Part 7 (2/2)

I had a second experience of the disadvantages of i the latter part ofcoentleman who subsequently represented that city in Parliah from Paris to London, and had, as we believed, analised the close of our trip on the Continent by a specially good dinner on the evening of our departure, for which we had to pay a price in accordance with itsby the Dieppe route The journey by rail was delayed because all the bridges near Paris were broken, and we had to creep across temporary wooden structures Before ere allowed to board the steamer at Dieppe, all passports were carefully examined The police were on the search for escaped Coet into France, it was et out of the country

Our passports, however, were in order, and ere soon lying down to sleep in the cabin of the stealand in a few hours I slept soundly, and only ahen the sun ell up in the heavens The steaht ere in the harbour of Newhaven; but, to my dismay, when I went on deck I found that ere still ale was blowing, and the captain had not ventured to put out All that day we lay at Dieppe, the result being that the money which would have taken us, under ordinary circumstances, in comfort to London, was expended before we quitted France When we reached Victoria Station our united capital consisted of a halfpenny We could not even tip the porter who attended to us I felt it was the ht to a bank, however, and in a few old The double lesson I received during this first Continental trip has made me careful ever since to take sufficient funds on every journey to carry reat public event of the autumn of 1871 was the illness of the Prince of Wales He had been staying in Noveh, and on his return to Sandringham he was attacked by typhoid fever For a time no anxiety was felt, because it was believed that the illness was a slight one But suddenly the neas flashed through the country that his Royal Highness had taken a turn for the worse This was followed a few hours later by the announcement that the Queen and the other members of his family had been suddenly sus that his case was hopeless, and that he was rapidly sinking December 14th, the day which had proved fatal to his father exactly ten years before, was at hand, and everybody believed that it would see another heavy blow dealt at the Royal Family It is impossible to describe the emotion produced by the raham were of so positive a nature that they forbade hope On Friday, Decera that the fa his dissolution That telegradom

Everywhere Lives of the Prince were hurriedly prepared, and articles written announcing the event which appeared to be imminent

When the tih we had made every preparation in case of the Prince's death, the fatal news had not yet arrived I consequently wrote an article upon his illness and the emotion it had caused, to be inserted if his death had not taken place ent to press Needless to say, it was this article, and not that in which the national calamity was bewailed, that appeared in the _Leeds Mercury_ nextarticle on the Prince's illness was the _Times_ In every other newspaper office the conviction that he was at the very point of death was so strong that no preparation had beenof the fateful 14th carave danger, had rallied For several days he hung between life and death, and then began rapidly to ood constitution and to the extraordinary care and skill hich he was nursed by Sir William--then Dr--Gull

The revived popularity of the Throne in Englandwithdrawal from the public eye, consequent upon her hood, had led the norant of the manner in which she devoted herself to the heavy duties of her position, to regard her as being little urehead Certain politicians, in the autu to begin a crusade against the monarchy, and a section of the extrelorious Throne of England was about to be overthrown But the sharp touch of personal sorrow changed all this, and revealed to the English people their true sentirief, universally felt when it was believed that ere about to lose the heir to the Crown, and the affectionate sympathy hich his slow recovery was followed, convinced us all, as they convinced the outside world, that the bonds between the English Throne and the English people were far closer and stronger than ainst the ht, and from that day to this the one on steadily increasing

The announcement that the Queen proposed to attend St Paul's Cathedral in state to return thanks for the recovery of her eldest son touched the heart of the nation afresh, and evoked the first great popular demonstration of loyalty that had been witnessed since the early days of the reign I was present in the Cathedral at that solemn and stately service on the 27th February, 1872, the precursor of the still more stately service held at Westminster on the 21st June, 1887 Except on the occasion of the Jubilee of the last-mentioned year, and of that of 1897, London has never witnessed a ht the whole toas illuhted up after the fashi+on of St Peter's at Rome on Easter Day

