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November 2, 2020

¶ 1 Leave a comment on paragraph 1 0 June 18, 1853.]

¶ 2 Leave a comment on paragraph 2 0 THE ILLUSTRATED LONDON NEWS.

¶ 3 Leave a comment on paragraph 3 0 503

¶ 4 Leave a comment on paragraph 4 0 the greatest man of whom the annals of that illustrious party can boast and to whose memory we earnestly wish a worthy biographer—we turn at last to Charles Fox. He was born after the days of Parliamentary corruption—as distinguished from electoral corruption—had ceased: with a far greater genius, both for politics proper, and for oratory, than that of Walpole—with less passion for power, and, alas! with stronger general passions—with a more feverish love of pleasure, a keener zest for immediate excitement, a stormier temper, a warmer heart, and a more exuberant imagination ; buoyant, ardent, confident, generous, uncontrollable; that man suddenly came upon the political scene, who, of all that ever figured in this country, was the most capable of “ wielding the fierce democracy,” had it been. But the day of the democracy was not yet. It is as though the magician, who had learned the most potent of spells over the most potent of the spirits, had preceded the creation of that very minister; but now that the spirit is abroad, he well knows, too late for the “ charmer,” his dead master. The spell is active, and the worker sleeps.

¶ 5 Leave a comment on paragraph 5 2 Charles James Fox was born just twenty years before the two men who have given to the times in which we now live their very “ form and pressure;” just twenty years before Napoleon and Wellington; he was born just ten years before his great rival the second Pitt, and in the same year with the most remarkable man in the modern history of Germany, John Wolfgang Goethe. 1749, 1759, and 1769 are memorable dates. Just one century before the birth of the illustrious Commoner, Charles I. was executed, and the principles of the Great Rebellion” gained their culminating point. Just sixty years before his birth, those principles which, for a whole generation, had been buried under the tide of a fierce but transient reaction, emerged again under a safer, more mitigated, and more durable form, and were made triumphant at the Revolution. About the exact time of his birth the House of Stuart, the representative of arbitrary power in England had made its last desperate struggle in vain ; and at the same epoch, began gently in France the movement which was destined to lead by a bloodier path to a more nugatory revolution, in the overthrow, however, of a still older and more arbitrary dynasty.

¶ 6 Leave a comment on paragraph 6 0 Fox entered very early in life upon his political eareer; he voted and spoke in the House of Commons before he was of age. Nor was the great rival long behind him, who ten years his junior, was destined to die at nearly the very same period, after having won an immeasurably longer portion of administrative power. Two circumstances conspired to give Pitt a decided advantage in this respect over Fox. The horrors of the French Revolution spoke to the eye; the ulterior and more permanent tendency of it as well as its irresistible force spoke only to the understanding. Sensible effects take the lead of longsighted reasonings, in point of time. It may indeed be as vain to bring water-engines against a volcano in eruption, as to endeavour to repress by arms such an outburst as the French Revolution; but men could be more readily induced to make even that vain attempt than to listen, in the first frenzy of their repugnance and alarm, to consolations about the fertilizing properties of the lava which the fire would leave behind it—about the folly of seeking to control that which inevitably would and must have its way—and about the pestilent nature of much, very much, of what was sure to be (all efforts notwithstanding) consumed by its rage. Fox was doomed now, as in the previous instance of the infatuated American war, to address his countrymen with the sublime curse of Cassandra upon all his words. Pitt shot the rapids, while Fox was battling with the current.

¶ 7 Leave a comment on paragraph 7 0 Another circumstance which must be taken into account is this. The people had recently conquered the power of the Crown; and had not yet waked to the faintest suspicion that it was next necessary to baffle the management of the Court. Satisfied with victory, secure in proved strength, the nation thought that, in that respect, all, and more than all, was already accomplished. Meantime, while the triumph was gained, the fruits of it were withheld—the real struggle was over; but the spoils, which could not now be defended by open power, were long misappropriated by furtive, though organised contrivances. Even with the representation which then existed, Fox would at any time have had the support of the people, if only the people had yet begun to discern that the real principles of the revolution, though in full theoretical recognition, were not in full practical operation. Very little importance is to be attached to any supposed reaction after Walpole’s long Whig administration; because Walpole was no people’s man, but a real Whig of the old school, “ and nothing more” —a Whig of the times of their “ Discipline of the Secret” supported by his party while they thought him a good oligarch, deserted by them as soon as they found that he was an unmanageable autocrat.

