Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1883-04-26
Of John BrOIcIl.
HondCn Standard. |

The public will miss familiar figure
from the royal carriage when the queen
pays her next visit to London. Immedi-
ately behind her majesty, in the seat spec
tally allotted to him, the presence of John
Brown was never missed as the sovereign
drove through the park on her way to
Paddington station and Buckingham pal
ace. Arrayed in Scotch costume, he sat
with arms folded, impassive, and
apparently unobseryant. In reality he
was one of the most keenly vigilant Of
men. Nothing escaped the quick, pierre
ing eyes. which, beneath the shelter of
their shaggy brows, glanced now in this
direction and now in that. When, rather
more than year ago, one of the queens
horses became restless, as the royal equip
age was proceeding westward from Picca-
dilly, it was John Brown who first per-
ceived the possible danger, and who, by
his prompt action, averted any mischievous
consequence. In the same way, when a
crazy bystander fired a pistol at the
queens carriage as it was leaving Windsor
station, John Brown had tight grasp on
the criminal maniac before he was secured
by the police.
His loss will be much felt by the queen,
who in the treatment of her servants has
always been pattern to the mistresses of
the United Kingdom. There is no family
in England, probably, which can boast so
few changes in the personnel of its house
hold, or such number of attendants bound
to it by hereditary ties of service, as the
family of which Queen Victoria is the head.
1t is not many years ago that one of the
principal coachmen was man named
WagIand He had been with the sovereign
since 1857, having entered the royal service
in 1881, and ridden as position for seven
teen years. His father was for thirty two
years porter in the royal news at Windsor.
His grandfather entered the royal service
in 1888, and his daughter was for some
time nursery maid to the Prince of Wales
children. Some generations, therefore, had
served in the royal family. John Brown
could not, it is true, show such antecedents
as these.
John Brown had unquestionably quail
ties of no mean or very common order.
No man in his position ever enjoyed so
much, and with such justice, of the conf
dence of his superiors, and retained as
completely as he did the regard and the
trust of his equals and interiors. His au-
thority in the royal household was con-
siderable, but it was used in perfectly
impartial manner. In addition to the
muItifarious functions which devolved
upon him as the personal attendant OF
the queen, he discharged many of the duties
of a royal aImoner. At Balmoral and al
Osborne he ascertained for his royal mis-
tress the deserving objects of her bounty
The man who can fulfill successfully, al
John Brown did, so delicate a task as this
and who can escape calumny in doing it
is of no common caliber.
Mr.. Brown never acquired mastery o
the arts of table service. He first becam,
indispensable to the queen in the capacity
of pony leader, and it was his proved
qualifications for this Office which haG
caused the prince consort to select him
He had only been in the royal household
some three years when he had an oppor
tunity of showing how useful on an emer
gency he could be. The queen had ar
ranged to travel in London on a certain
day in the depth of winter. When TIT
morning for her departure arrived the or
binary road was blocked by snow. Brow
had anticipated that this would be the case
and had stationed men at different point!
along an alternative route, who, by dlnt o
laboring all night, had kept the passag
free. 1t was not merely his ready intelli
gence and resourcefulness that made hin
so valuable a servant. He kney
The history of every family, large o
small, among the poor within radiu
of twenty miles from Balmoral; and tn
charity which the queen freely bestowe
in the neighborhood was only bestowe
after consultation with him. On severa
occasions he discharged still more i'm
portant duties. Hel travelled betwee