The crohich filled the streets were enormous, and as the London police had not then acquired the art of , and several lives were lost Three persons were suffocated at Temple Bar, which was already marked for reate Hill, where the multitude was packed in one dense, immovable mass for hours The people in the houses on the hill passed doater in buckets to the fainting crowd, and now and then some woman or child was positively hauled out of it by ropes, and thus placed in safety It was not a sight that could ever be forgotten, and it ith of the hold which the monarch has upon the hearts of the people of this country

Ae of the Queen and the Prince of Wales froham Palace to St Paul's there was one notable and historic personage This was Napoleon the Third, at that ti in exile at Chislehurst Within twelve months the ex-Eularly picturesque demonstration on the part of the ruined I-in-state which preceded the funeral The train which tookthe rosette of the Legion of Honour, and on every side I heard men called by names that for twenty years had been part of the history of Europe The poor Euarded by reat officers of an Imperial household, was a pathetic object I noticed that his hair had turned grey; and the shortness of stature that he had been so anxious to conceal when living was now plainly apparent His funeral, which took place on the following day, fittingly sy the hearse walked a body of French workmen in blue blouses, the foremost of whom bore the tricolour, rudely fastened to a branch which had been hastily torn from one of the fine trees at Ca Prince Ihtful, delicate youth, who seemed little fitted to bear the burden of the Pretendershi+p Behind hile line, were four of his father's cousins, of whom the reat E, and, as he walked bareheaded, one could see that it was emphasised by the way in which he had trained a solitary lock of hair upon his massive brow

The Emperor was buried in a temporary vault in the Catholic chapel of Chislehurst The building was too small to admit a tithe of the crowd of French people ere present, but those who could not enter the chapel knelt throughout the service on the darass of the churchyard When the funeral party returned to Camden House, I witnessed an unexpected and dramatic scene The mourners had cohest to lowest, all see Prince was the first to step within the door of the house As he did so, he turned and bowed to the great coe of his father's empire Instantly every hat was raised, and a tremendous cry went up, ”_Vive Napoleon le Quatre!_” The suddenness and unexpectedness of this acclaend startled and impressed all those of us ere present as spectators

Alas! in how brief a space of time I attended another funeral at Camden Place, and saw the body of the boy, who had thus been hailed as Emperor, carried across the breezy common to rest by his father's side But noith the sad litter of an army in motion that the body was carried to the tomb The Prince Imperial was buried with the honours due not lish soldier The Union Jack lay side by side with the tricolour upon his coffin, and four English princes acted as pall-bearers The Queen herself watched from a pavilion erected above the wall of Cae of the funeral party froe to think that this display of heartfelt sorrohich was shared alike by the highest and the lowest, had been drawn forth by the death of the last representative of the Napoleonic E Prince's will, in which he declared that he died with a heart full of gratitude to the Queen of England and her faend it would have been a fitting one; but even on the day of the funeral of the Prince the truth that peace is seldoreat was painfully illustrated The chief mourner was Prince Napoleon, to whom had fallen the second place only at the burial of the Emperor When the party came out of church the Prince took a ceremonious farewell of thethe entreaties of the officials that he would return to Careatly bereaved e and in a harsh voice cried imperiously to the driver, ”_A Londres!_”

After the curtain had fallen on the great dra which this country was chiefly occupied with questions of doreat achievements It had disestablished the Irish Church, abolished purchase in the Army, established vote by ballot, reformed the Irish land system, and, above all, had created a national systeh honour of carrying this last-nareater now than it did at the iven in 1870 to the Education Bill

At that time, indeed, Forster ratitude, for his great achievement As older persons will remember, he excited the bitter hostility of the Dissenters and a section of the Radicals because of his refusal to ainst the Church schools the basis of his educational policy Even if he had believed such a step to be just, he would have coravest of errors if he had yielded to Nonconformist clamour It would have been impossible, even in the Parliahaue demanded, and there has been no Parliament since then that would even have looked at such a task

