Year: 1876

NJ. D. Conway in Cincinnati Commercial.


LONDON, May 13, 1876.


x 1t was the roughs who
were in their glory on Thursday
People who reduce everything to ab-
stract ideas, and think of crown or
a thlone as a bit of historic constitu
tionalism, to be tied in red tape and
kept carefully in an iron safe, might
learn last Tuesday that they were a
miserable minority" in the world.
1t is true that the "ldeologist" "whom
Napoleon l. so despised, have done
away with much of the picturesque
and barbaric. Before Hebraism had
encroached on Aryanlsm, before the
shows of Church and Court were
warned to begin their concessions to
Puritanism, there was a great love of
splendors and colors and gray coats
in these islands. There have been
days when an English Prince return


ing from the Indies would have made
his entry into London on top of an
elephant, seated under canopy Of
purple and gold, with a Britannia in
tights holding crown of oak leaves
over his head; he would have been
preceded by menagerie of wild
beasts, with the Queen seated on a
tame lion with the make up of Una
Queen Victoria was once engraved
on a five-pound coin as Una on the
lion). The time when that kind of
display could take place here has in
deed passed away, yet let not the vir-
tuous think there are to be no more
cake and ale. The decorations were
very respectable, those in the great
Victoria Station especially so. Near
the entrance of the station there Is an
open space, a "square" in all but in
shape, around which are four great
buildings, several hundred feet long
and six stories high, built in the arch
itectural style of the public buildings
of Paris. These buildings had cloths
of purple and damask fringed with
gold hanging from their windows
and balconies, and many rich banners
and streamcrs; besides which, the
windows and the balconies were fes-
tai with fair women, behind whom
were occasionally visible the heads
of brave men. The crowd was very
great, and the police numerous. A
respectable woman who stood just
behind me in the crowd said to her
sister: "There! my pocket-book's
gone-handkcrchief, too" Then she
broke out laughing, and said: "It's
the man just behind me, but it hain't
got penny in it, thank gracious.
The pickpocket heard the remark,
and skulked away. There was no
chance of getting a policeman, as the
entire posse was at that instant en-
gagged, to the great amusement of
the crowd, in passing on from hand
to hand aragged boy who could find
no foothold along the adamantine hu-
man wall on the pavement, and must
not be allowed to stand in the street
between. l have never been in any
English crowd where there seemed
to me to be SO many Of the very bas-
est class, nor did ever hear before
such hearty enthusiasm for the Prince
as came breaking out from such along
with their oaths and their obscenity.
The Prince is certainly their HERO
In another region 6 fellow was offer
ing for sale small yellow book,
which was ornamented with picture
of the Prince, with enormous head
and tiny legs, riding on tiger, while
he was firing off pistol into space.
This book unfolded from it's yellow
covers twelve colored prints, six
inches square, of the rudest descrip-
ton, which were gross caricatures of
the Princes adventures in India
One of them represented him holding
pig about the relative size of a
mouse on the end of his spear, and
inspecting it with pride. But this
caricature merchant did not drive
flourishing trade; radicalism was at
a discount in the crowd; on the other
hand a youth who was selling an un-
folding "royal album" containing
twelve "correct portraits of the
royal family, seemed rolling in
wealth. The portraits were honestly
meant to be correct" or even flat
tering, yet they did not succeed; In