Papurau Newydd Cymru

Chwiliwch 15 miliwn o erthyglau papurau newydd Cymru

Cuddio Rhestr Erthyglau

12 erthygl ar y dudalen hon

our bonbon dTorrcsponbent.

Newyddion
Dyfynnu
Rhannu

our bonbon dTorrcsponbent. [We deem it right to state that we do not at all times identify ourselves with our Correspondent's opinions.] Her Majesty's birthday, was, as usual, marked by a number of promotions and appointments, several of these, in the Order of St. Michael and St. George, being announced on the morning of that day. It is worth noting that the various orders of knighthood each bears a characteristic description. For instance there are the most noble Order of the Garter, the most honourable Order of the Bath, the most distinguished Order of St. Michael and St. George, and the most exalted order of the Star of India. The first of these has but one class the others have three-Knights C-ross, K.iighta Commander, and Companions. 1 e Garter is the most coveted of all the honorary distinction which are in the bestowal of the Crowa and with the exception of the late Viscount Palmerston, no nobleman below the rank of an earl has ever worn it. The honour was con- ferred upon Lord Palmerston, when he was Prime Minister, at the express request of her Majesty. With that single exception the Garter has been worn only by members of the three highest orders in the peerage, viz., dukes, marquises, and earls. The number of knights is strictly limited to twenty-five, and at present they are pretty equally divided between the foremost noblemen of both political parties. Last year two Garters happened to fell in through the deaths of the Marquis of Ailesbury and Earl Russell, and opportunely enough just in time to be bestowed upon Lords Beaconafield and Salisbury on their return from Berlin as the British Plenipotentiaries at the Congress there. Of all the distinctions which a nobleman desires, there is none which he prizes so highly as that of K.G. There is one point in connection with the celebration of the Queen's birthday which is worth a passing notice. That is the mature age attained by the sovereigns of the House of Hanover Queen Victoria, who is now turned sixty, is the youngest of the whole of them, and let us hope that there are many years of life before her yet: George I. was 67 when he died George II. was 77; George III. was 82; George IV, was 68; and William IV. was 72. It will be only eight years more-just the distance of time that sepa- rates 1871 from the present day-when we hope to celebrate the Jubilee of Her Majesty's accession. If an attempt is made to fix the mind upon some pro- minent event which happened eight years ago, it is easy enough to do it, and to see how really little time stands between us now and the commemoration of the Jubilee of our Sovereign's ascending the throne. It was on the 24th of May, 1871, that the mob of Paris, being hard pressed by the army of Versailles, and seeing the utter impossibility of escape from the beleaguered capital, set fire to the public buildings of the city. On the 23th Marshal MacMahon was master of the place, after great slaughter and immense destruction of property; and mob rule was extinguished. It does not seem so long since we were reading of the terrible doings in Paris at that time; yet it is only a period of similar length which now divides us from the fiftieth year of her Majesty's reign. On the 20th of June, 1887, the boom of a hundred guns will be heard from the Park and the Tower, proclaiming the fact that for the second time within a little over three- quarters of a century, the Sovereign of England has witnessed a Jubilee. The last occasion was in 1810, and many now living can well remember it. When the Empress of Germany returned to Berlin, she left more than one distinguished visitor behind her in London. The Crown Prince of Denmark has been here for some time, staying with his sister the Princess of Wales the Crown Prince of Sweden and Norway has also been one of our guests; the Count and Countess of Flanders have likewise been seeing something of the British capital. And it is well worth seeing just now, without a doubt. After a long struggle and a continuance of un genial north easterly winds for half a year, the soft south wind has at length prevailed. As its balmy breath has passed over park and square, and open space, the trees, leafless so long, have ceased to swing their bare gaunt arms in the bitter blasts of winter, and are now clothed in the richest of foliage in all those varied shades of greenery which lend sach a delightful charm to the hues of spring. It seems as though a change, like that sup- posed to be produced in the magic land of fairies by the waving of a wand had passed over the surface of hill and dale. For a few weeks the vegetation, fresh and vigorous, will be seen in all its beauty the leaves, strong and firm upon the well-clothed branches of the trees, will wave gaily in the gentle zephyrs of the summer time, being neither nipped by the wind's un- kindly blast, nor parched by the sun's more direct rays, The hymn from which this sentiment is taken goes on to declare that "their momentary glories last-their short-lived beauties die away." Not just yet, how- ever, for we are all glad to know that several weeks now stand between us and the time when the withered leaves, no longer able to cling to the boughs, will have been scattered upon the ground. Marvellous progress has been made with the open- ing of the Thames Bridges during the past few years. It is not so very long ago that a free roadway over the great Metropolitan river was the exception and a toll- bar the rule. Of course, in places where there were such vast streams of traffic as London Bridge, Black. friars, and Westminster, toll-bars were impossible but between each of these structures there was one if not more toll bridges. Southwark Bridge, between those of London and Biackfriars, was long a silent highway in the midst of a great people because of its toll; whilst between Blackfriars and Westminster there were the toll-barred structures of Waterloo and Charing Cross. Southwark Bridge was liberated some years ago by the City Corporation; and then the work was begun far up the stream by the Metro- politan Board, which threw open the bridges at Staines, Barnes, and Kew. There, for some time they were compelled to Btop; for the bridges lower down the river and spanning the stream in the heart of London, were more costly to deal with. There was a long arbitration over Waterloo Bridge, which was thrown open in October last. On Saturday a grand step was made in this work of improvement. The Prince of Wales, who was accompanied by the Princess and by the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh, declared free to the public for ever five bridges-Albert, Battersea, Chelsea, Lambeth, and Vauxhall, These, as their names will readily indicate to those who have the most elementary knowledge of London geographically, connect