New-York tribune., 1881-10-03
ENGLAND'S GREAT GRIEF.

The HEART OF ENGLAND STIRRED MORE DEEP
LY THAN FOR MANY YEARs-INTENsE PUBLIC
INTEREST MANIFESTED THROUGH THE PRESS
AMERICA AND ENGLAND NOW BOUND IN CLOSER
TIES OF KINsTIP THAN EVER BEFORE
IRON THE REGULAR CORRESPONDENT THE TRIBuSE.I
LONDON Sept. 22-It was about o'clock
in the morning of Tuesday, by English time,
that President Garfield died. An hour later the
news was here and some of the morning papers
published 1t in few late copies Of their morning
edition. 1t known in the provinces at the same
moment. and published in the same way. Before
say anything about the feeling it evoked in high
places and with the general public should like 10
mention what occurred in the town where l was
staying Whitby, fishing town and small seaport
which is al a waterng-place on the northeast
coast of Yorkshire At this season Whitby is
the rendezvous for herring-fshers, and its little
harbor is crowded with boats hailing from ports
all the way from Pentland Firth to Penzance; Pen
itself sending large contingent. The fisher
men a simple folk. leading hard life untaught,
and free from any shore in the general
affairs of the world any body of men that could
be got together But when they heard that Presi-
dent Garfield dead they one and all hoisted
their bits of flag at half-mast and so kept them
during the day. They held meeting, passed no
resolutions. l suppose not a man among them
could have made speech drawn up formal
declaration of sorrow. They acted with no concert
of any kind. Their way of life makes them
all rivals and often enemies Hartlepool has
nothing TO say to Lowestoft, Sunderland quarreb
with Arbroath. and Whitby itself keeps but i'll
terms with any Of its many guests. But somehow
they agreed for this once The boats that lay in
the river above the bridge next the railway station
were the first to hang out their signal of grief.
Those in the port below soon followed. Not long
off III nV hn1U heinQ ahle 10 how lh0
news spread the feet at anchor outside tho harbor
one by one ran up their ensigns hauled them half
down and there made them fast for the day.
Amid the innumerable demonstrations of sorrow TO
be seen and heard these last two days all over Eng
land know of none which more truly indicates
the essentially popular character of the regret
which the Presidents death has excited.
1t is certain that somehow or other conviction
had become general among what are called the lower
classes in England that the President Of the great
commonwealth beyond the Atlantic was one OK
themselves. They don't read biographies in book
shape, nor many newspapers but one or two OF ths
facts of President Garfelds life had filtered down
through the reading classes to the classes who don't
read The fact that one who had climbed so high was
of humble birth was the one which had become most
widely known, and which among those of humble
bi rth had given rise TO feeling of extremely closs
sympathy 1t would hardly have been the same
thing if he had been an Engshman. The Eng
lishman prefers to give his vote for a genteman.'
The lower his place in the social scals
the more strenuously he supports the distinctions
which keep him down. But he has heard OF tho
American Republic as place where a career is open
to talent and character irrespective of birth. He
is inconsistent enough-that is, human enough-to
r,ioce in it, and to take kind of pleasure in such
proof of il ~ President Garfelds ruershp Afforded
1t was the same in President Lincolns case. 1t was
the same to take widely different illustration, IN
Garballis; whose reception here had precisely tho
same quality of purely popular enthusiasm which
is now felt and expressed for murdered American
President.
Much of it was TO be seen when the shot was
fired. II as grown ever since steadily wider
and deeper An English friend who was
shooting ten days ago over q Yorkshire moor told
me that. as the scattered line of spOrtsmen wero
pushing through the heather in silence, the game
keeper met him some yards away turned and
asked: "Can you tell me, sir, how President Car
field si1 There on that lonely hillside, three thou
sand miles and more distant from the sufferer In
the early morning beneath a which was not yet
shining upon the President, breathing an air no
never breathed, this Yorkshire peasant, who had
spent his life without much as hearing the Presi-
dents name till few weeks before, who
knew not the letters of which it was formed,
who knew about grouse and guns aud
dogs and the weather, and nothing else whatever
whose interest in life went beyond the stone
hut in which he slept and ate and the stretch OK
furzeclad upland which lifted itself gain3t the west
ern sky; he like the fishermen, had come to think
or TO feel that somehow other the life or death OF
that far-away martyr concerned him too 1t is easy
70 say that beneath the shooting jacket and the er-
sev heats the same human heart. No doubt it does
Rut what was it that set it beating in nnison with
so many millions OF Others like it with sympathy fdf
the President? Lord PalmerstOn said he never knew
what fame was till he heard of the Tartarmothers on
the steppes of Russia in Asia frightening their ch-
dren into quiet with some queer travesty OIL MS
dreaded name Yorkshire is not so remote rs nus
sian Asia, indeed but the friendly concern oil the
CameLecper was surely a truer measured real iaiao
than the ignorant terror of the MlScoVte mOther.
know thought when | heard it that the Presl-
dent who lay dying would have valued such proof
of the universally of the interest in him not less
than those expressions of t-certainly not less gen.
uine-which came from much higher quarters.
The English pass, and rightly so, for
being people of great reserve They do
not readily nor willingly exhibit their
feelings. They are incapable of making parade
of Grief and almost incapable of allowing the ma
tono signsand expressions of it to be seen In public
They are almost wholly devoid of that pliablilty Oh
nerve which in other serves TO transmit sehs-
bnity to the surface, and signify in the numerous
ways familiar TO those who have lived among poo
ple of Latin origin that they are under the influence
of strong emotion. Twice only have seen IN
England any 0utburSt of feeling marked enough
and general enough to indicate tDat ior uio
moment this reserve of character had oeen
broken through and this restraint overborne-
The first was when the Prince OF Wales was De-
lisyed to be dying. The second was when II was
known that President Garfield had been shot, Ever
since that I'd of July the sympathy first shown aua
the anxiety about his condition have oeeh sus''
tanned; TO less degree of course ti'ah WIN yoa'
but TO degree and in a manner which are II Poss'-
IL. tL.nrl with For. TX