¶ 8 Leave a comment on paragraph 8 2 We give rather more weight to what is fairly and truly said of the personal character of Fox himself. He was rather idle in his disposition, and never once did full and perfect justice to his Titanic powers. He was profuse in his expenditure, and not decent in his life. He loved power less, and pleasure even more, than fame. The good of his country and the advancement of the whole human race, and, above all, the deliverance of oppressed classes from any grievous wrong, were objects which could and did excite in his large heart and ardent brain the fire of a noble enthusiasm. To those objects he would have sacrificed his life, and even a game at quinze; but for those objects, he would not have forsworn quinze for six months, during the best period of his career. He was a frenetic gambler—the most devoted, and probably the most unfortunate frequenter of the notorious club at Almack’s. Strange was the scene which its interior exhibited. On the table lay commonly some ten thousand pounds, in spec.e alone, piled in a circular colonnade of fifty guineas to each rouleau. Around stood wild and peregrinate figures, wearing great coats of frieze or leather tunics for luck; on their heads conical high-crowned hats, adorned with feathers and streaming with ribbons of various colours. They wore masks, to hide the contortions of countenance which joy, despair, and anxiety excited. At each player’s elbow rose a neat stand, supporting his tea, and a wooden bowl, with or moulu edge, for his gold. In that room, amid that company, time flew unheeded, or marked only by the silent catastrophes of the stakes, and by the change and the ruin of large fortunes. To enter that room great oblations were made, great interests were immolated. Money was borrowed at incredible usury from Jews ; and Fox even denominated the apartment where his lenders used to await him at home his ” Jerusalem Chamber.” His prodigious abilities were never duly cultivated or fully exerted; and cultivated and exerted as they were, they never procured for him with a halfscandalised, half-indulgent public, the credit, the influence, and the ascendancy to which he might have so confidently aspired. We believe the mental powers of Pitt to have been inferior; we believe his policy to have been unhappy; and yet we wonder not at his constant triumphs over this reckless competitor. On one occasion, on which Fox shone with peculiar lustre in the House of Commons, his preparation is known to us through Horace Walpole. “Fox,” he observes, “was dissolute, dissipated, idle beyond measure. He was that very morning returned from Newmarket, where he had lost some thousand pounds the preceding day. He had stopped at Hockerel, where he found company; had sat up all night drinking, and had not been in bed when he came to move his bill, which he had not even drawn up.” Of the triumph he gained, under these circumstances, Walpole adds, “This was genius— was almost inspiration.”

¶ 9 Leave a comment on paragraph 9 0 It was. A more extraordinary man has seldom appeared in civilised history than this lavishly-endowed, erratic, and brave-hearted Englishman. His father’s miserable teaching he early unlearned, and replaced with better things in what concerned the public; but from its fatal effects he never was delivered in what regarded himself. One Whig of the true school delayed and somewhat warped his career, misdirected his character, and destroyed his personal happiness: that Whig was his father. Another has now, by these “ Memorials,” committed an ill- deserved slight on his transcendant political renown.

¶ 10 Leave a comment on paragraph 10 0 Memorandums made in Ireland, in the Autumn of 1852. By John Forbes, M.D., F.R.S.A. Author of “ A Physician’s Holiday.” With a Map and Illustrations. Two volumes, pp. 751. Smith, Elder, and Co.

¶ 11 Leave a comment on paragraph 11 0 Dr. Forbes, who a few years ago made such admirable use of his summer vacation as to supply the public with an excellent description of a journey to Switzerland, visited Ireland last year, in his holiday time, and the result is another and a much larger book.