the northern aad southern banks of the stream where there are densely-crowded populations on both sides of it, and it does seem extraordinary that tollbars should have so long interfered with the free communi- cation of millions of people. Turnpikes and tollbars are the relics of a past sge; th. former, so far as London is co cerned, disappeared half a generation ago and the important ceremony in which the Prince of Wales took such a leading part last Saturday enable; the peop!e to make a clean sweep of the latter. While the inhabitants of a great portion of the capital have thus been restricted in their movement across the river owing to the operation of tol bars, those below London Bridge have been entirely w ith- out the means of getting over to the opposite side except by resorting to the Tower Subway or to ferry boats. This seems all the more wonderful when it is remembered that in the eastern section of the metro- polis there is a population of at least a million abso- lutely without bridge accommodation. This is equal to the united peoples of both Liverpool and Glasgow and it is certainly difficult to imagine the great Lanca shire seaport without the means of going to the other side of the Mersey, or the great commercial city upon the Clyde with nothing but the most primitive agencies for communicating with the hives of teeming industry on both banks of the river. If it is asked why the great metropolis should be eo bridgeless where the conveniences of a million people are concerned, the reply is that a structure anywhere in that quarter of the town, on account of the great width of the river, would be enormously costly; and that it would materially interfere with the navigation. Shipping of every description, and traversing every sea, constantly move up and down the rapid tide of the Thames; and many a mast in that extensive forest in the docks would be likely to come into un. pleasant collision with any bridge thrown across the river. Still the Board of Works have determined to make an effort, and a Bill is now before Parlia- ment for the construction of a high level bridge between Tooley-street and the Tower. A struc- ture of this kind is of no use unless it can be approached; and the clearing away of property on both sides will raise the total cost to about fifteen hundred thousand pounds. This is about the most complete instance of the expensive character of improve- ments in London which has yet presented itself. The Northumberland avenue cost seven hundred thousand pounds, including the price paid to the Duke of that title for his town house, If you walk from one end of the avenue to the other you may have the satisfaction of reflecting that every yard over which you have passed is of the value of £2,000. Should the High Level Bridge over the river be sanctioned by the legis- lature, it will cost more than double as much as Northumberland avenue. School-children are taught that the horse is a noble animal and when they grow up and go out into the world they seem to take this idea with them, for the horse is undoubtedly a favourite with old as well as young. One of England's great national holidays-the Derby—is founded upon horse-racing but we need not go so far as Epsom Downs, although they are only 20 miles from the capital, to be assured of the interest which attaches to anything in which this useful quadtuped takes a prominent position. The Wednesday meets of the Coaching Club and the Four-in-hand are the means of gathering immense assemblages together in Hyde Park, the roans and the greys, the browns and the bays all coming in for a share of admiration from the respective critics of the teams. The Coaching Club was the first this season to lead off but the weather was unfavourable, the programme having been spoiled by drenching rain. It was not so with the Four-in-Hand. The sun at length, after many anight of frost and many a day of tempest, shone out with summer splendour; and amongst the vast throng which the weather and the horses had brought together, were the Empress of Germany, the Prince and Princess of Wales, the Crown Prince of Denmark, the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh, the Duke and Duchess of Teck, and other members of the Royal family. After the meet the distinguished visitors drove off to the Summer exhibition of the Royal Botanis Society in Regent's Park, and later on the Prince and Princess of Wales paid a visit to the Empress Eugenie at Chislehurst. The Whitsuntide holidays eomo this year at a time when, after such a prolonged spell of winter, those who seek recreation and amusement should be able to depend upon something like genial and settled weather. The days will not be far from their longest and brightest; London is full of attractions to those who would like to enjoy an excursion to the metropolis; while the country is just now in all its glory, and inviting the jaded dweller in the town to spend a few hours away from the bustle and the smoke, out among the fields, amid the greenwood and the gorse, where the leafy arches of the woods echo to the songs of innumerable birds that have found a home in the luxuriant foliage of forest trees. It is no matter for surprise that amongst an enormous popula- tion like that of London the Bank Holidays of Easter, Whitsuntide, and August are eagerly anticipated on account of the facilities which are then afforded by rail- way companies for a run into some rural retreat in the Home Counties, or to the Bea-side, Mr. Richard Swiveller was accustomed to set great store by a sniff of the briny;" and to the smoke-dried townsman nothing seems to be so invigorating as a bath of sea- air upon the shores of the English Channel, or upon those coasts open to the more braeing breezes of the German Ocean. London is too far from the sea to get any of its atmosphere impregnated with that health- giving saline which the great waters send in upon the land; hence the appreciation by its people of the sea when they are enabled to get near it. There, how- ever, is the Thames to remind them of the restless, ever-heaving northern ocean to which it is perpetually seeking to hasten; It is a mistake to call the sea, as is too commonly done, a watery waste and an aqueous wilderness. It is, on the contrary, the world's fountain of life and health, without which the grass would perish from the mountains, the forests would crumble upon the hills; and although we may have lived far distant from its shore, may never have gazed upon its majesty, or listened to its eternal diapason, we can never forget that we are surrounded by its liberal stores, and that the wealth of the world is represented upon its rolling waters.

[No title]

THE EUSTON.SQUARE MYSTERY.

WRECK OF A BRITISH STEAMER.

littstcdaitcous$itlel%eit«.

EPITOME OF NEWS.

EXECUTION AT TAUNTON.

MASONIC STATISTICS.

A GALAXY OF PRINCELY ANCESTORS.

THE EDISON TELEPHONE.

RELICS OF A BYGONE AGE.

A WONDERFUL DISCOVERY.