The Barre daily times. (Barre, Vt.) 1897-1959, 1912-07-06
INCIDENTS OF
DICKENS VISIT
TO AMERICA.
Reid Relates Some Per-
sonal Experiences at Dickens
Banquet in London.

Banquet in London.
London, July 6.-Whitelaw Reid the
| United States ambassador, recalled some
interesting incidents of the visit to
America of Charles Dickens at dinner
given by the Boz club in celebration OF
the centenary of the birth of the great
novelist. The dinner was presided over
by the bishop OF London and the COM
pany included the surviving children.
grandchildren and other relatives of
Dickens.
As so often happens at functions OF
the kind in England, the United States
ambassador was the chief speaker. Att
er paying a tribute to Dickens, who he
said was recognized in America almost as
soon as in his own country, Mr.. Reid
mentioned that he was one OF small
number who remembered and participant
ed in the farewell banquet to Charles
Dickens in the old Fourteenth street
Delmonico's in New York at the close
of his second visit to America in April,
1858.
ut was a banquet" said Mr.. Reid,
mot only to great novelist, who had
written many things about our people
too near the truth to be popular at the
time, but also to great editor in his
own country, from great editors in the
country which he visited; and it was
presided over by the greatest of them,
an editor of immortal memory in the
history of the country which he served
in its gravest crisis and in its grandest
achievement, Horace Greeley. At his
right sat Charles Dickens, and next to
the guest sat a spotless ehevalier in the
warfare OF opinion that preceded the
Civil war--George William Curtis, a
man of letters worthy to be associated
with Mr.. Dickens, and an orator worthy
to speak on the same platform. There
was q long list OF representative MEM
bers OF the profession, and all cordial
and eager TO make the honored guest
feel welcome and at home-as eager is
if Jefferson Brick had never been paint
ed from the life from the occupant Of
a New York editorial Office"
Referring to the disregard, in the abb
sence of international copyright, of Dick
ems moral right to the receipts from
the sale of his books, Mr.. Reid asked:
Does anyone happen to remember the
precise terms of the British copyright
account with Mrs. Harriet Beecher
Stowe, for a novel that was read here
almost as widely as some of Mr.. Dick
EMS and was credited with almost as
great an effect on the progress of the
world--a work that was translated into
all languages and sold in all lands Can
we see the settlement of the English
for the works of poet named
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, who sold
lere as widely as Alfred Tennyson; or
If the similar account for the contribu-
ions to our common noble English lit
nature by Nathaniel Hawthorne Wash.
ngton Irving, Ralph Waldo Emerson,
lanes Russell Lowell or John Lathrop
hotley?"
The ambassador thought ii wiser to
orget these mutual shortcomings and
ecall instead the spirit in which Dick
ms dealt with them at that banquet
t Delmonco's forty years ago, and his
romise to have reproduced in every sub
equent edition of Martin Chuzzlewit and
# the American Notes the words he
sed ON that occasion" pledge most
onorably kept by his family and pub
shers to this day. The spirit seems
o me still of good omen for both Eng
and and America;
TT would be better for this globe to
e riven by an earthquake. fired by a
omet, overrun by an iceberg, and aban-
oned to the Arctic fox and bear, than
should present the spectacle of those
,yo great nations, each of whom has,
I its own wGv ana hour. str'ven 50
ard and successfully for freedom ever
gain being arraycd the one against the
Their"
Cottage life. which used to be pic
resque feature of rural England, prom
es to become thing of the past The,
,ttages are falling into ruins and M
aw ones are being built This condi-
on is also having a serious effect on
arriage in the rural districts. Bridal
,uples of the working classes cannot
nd homes and the overcrowding has
,come so bad that slum ondtions are
produced in the county, where space
lould be ample for all residential re-
lirements. 1t is said that the owners
the land are declining to build on
e ground that the newly enacted land
xes make the future of the holdings
ecarious.
In Essex there are parishes where nG
arriages have taken place for fifteen
'ars. In other places rural exodus
taking place on account of the con-
and collapse of the old cot
ges. In the neghborhood of a small
,lding district of Berkshire several cou-
es were recently forced to take lodg-
gs in the workhouse for want Of cot
90 accommodation