Re this fact, the injustice of the bitter attacks made upon Mr

Forster by a certain section of the Radicals, aha to make himself conspicuous, is manifest

One can only account for the acerbity hich Mr Forster was attacked on the ground that, both as a Radical and the son of Nonconfor the extreme party that he himself would be as extre institutions to account, and succeeded inthe batteries that the Church was ready to open upon any State system of education, was denounced as cowardice and lukewarreatest triumph of his career--a triumph hardly excelled by any other Minister of our ti suspicion and hatred of a large number of the members of his own party To the end of h myself an ardent Liberal, and the son of a Nonconforave all the support I could in the columns of the _Leeds Mercury_ to Mr Forster That this support was of real importance to hiely in Bradford, the town for which Mr Forster sat

My chah it had the warm support of Sir Edward Baines and of the ht upon me the heavy displeasure of the advanced Radicals

Like Mr Forster, I was regarded as a traitor to ain in those days, when I attended public s, I heard the _Leeds Mercury_ and its editor denounced by those who declared that the Liberalism propounded in its columns was a feeble, milk-and-water product, scarcely better than open and undiluted Toryisrateful acknowledgenerous manner in which the proprietors of the _Mercury_ stood by ive free expression to the independent opinions that I had foreneral, and it was also a ti what he believed to be the truth, had thus to run counter to the convictions of a very i back, I cannot say that I suffered any substantial injury froh which I had thus to pass It is true that foronly a half-hearted Liberal by a considerable section ofallowed to speakthat reater compensation than this can be desired by any publicist

It was not the education question alone that engaged the attention of the public in the years 1872 and 1873, hich I areat probleht to the front, in a large n dom Alliance, in favour of the measure known as the Permissive Bill I have never been able to understand why the promoters of the Permissive Bill should have eneration it has been their shi+bboleth, and, no ht be the aims or the virtues of the man who refused to pronounce it, the supporters of the Perarded him as an enee of tri Forbut the Bill, has been their cry; and as a consequence they have seen these years pass without the carrying of any real a syste towards the close of its re reform, known at the time as Mr Bruce's Bill It was a wise and statesht a beneficent social revolution in this country But the Government, in their attempt to deal in a practical ith the evils of our drink system, had to face not only the opposition of the unholy alliance of the pulpit and the beer-shop, but the hostility of the United Kingdohout the country It was from the friends of the Permissive Bill, rather than from the friends of the Tory party and the publicans, that the Government scheme received its death-blow The fanatical opposition of extreme politicians had not proved fatal to Mr

Forster's Education Bill, and as a consequence we have had for thirty years a great national syste results of immeasurable value But the fanatics did kill Mr Bruce's Licensing Bill, and the thirty years that have followed have in consequence seen no areatest of our social evils The _Leeds Mercury_ gave an uncoard to the licensing systeer and ill-will of the adherents of the United Kingdoainst me than were the extreht es, but the reader will understand that the editor of a Liberal newspaper as thus placed in a position of antagonism to ether happy lot

Yet I enjoyed it I had my full measure of confidence in the soundness ofjournalist, and in my many encounters with the foes of my own household I always tried not to come off second-best

The year 1873 was memorable to me in another and ain My second wife, who, I alad to say, still survives, was Miss Louisa Berry, of Headingley, Leeds This union brought with it settled doave me once more what I needed--solace and sympathy under my own roof Here perhaps, as I have touched upon private affairs, is the right place to speak about my children The eldest, John Alexander, was born in London, and is the only child of hter Eleanor andto a man i devotion--it was never denied toplace into a home

CHAPTER IX

A NEW ERA IN PROVINCIAL JOURNALISM

Bringing the _Leeds Mercury_ into Line with the London Dailies--Friendshi+p with William Black--The Dissolution of 1874--The Election at Leeds--Mr Chamberlain's Candidature for Sheffield--Mr