The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1845-01-28 00:00:00

THE COURT 4- FASHIONABLE WORLD.

THE QUEEN'S VISIT TO STRATFIELDSAYE.
Her Majesty left Windsor Castle on Monday afternoon,
on a visit to his Grace the Duke of Wellington, at Strat-
fieldsaye. The royal carriage, containing her Majesty,
Prince Albert, the Marchioness of Douro, the Earl of
Jersey, Lord Charles Wellesley, Miss Murray. Colonel
Bouverie, and Mr. Anson, left the Castle at half-past
two o'clock, escorted by a party of the 17th Lancers. A
number of persons ,had collected in Windsor to see her
Majesty pass, and they cheered her enthusiastically.
Her Majesty and the Prince arrived at the mansion of
the Duke, where they were received by their illustrious
host in person, at, as nearly as possible, 5 o'clock. The
Duke met his royal visitors at the hall-door, and escorted
her Majesty and the Prince into the library. Thence her
Majesty went to the apartments, five in number, which
have been arranged for her use during her stay at Strat-
fieldsaye.
The visit to Stratfieldsaye was intended to be of a more
private character than either of those with which her Ma-
jesty has lately honoured any of her subjects, and the
members of the press did not, therefore,' all enjoy the
same extended facilities they have possessed elsewhere.
The following characteristic reply from the Duke of
Wellington to an application for an admission (not on the
part of The Times) will show that his Grace at least will
not allow the Royal privacy to be unduly disturbed.—
" Field-Marshall the Duke of Wellington presents his
compliments to Mr. , and begs to say he does not
see what his house at Stratfieldsaye has to do with the
public press."
Stratfieldsaye is rather an " out of the way place, si-
tuated about six miles and a-half to the north-west of the
Winchfield station of the South-Western Railway, and
about the same distarliee to the north-east of the Basing-
stoke station. The town of Silchester (where there are
some very perfect remains of a Roman station) is about
three miles and a-half from it to the east. Stratfieldsaye
is distant about nine or ten miles from the Reading sta-
tion of the Great Western Railway. Beyond the fact of
its being the residence of the illustrious man whom the
Queen now honours with her presence, it possesses little
to attract the attention of the curious. The grounds are
pretty but not extensive. The park is about a mile long,
and a mile and a-half broad ; but the river Loddon winds
through it and presents the opportunity, ass'sted by the
rising grounds in the eastern part of the park, for some
very beautiful effects. The whole character of the place,
wooded and diversified as it is by sheets of water,
is extremely quiet and pleasing. There are many ancient
remains and other objects of interest within a few miles
round.
On Tuesday the royal couple rose at seven, and during
the day drove to Bramshill, an ancient mansion about five
miles from Stratfieldsaye, and well worth seeing for its
unique antiquity. The visit of the royal party to
the Duke has been of such an entirely private character
as to afford but few features calculated to interest the
public.
Her Majesty and Prince Albert arrived at Windsor
Castle on Thursday, at half-past one o'clock, having left
Strathfieldsaye at eleven. Her Majesty rose at the usual
hour, and after breakfast, as the morning was damp,
went to the Tennis Court, where Prince Albert played
until half-past ten, her Majesty looking on. The Royal
party left at eleven o'clock in three carriages, the band of
the yeomanry, stationed in the court-yard, playing the
National Anthem. The Duke of Wellington, the Mar-
quis of Douro, the Rev. G. Wellesley, the Hon. Mr.
Pierrepont, and Mr. Compton, M.P., accompanied the
Royal party on horseback. The Duke took leave of her
Majesty at Swallowfield. The others rode on to Arbor-
field, where they took leave of her Majesty and returned.
Along the route the preparations still remained, and at
different points many people were collected, who received
the Royal party with the usual salutations. At Woking-
ham there was a vast concourse of spectators. The Royal
cortege passed at a walking pace through the town. All
the arrangements were the same as on the journey down,
with the exception that the inscriptions on the arches
were reversed—those which first net the eye on going
down being placed on the arches at the other end of the
place, and vice versa. At Bracknell the Royal party
changed horses; and here a young gentleman, son of the
Rev. Mr. Randall, of Binfield, presented her Majesty
with a nosegay, which she was graciously pleased to
accept.

Lord and Lady Francis Egerton arrived at Arundel
Castle, Sussex, on a visit to the Duke and Duchess of
Norf.lk, on Thursday last, from Hatchford Hatl, near
Cobham.