¶ 12 Leave a comment on paragraph 12 0 Landing at Kingstown, in the early part of August, he made a complete tour of the island, proceeding first to the south. He left no great district and no important place unvisited. The black north, the desolate west, and the turbulent south, were all explored. He was at Cork, Limerick, Galway, Londonderry, Armagh, and every other town of note, except Waterford; and everywhere the objects which engaged his attention were multifarious. The lower classes of the people—their cottages, their pigs, their dresses, diet, wages, labour, dispositions, and appearance—interested him much. Workhouses, their dietaries, and diseases, teetotalism, farming, fishing, geology, the round towers, the police, the Roman Catholic and Established Churches, and their

¶ 13 Leave a comment on paragraph 13 0 respective teaching, the Government and its favouritism, absenteeism, education, antiquities, mines, emigration, tenant-right, the landscapes, are a few only of the many subjects on which he has made memorandums. We trace in them all the same amiable, cheerful, philanthrophic and industrious spirit that marked his former production. We trust him unhesitatingly, and differ from him with reluctance and regret. If we sometimes find the memorandums trivial, we are always pleased with the author’s good temper, and instructed at every page. He is the reverse of those travellers, one of whom he encounters and describes, who find all “ barren betwixt Dan and Beersheba;” he finds fertility everywhere, and gathers fruit from beggar-boys and glowing landscapes—from the most ancient memorials of superstition and the most modern acts of statesmanship. A little garrulous he may be, and indeed must be to fill so many pages; but acute discernment and calm good sense are always apparent. He is, from old date, a rigid but unpledged teetotaller; and one of his favourite inquiries is into the present condition of teetotalism in Ireland. Father Mathew’s crusade against intemperance, he characterises as a remarkable event in the social history of nations ; but his memorandums clearly establish the fact that “ the great banded army of pledged abstainers from intoxicating drinks has long been broken in pieces, and the numbering of the host has come down from millions to thousands and from thousands to hundreds.” Everywhere he meets with individuals who were, but are not, abstainers. That great movement therefore, like other “ outbursts of general enthusiasm,” has come prematurely to an end, though much benefit from it yet remains, and may “ never entirely pass away.” Indeed, when we remember how short a time has yet elapsed since drunkenness was a fashionable vice amongst the upper and the middle classes in almost every part of Europe, but especially in Germany, England, Scotland, and Ireland, we agree with Dr. Forbes that the total abstinence movement is the precursor of such a moderate use of spirituous liquors that the consumption individually, in comparison to that of the present time, will come to seem marvellously small.

¶ 14 Leave a comment on paragraph 14 0 Another topic of great temporary interest on which Dr. Forbes makes memorandums, is the feelings of the people in regard to emigration. The number of persons who have gone from Ireland, and who are continually going, the immense sums which those who have gone have dutifully and affectionately transmitted to hasten the going of many who have remained, are known from the public journals; but the general distress of separation—of breaking up families, and of leaving the old country, is vividly brought before us, by such pictures as this, of individual distress.:—

¶ 15 Leave a comment on paragraph 15 0 A party of emigrants had come or were coming on board, and were now taking leave of their friends with every token of the most passionate distress. With that utter unconsciousness and disregard of being the observed of all observers, which characterises authentic sorrow, these warmhearted and simple-minded people demeaned themselves entirely as if they had been shrouded in all the privacy of home, clinging to and kissing and embracing each other with the utmost ardour,  calling  out aloud, in broken tones, the endearing names of brother, sister, mother, sobbing and crying as if the very heart would burst, while the unheeded tears ran down from the red and swollen eyes literally in streams. It was a sight that no human being could see unmoved; and when the final orders were given to clear the ship and withdraw the gangway, the howl of agony that rose at once from the parting deck and the abandoned pier, was perfectly overpowering. “ O Mary! O Kitty! O mother dear! 0 brother! O sister! God bless you! God preserve you! The Lord in Heaven protect you ! ” and a thousand other wild and pious ejaculations, broken and intermixed by agonising cries and choking sobs, literally filled the air, and almost drowned the roar of the engine and the wheels that tore the loving hearts that uttered them asunder.

