Papurau Newydd Cymru

Chwiliwch 15 miliwn o erthyglau papurau newydd Cymru

Cuddio Rhestr Erthyglau

26 erthygl ar y dudalen hon

on Our IToiibott Corospiibenf.

Newyddion
Dyfynnu
Rhannu

on Our IToiibott Corospiibenf. [We deem it right to state that we do not at all times identify ourselves with our Correspondent's opinions.] Once more does the anniversary of Her Majesty's Accession to the Throne remind her subjects of the flight of Time since the opening of her reign. Queen Victoria was eighteen years of age when she began to reign, and forty and one years haa she ruled over this empire. She wall then four yean younger than her youngest child is to-day. It was about five o'clock in the morning ef the 20th of June, 1837, that the Arch- bishop of Canterbury and the Lord Chamberlain ar- rived at Kensington Palace, where the Princess Victoria was then residing, with her mother, the Dvehew of Kent, bringing with them the intelligence of the king's death. They had travelled from Windsor by road, there being then no railway com- munication, and the journey had occupied nearly three hours. The crown and the sceptre had passed from the hands of an old man of 72 into those of a young girl of 18; and the change seemed typical of that re- newed life which, as events have proved, was in store for the nation. For a long time the people had become 10 accustomed to monarchs of mature yean that they had almost begun to regard them as permanent insti- tutions in this country. More than a quarter of a century before, the jubilee of George III, had been celebrated, and he was then seventy years of age. A decade waned away before he was succeeded by George IV., at the mature age of sixty. And when "the first gentleman in Europe'' was gathered to his fathers, his brother, William IV., was 65 when he came to the Throne, and he was 72 when he died. It was therefore almost with a sigh of relief—certainly with a feeling of intense satis- faction-that the people turned towards the young Queen, who commenced her duties amid the most sincere good wishes of all classes of her subjects. It has been a reign without a parallel for the enormous strides which have marked the progress of the arts and sciences, and of those moving forces which tell of the ad- vancement of civilization. Ithonlyneceaaarytorecalthe fact that there were then but very few railways, fewer electric telegraphs, and no penny poet, to see the marvel- lous difference between new and the time when Long live the Queen was first proclaimed by the heralds In the market-placea of our great towns. The Queen, although a great-grandmother, is only sixty now-far younger than any of the Sovereigns of the House of Hanover when the time has come for them to lay aside the royal insignia; and there is no one amongst us who does net entertain the hope that her Majesty will cele- brate her Jubilee eight years hence. In looking over the political changes which have marked the reign of Qaeen Victoria, it is interesting to note that of the M8 members of the House of Com- mons who, on the 20th of June, 1837, took the oath of allegiance to the new Sovereign, nine or ten only now remain in that assembly. Of these the most conspicuous is Mr. Gladstone, who had then been a representative of the people five years, having been first returned in 1832. The right hon. gentleman has, therefore, been a member of the British Parliament for the long period of 47 years. Of the Ministers of that day, there has for a long time past not been one left in the Lower Chamber. Lord Melbourne was Premier; but the name seems to carry U8 almost as far baok into history as that of Lord Godolphin or Sir Robert Walpole. The statesman who is beat known to the present generation, and who was one of the foremost members of that ad. ministration, was Lord John RusBell, who, under his title of Earl, passed away at an advanced age a little more than twelve months ago. Lord Beaconsfield was returned to Parliament at the general election, which immediately succeeded her Majesty's accession. He was then thirty-two; he is now seventy-four. But with the one or two exceptions herein mentioned, in which the names will stand brightly on the pages of Engliah history, the House of Commons of two-and- forty years ago seem to have dissolved like the baseless fabric of a vision, leaving scarcely a wrack behind. Our fathers-where are they ? And where is the collective wisdom of that far-off time ? Gone, with all its struggles and its discords, sharing the fate of all things terrestrial; while the Sovereign then is the Sovereign now, still free from the rancorous attacks of party controversy, and with the gathered experience of mature years a living example of the axiom that the Queen can do no wrong. A few days ago the announcement of the death of a Waterloo veteran came as a reminder that the 18th of June was near at hand, and that sixty-four years have fled since that memorable Sunday in 1815, when 1 Wellington and Napoleon met for the first and the last time, and by the final everthrow of the latter peace was secured to Europe foi nearly forty years. Few must now be the survivors of that sanguinary fray, the close of which is so splendidly pourtrayed by Maclise in the Peers' Robing Room of the Houses of Parliament, where the graphic picture of the meeting of Wellington and Blucher represents the British general as grave and thoughtful, and the Prussian commander, a quarter of a century Wellington's senior, all life and animation, and only eager to be off after the retreating French army. Wellington was not an emo- tional man, but it is on record that when the moon rose that night, and sent her cold and lifeless rays down upon the hideous scenes of that gory battle-field, he wept as he rode through the reekiag carnage and heard the groans of the wounded as they awoke the echoes of the silent hours. The reflections evoked by the con. templation of the field upon which a battle has been fought and won are well interpreted by Lord Byron, in the Iinee- When all Is o'er it Is humbling to tread