
American Commodore and other foreign ships
were at anchor in the Bay, when, of course, the
usual civilities of calling, &c., were exchanged,
and I was frequently invited to dine on board
one or other of these ships, when I was at once
placed in the painful and perplexing alternative of
accepting these invitations without the means of
returning them, or refusing them and feeling
ashamed to state the plain reason—that my country
did not pay me sufficiently to return their hospi-
tality." Other countries do not subject their naval
service to such paltry indignity. Sir John Paking-
ton contrasted the pay and allowances of our
Lieutenants and Captains with those of the French
service, and Sir John Elphinstone placed them side
by side with those of the American service ; and it
is plain that neither France nor America thinks
the duties of a naval officer can be efficiently per-
formed upon the scale of pay which we allow.
As to the Commission which Sir John Pakington
and his supporters desired, we cannot believe that it
would have been of any use. There is no dispute
about the facts; they are notorious and they are
scandalous. Our Navy is afflicted with a moral
apoplexy. There is a morbid determination of money
to the head. What we want is, not a report of a
Commission—the waste-paper baskets of the Admi-
ralty are fall of such reports—but some comprehen-
sive measure of naval reform. We want some scale
of pay and allowances which shall, enable a naval
officer to live in moderate comfort-so long as he is
doing our work, and to retire with a just recompense
for his services as soon as he is past work. The
present system effects exactly the opposite of this.
Sir John Pakington can give us, and has given us,
as good an exposition of existing evils as could be
made by a dozen Blue-books. The only pity is that
he did not apply the remedy when he had the
power. If, however, the service are to gain anything
by Sir John's advocacy it will not be through the
agency of a Commission.—limes.