¶ 16 Leave a comment on paragraph 16 0 Amid the crowds of people on the pier, swaying to and fro as they shouted aloud and waved their hats and handkerchiefs, several women were seen kneeling on the stones, kneeling and weeping, with their hands raised fixedly above them, and so continuing as long as they could be distinguished from the receeding vessel.

¶ 17 Leave a comment on paragraph 17 0 Several young unmarried women were going to Australia, expecting to be taken as domestic servants immediately on their arrival.  They too had been invited, on the same irresistible terms, by their absent friends and relations, to share their exile. There were one or two complete families, father and mother and children; but most of them were but but links of a broken chain which had its ends in the opposite quarter of the earth.

¶ 18 Leave a comment on paragraph 18 3 Among the most deeply affected of these poor exiles were two young girls, who, at the invitation of some friends in Australia, were leaving nearly all the links of their chain of affection behind them. I believe one of the kneelers on the pier was their mother, as when dragged forcibly from them, she had sunk on her knees as she. had reached the shore. They had a brother also, a strong, rough, long-coated young fellow, who, notwithstanding all remonstrances and entreaties that he would leave his sisters and go on shore, had so many last words and fresh leave-takings, that when he at last broke loose from them, he found the gangway hauled up, and the ship’s side some distance from the pier. I don’t think he intended this, but his stay was an evident respite both to himself and his sisters. In his various subsequent attempts to cheer his sisters, he at length adopted one expedient, which I presume must be regarded as completely national; he set-to, with right good-will and with all his might, to dance jigs before them ! Poor fellow, it was at once laughable and melancholy to see the mingled grotesque and sorrowful expression of his countenance, more especially when, amid his formal mirth, he now and then caught a glance of his sisters rubbing their swollen eyes. He however, kept up wonderfully well until our arrival at the next stoppingplace (Williamstown), when the final leave-taking was made, and he took his departure from the ship, setting up, as soon as he descended into the boat, such another portentous howl, as had signalised the parting at Killaloe.

¶ 19 Leave a comment on paragraph 19 0 Dr. Forbes, in common with most travellers in Ireland, is a great admirer of the Irish women, and of the cheerful disposition of the Irish. Some of his portraits are quite charming. We must give one or two specimens.

¶ 20 Leave a comment on paragraph 20 0 In a small shop in the suburbs of Kildare, I found a middle-aged woman and her son making tin saucepans; the department of the mother being to solder the seams. The cottage was tolerably clean, and had furniture, and the mistress was both merry and wise. Se made her living by selling her manufactured wares about the country. She pays £3 per annum rent for her own cottage and one adjoining, which she lets to a labouring man at, which if I recollect right, sixpence per week. We went in to look at this cottage, and found it literally without a single article of Standing furniture, except a small settle-bed in one corner, on which sprawled an infant of about twelve or sixteen months old. There was neither chair, nor stool, nor table, nor box on the earthen floor. The good tin-woman took up the baby and nursed it with the greatest kindness, cheering it up with her merry smile and laugh. In a short time the mother of the child came in. She was a remarkably good-looking and healthy-looking young woman, and,—what might have hardly been expected in such a place,— cleanly and even neatly dressed. I forgot to ask her, but, from her general appearance, I have little doubt that she had derived her tidiness, amid such poverty, from having been educated either in a National School or in an Union Workhouse. Her husband, a labouring man, she said, was at work in the fields, and could, at this harvest time, earn tenpence a day. In other seasons he could earn only sixpence, and often could get no work at all. She and her landlady were evidently on very good terms, and I doubt not that this true Irishwoman was as kind as she was

¶ 21 Leave a comment on paragraph 21 0 cheerful. * * * *

¶ 22 Leave a comment on paragraph 22 0 In this ascent I had for my guide a little girl of fourteen, whom I met at a cabin door at the foot of the mountain. She was active, cheerful, and intelligent, and sprung up the rocks and over the bogs, with her bare feet, as nimbly and securely as a goat. I had a good deal of talk with her; and, child as she was, I could not help thinking that, in her little history and feelings, she afforded no bad illustration of the condition and mental wants of a large class of her countryfolk. She had lost both her father and mother several years ago, and had since been employed as a helper in several houses,—one a school, where she got her living and some education for her services. During the last year she had come to keep house for her two brothers in the cabin above mentioned, they being both employed in the neighbourhood, one as an occasional servant, the other as a cowherd. Her housekeeping consisted, almost exclusively of boiling potatoes and making stirabout, there being scarcely anything in the way of furniture to be kept in order. As her brothers were from home all day, her life was solitary enough; and, as she had no hopes here to cheer her, it was no wonder that she had longings to try her fortune elsewhere.