Upon the welt'rlng field of tke tombless dead, And see worms of the earth, fowls of the air. j Beasts of the forest, all gathering there. All regarding man as their prey- All rejoicing In his decay." There is another 18th of June, the memories of which are not recalled by Englishmen with so much satisfaction. In the summer of 1855, after the allied forces of England. France, Turkey, and Sardinia had been besieging the redoubtable fortress of Sebastopol eight months, it was resolved to make an effort to carry the place by storm; and early in the morning of the 18th ef Jane a desperate attack was made upon the Redan Mid Malakhoff batteries by the French and English. They were met by a murderous fire from the Russian batteries, and the assault, after a conflict that lasted forty-eight hours, was repulsed. The English lost 21 officers and 144 men killed; 63 office* and 1,058 men wounded. The French lost 37 oflUers and 1.544 men killed or missing. The Russians admitted the loss of 781 killed, and nearly 4,000 wounded. Great was the gloom caused in Eng. land by ithia disaster. Prince Gortschakoff, the Rus- sian commander, was naturally in high spirits, In a spirited proclamation to his soldiers he said: If The hour is approaching when the pride of the 1 enemy will be lowered, and their armies swept from j our soil like chaff blown away by the wind." The result of the war did not quite aecord with Prince Gortschakoffs predictions, Sebastopol being in the possession of the allies less than three months after. wards. Hospital Sunday in London, so far as it has hitherto gone, can scaroely be described as a success. A net sum of 225,000 for distribution does not seem an adequate result in the midst of such a vast popula- tion. The explanation is, however, clear enough. In an enormous place like this there is not that com- munity of interest which is so striking a feature of our provincial towns. The resident in Belgravia knows as little of the wants of the denizens of Bethnal Green as Leeds known of Exeter. Highgate has as little sym- pathy with Norwood as Norwich has with Liverpool. Both are nominally in London, but the geographical features of the one pIa., are totally unknown to the inhabitants of the other. Hence it is that an appeal for a general fund for the hospitals of the metro- polis is not heartily responded to. The people in either district would contribute towards the support of what they see in their midst, for they knew its worth; but the householder at Wappiog is not enthusiastic in his subscriptions towards a fund which is to be distributed at Charing Cross amd St. George's. The idea of Hospital Sunday is a good one, but It is better adapted to towns where the people know the worth of their own institutions than to a col- lection of great cities like London, where one street knows nothing of another, and oftentimes a man is not acquainted with his next-door neighbour. Temple Bar has disappeared at last. The main body of the building was removed about eighteen months ago, thus throwing open the ftttadt of the Law Courts, but the southern archway was left standing as a buttress for Messrs. Child's bank, which having now been reconstructed, no longer, requires the aid of the tottering Bar, and this obstruction to the traffic has now altogether ceased to exist. No longer will the heads of traitors be exposed upon the civic structure; no longer will it cause delay and inconvenience to impatient travellers who find themselves blocked in a crowded thoroughfare when they are hastening to catch a train; no longer will the Sovereign, on enteriag the City of London in State, knock at the gates of Temple Bar for admission thereto. The last time when this ceremony was performed was on Tuesday the 27th of February, 1872, when the Queen, amid such a demonstration of loyalty and a wealth of decoration in the densely. crowded streets as can never be forgotten by those who witnessed it, went to St. Paul's to return thanks for the recovery of the Prince of Wales from his danger- OU8 illness. The laying of the foundation stone of the new Eddy- stone lighthouse by the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Edinburgh is an occasion of national interest and importance, Smeaton's famous tower is not dispensed with because it is in the slightest degree insecure, for it IA as firmly rivetted into the roek now as it was a ientary ago but the rock itself has been undermined >y the constant action of the sea, and thus a neigh- wuring ledge of the same reef has had to be selected < a more secure basis for a new lighthouse. Singular ] s the life led by an Eddystone light keeper. He has hree months on duty in his lonely tower in mid-channel, ,nd then a month upon the land. When located in the ] ighthouse, fourteen miles out from Plymouth, and in he very midst of the sea, there is nothing but water, < ,atereverywhere" around him by day and by night, rhere he is in the fiercest storms, which sometimes in he wildness of their fury make a clean sweep over his tolitary dwelling. It must be a ourious sensation to M standing upon dry ground in the very middle of ;he waste of waters; to be immovable amid eternal notion; and while recognizing the immensity and the grandeur of the sea, to be enabled to defy the ptmost power of its might. Yet this is the lot of the light- louse keeper, as the reflection of his warning beacon is seen for miles upon the waves, and he himself is lulled to sleeD by the deep diapason of the sea.

THE GERMAN EMPEROR THE IDOL…

A FATAL BATHING ACCIDENT.

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THE ZULU WAR, j

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INTERVIEW WITH A ZULU CHIEF.

HOSPITAL SUNDAY IN LONDON.

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ATTACKED BY LOCUSTS.

THE CLAIMANT.

THE ARMY RESERVE.

THE NAVAL BATTLE OFF IQUIQUE.…

THE LAST OF THE VANGUARD.

INTERNATIONAL AGRICULTURAL'…

MR. GLADSTONE ON LITERATURE.

A POWERFUL ROAD LOCOMOTIVE.

lltisrellaiuflMS |utcl%cna.

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