The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1871-06-05
The MomentOus Events Described by an
Eyewitness In 1925.
From Bldcktcood for May.

events that happened fifty years ago. 'Tis
sad work turning back to that bitter page in
our history, but you may perhaps take profit
in your new homes from the lesson it teaches.
For us in England it came too late. Aud yet
we had plenty of warnings, if we had only
made use of them. The danger did not come
on us unawares. 1t burst on us suddenly,
tbs true, but its coming was foreshadowed
plainly enough to open our eyes, if we had
not been wilfully blind. We English have
only ourselves to blame for the humiliation
which has been brought on the land. Vener
able old agel Dishoporable old age, l say,
when it follows manhood dishonored as ours
has been. l declare, even now, though fifty
years have passed, can hardly look young
man in the face when 1 think J am one of
those in whose youth happened this degrade
tion of old England-one of those who be-
trayed the trust handed down to us unstained
by our forefathers.
What proud and happy country was this
fifty years ago! Free-trade had been work
ing for more than quarter of a century, and
there seemed to be no end to the riches it
was bringing us. London was growing bigger
and bigger; you could not build houses fast
enough for the rich people who wanted to live
in them, the merchants who made the money
and came from all parts of the world to settle
there, and the lawyers and doctors and en-
gineers and others, and tradespeople who got
their share out of the profits. The streets
reached down to Croydon and Wimbledon,
which my father could remember quite coun-
try places; and people used to say that King
ston and Reigate would soon be joined to
London. We thought we could go on build
ing and multiplying for ever.
Fools that we were! We thought that all
this wealth and prosperity were sent us by
Providence, and could not stop coming. In
our blindness we did not see that we were
merely big workshop, making up the things
which came from all parts of the world and
that if other nations stopped sending us raw
goods to work up, we could not produce thsm
ourselves. True, we had in those days an ad-
vantage in our cheap coal and iron; and had
we taken care not to waste the fuel, it might
have lasted us longer. But even then there
were signs that coal and iron would soon be-
come cheaper in other parts; while as to food
and other things, England was not better off
than it is now. We were SO rich simply be-
cause other nations from all parts of the
world were in the habit of sending their goods
to us to be sold or manufactured; and we
thought that this would last forever. And so,
perhaps, it might have lasted, if we had only
taken proper means to keep it; but, in our
folly, we were too careless even to insure our
prosperity, and after the course of trade was
turned away it would not come back again.
And yet, if ever a nation had plain warn
ing, we had. If we were the greatest trading
country our neighbors were the leading mill
tary power in Europe. They were driving
good trade too for this was before their
foolish Communism (about which you will
hear when you are older) had ruined the rich
without benefting the poor, and they were in
many respects the first nation in EHrope; but
it was on their army that they prided them
selves most And with reason. They had
beaten the Russians and the Austrians, and
the Prussians too, in bygone years, and they
thought they were invincible. Well do re-
member the great review held at Paris by the
Emperor Napoleon during the great Exhibi-
ton, and how proud he looked showing off
his splendid Guards to the assembled kings
and princes. Yet, three years afterwards, the
force SO long deemed the first in Europe
was ignominiously beaten, and the whole
army taken prisoners. Such defeat had
never happened before in the worlds history;
and with this proof before us of the folly of
disbelieving in the possibility of disaster
merely because il had never happened before,
IT might have been supposed that we should
have the sense to take the lesson to heart
And the country was certainly reused for a
time, and q cry was raised that the army
ought to be reorganiZed, and our defenses
strengthened against the enormous power
for sudden attacks which it was seen other
nations were able to put forth. But our Gov
ernment had come into Office on cry of re-
trenchment, and could not bring themselves
to eat their own pledges. There was radical
section of their party, too, whose votes had
to be secured by Cancellation, and which
blindly demanded a reduction of arma-
ments as the price of allegiance. This party
always decried military establishments as part
of a fixed policy for reducing the influence of
the crown and the aristocracy. They could
not understand that the times had altogether
changed, that the crown had really no power,
and that the Government merely existed at
the pleasure of the House of Commons, and
that even Parliament rule was beginning to
give way to mob law. AT any rate, the
Ministry were only too glad of this excuse to
give up all the strong points of a scheme
which they were not really in earnest about.
The fleet and the channel, they said, were
sufficient protection. So the army was kept
left unframed as before, because to call them
out for drill would interfere with the in
dustry of the country" We could have
given up some of the industry of those days,
forsooth and yet be buster than we are now.
l need hardly tell you how the crash came
about. First, the rising in India drew away
part of our small army; then came the diff
Guilty with America, which had been threaten
ing for years, and we sent off ten thousand
men to defend Canada-a handful which did
not 60 far to strengthen the real defenses of
that country, bat formed an irresistible
temptation to the Americans to try aud take
them prisoners, especially as the contingent
included three battalions of the Guards
Thus the regular army at home was even
smaller than usual, and nearly half of it was
in Ireland to check the talked-of Feniau in
vasion fitting out in the West. Worse still
though do not know it would really have