STRANGE RAILWAY OCCURRENCE.--On Monday
night, a stone or a bulllet passed through the upper part
of the glass of the windows on both sides of a first-class
carriage in the mail train from Hull, Leeds, Manchester,
York, and the north for London, at a quarter past ten
o'clock. about a mile from the Derby station, the speed
being slightly reduced preparatory to entering the station.
No person was injured. The carriage was afterwards de-
tached from the train, and detained at Derby, where it
was examined, but no bullet or other missile was found.
The matter remains one of great mystery, and has excited
considerable interest at the station.

MIDLAND RAILWAY.-At the half-yearly meeting of
this company, yesterday week, at Derby, a dividend was
declared of three per cent. on the consolidated stock,
three per cent. on the preference stock, and £2 6s 3d on
the Birmingham and Derby stock. The increase in the
receipts of the three companies had amounted to £42,078
during the last half-year. There had been a decrease in
the expenditure in the locomotive department of £3,341 ;
of £1,740 in the coaching and goods department ; of £485
in the office charges ; of £2OO in the direction ; £174 in the
stores department ; and of £2,613 in the amount paid for
interest. The chairman (George Henderson, Esq.) after
alluding to some good prospects of the company, said he
would briefly state what the directors had done to give
increa.ed accommodation to the public. The Syston to
Peterborough proposed line was the first he would bring
under their notice. The line was forty-seven miles and
a half in length, and the capital required for its construc-
tion would be £700,000. or £15,000 a mile. This line
would have the effect, when completed, of reducing the
cost of coal in that district fifty per cent. ; and it must,
therefore, be looked upon as a great boon to that neigh-
bourhood, and he did not believe that it could he Lucess-
fully opposed. The next line was that from Nottingham
to Lincoln, which would be thirty-four miles in length,
would cost £12,000 a-mile, and require a capital of
£400,000. This line, as well as the Syston Line, had
remarkably good gradients. There were several small
branches, all of the utmost importance to the districts
through which they were to pass ; and the last line was
that from Swinton via Doncaster, Gainaborough, Lincoln,
Boston, and Spalding, to Wisbeach, 124 miles in length,
which would join the Eastern Counties Railway at March.
This line would cost £1,612,000, being £14,000 a-mile.
The honourable gentleman then entered into an examina-
tion of the proposed Direct York Line, which he charac-
terised as an enormous bubble. The report was adopted.

RAILWAYS AND THE BOARD OF TRADE

(From the Railway Times)

The contents of the third batch of railway notices is-
sued by the Board of Trade on Friday week, are in no
way calculated to disturb the confidence to which 'heir
previous decisions have given rise. It will be seen that
out of fifteen projects not less than ten have been re-
jected—and the others which have met with approval are
all branches or extensions of the South-Eastern line.
At the first glance this may look somewhat like a de-
parture from the manifestly conservative principle which
has hitherto actuated the Board in the case of trunk lines.
And it has been alleged that if they deemed it right to
throw so large a territory into the angular course of the
Great Western, the devious route of the South.Fastei n
via Croyden might have made good its claim to a district
far less in extent, by the same analogy. But, in fact,
there is no analogy at all. In the former case it was a
question between two great existing trunk lines, the
less direct" having reached the point of contention
already, and the " more direct" seeking to do so for the
purposes of opposition. Thus the question before the
Board was most simple, " whether the existing detour was
so injurious to public convenience as to warrant the con-
struction of a new and more direct rival trunk line,
whereby the property in the existing one would be ma-
terially depreciated." The judgment of the Board, as is
well known, was given on a truly conservative principle.
Now let us turn to the case in question. The Croyden
line, being originally merely a mode of communication
between the town of that name and London, has, from its
connection with the Brighton and Dover lines, assumed
the style and dignity of a trunk line—much on the prin-
ciple which :prompted the bellows-blower to claim the
honour of the organit—forgetting that such connection
is an accident of its position, not an integral feature of
its existence.
In the case of the Brighton the adoption of the Croydon
line as its link of communication with London was obvi-
ous—it was the extension of a right line which the Brigh-
ton would have made had not the Croydon been in exist-
ence, and which ought long ago to have been absorbed
into the Brighton as a part of it-rlf, but for the bad ma-
nagement which has all along characterised it. But on
the other hand, it cannot be considered in any respect a
portion of the Dover line. And there is no possible rea-
son why the latter company should not be allowed to
amend thair original error in starting from Reigate, at
their own expense, if they seek to do so. The Dover ►ine
does not seek to make a trunk communication with Lon-
don to compete with the Croydon. The case of the Dover
is in these words. "We have hitherto endeavoured to
make use of the Croydon, which we found in existence, as
our road to London, but finding it does not answer our
purpose, we ask permission to complete our own line to
the metropolis by its obvious course." The great objec-
tion to the new scheme is, the comparative worthlessness