The Sun.
London, England, 1866-11-13 00:00:00

Lord J. MANNERS then rose to address the vast
assemblage, and was received with vehement awl
general cheering. Ile said he was painfully sensible
that from the " music married to immortal
verse" to which they had all just listened with so
much delight, to the feeble effort of one human
voice like his own in that huge gathering, the de-
scent was great indeed. (Hear, and a laugh.) Ile
owned that when first invited to preside on that oc-
casion, he imagined that he was, perhaps, indebted
for that honour to some fanciful relation, in the
minds of the Managing Committee, between the
works of the department with which he was officially
connected and the works which lately had been in-
spected with so much pleasure and admiration by
thousands upon thousands within these walls. But
a little further reflection convinced him, as he trusted
it would convince them, that, after all, there sub-
sisted a very real and substantial relation between
the office over which he had the honour to preside
and the present purpose to which that hall was de-
it
ced. (Cheers.) Only a few years ago, in this
sunry, all the coarser operations, as they might
be called, of construction
were necessarily confined
to English and Irish hands ; but when a question
was raised of the finer the more decorative and
ornamental arts, then 'in
thought that recourse many quarters it was
must be had to foreign heads
and fingers. But a British school of art-workmen
had sprung up which might datf the days of Pugin and of Barry, and the Neewrporn
the
at West-
e to
thhcee progress t
he
no of
minster. And how great had been
these decorative and constructipvooes
aearts e
Mr. Beresford Hope had pro
Royal
araintaint toa
Commission which a year or tw
the constitution of the Royal Academy
school, so to speak—•a class of British art workmea
should be associated with that body, and that marks
of distinction and approval should be held out t
o I
them. They all knew that reform and progress in
these matters marched but slowly. Yet be had lis-
tened with much gratification that evening to the
long catalogue of prizes which the adjudicators had
been enabled to bestow upon British workmen from
the profits accruing upon that Exhibition ; and
he thought that to any one occupying
his present position an undertaking like that
could not but be of the deepest interest.
Any one who walked round the interior of that
binning, and noticed the various proofs it contained
of creative fancy, of imitative skill, of mechanical
ingenuity, of fidelity to nature, of respect for truth,
for temperance, for good sense, and good taste,
could not fail to perceive how real and close was the
connexion between the head of the Department of
Public Works and of Royal Palaces and Parks and
Gardens, and the objects of the present gathering.
lle had referred to fidelity to nature. He remem-
bered a few years ago, on examining the fine new
hall of the University of Dublin, he was struck with
the beauty and perfection of the sculpture which
adorned its walls. He made inquiries into the sub-
ject, and was told that the Irish workpeople from
whose hands those sculptures came had not been
copying some dead inanimate design, but had had
real flowers and leaves before them which they had
imitated, with the happy results that he had men-
tioned. He recollected, also, what had lately oc-
curred in his own special department. Last year
Lis predecessor in office, instead of permitting the
2""s, as it had been the custom to do, to remain
in all the parks under his charge to be destroyed at
the end of each autumn, thought it would be well to
distribute them among such of the working classes
as cared to ask for them ; and a great and gratifying
demand was the result. Something like 20,000
slants were then thus distributed. He had himself
the utmost pleasure this year in followinc, so good
an example, and mark the consequence. The de-
mand had risen from .about 20,000 to 50,000, the
latter number of plants having been recently distri-
buted from the various royal parks and gardens
among the working population of that metro olis
Of that quantity not less than 16,000 had gonPe,
rejoiced to say, in the direction of the Victoria and
Greenwich parks, and he could not but think that
hereafter many a working man would find his model
of beauty in the plants so distributed. A certain
alertness and activity which characterised the French
more than any other European army was often attri-
buted by competent judges very much to the peculiar
opportunities which the French soldier had in time of
peace for employing his brain and using his fingers in
avocations other than those of war. Now, he could
not help thinkingthat, in a similar manner, the great