¶ 23 Leave a comment on paragraph 23 0 It was, indeed, painfully obvious that the poor girl’s whole mind was absorbed in dreams about England; hoping, where there seemed no hope, of being able, somehow or other, to get there. Once there, she seemed to have no doubts or fears of success, although, poor thing, she had scarcely a notion as to how this success was to be obtained. Working in the house or in the field seemed to Mary Halloran a matter of perfect indifference, so long as there was work, and work could bring her food and clothes, and the chance, if not the prospect, of better things.

¶ 24 Leave a comment on paragraph 24 0 It was touching to see the keen, eager, yet subdued look of the poor girl, as she asked and spoke about England, clearly revealing the unexpressed half-hope within her, that she might possibly, even now, have found in her companion, a guide to her land of promise. Poor child, I wish it could have been so! Few things are, at anytime, more painful than to reject the appeal of a poor man—

¶ 25 Leave a comment on paragraph 25 0 “ Who begs his brother of the earth To give him leave to toil; ”

¶ 26 Leave a comment on paragraph 26 0 and the painfulness of rejection was enhanced, in the present case, by the youth and orphanage or the client, and by the very humility and diffidence which smothered in silence the longings of the heart.

¶ 27 Leave a comment on paragraph 27 0 Here is a more general picture:-

¶ 28 Leave a comment on paragraph 28 1 In the small market-place of Skibbereen the same indications of the poverty of the people were painfully indicated by the humble dealings going on. The articles for sale were chiefly potatoes, turnips, and carrots, salted fish, and butter-milk, with such trifling articles as country people need, as coarse crockery, nails, &c. The buyers were all of the humblest class, and a halfpenny, or even a farthing was not seldom the whole outlay of the purchaser. Nor was this the lowest depth. These humble buyers and sellers were attended—I had almost said surrounded—by a motely group in rags, who had not even farthings to give, and who were manifestly calculating on receiving from kind hands some portion of their humble receipts or of their unsold substance.

¶ 29 Leave a comment on paragraph 29 0 These poor wretches, of course, turned towards me, obviously a stranger; and it was very pleasant; and I almost think, characteristic of this cordial people, to see the readings, I may indeed say the eagerness with which the poor stall-keepers urged the claims of their yet poorer neighbours, with such recommendations as “ This is a poor widow, your Honour,” “ This is an ould sickly creature, your Honour,” “ The poor woman is a cripple,’ “ Sure the poor girl has neither father nor mother,” &c. Even the beggars themselves seemed to have foregone all professional rivalry, and strove to help one another in the same manner. A poor woman to whom I had given a penny in passing along the street, soon came up to me holding a poor idiot girl by the hand, and begged something of my Honour for her

¶ 30 Leave a comment on paragraph 30 0 It was also pleasant to see how, amid all these humble and, as we should think, very miserable and disheartening dealings, the cordial and mirthful spirit of the nation seemed still to triumph among these honest market-women. In the intervals of their dealings, the laugh and joke went round among themselves, and they talked and jested with the stranger with the most unaffected good-humour and seeming content; and as much at their ease as if the acquaintance of the moment had been one of old standing, and they had no cares to make them grave. I could not help thinking, as I went away, how different would have been my reception in an English market-place,  stamped with such poverty as this ; and how unlike would have been the prevailing tone of the grave and thoughtful matrons presiding oyer our tubs and baskets.

¶ 31 Leave a comment on paragraph 31 0 Dr. Forbes is also a firm believer in the virtues of the men, whom he estimates highly. He paints them as warm, impulsive, passionate; but steady when allowed time to cool. He is Of ho political party, though his leanings are all on the side of liberality and freedom. He touches with a light yet careful hand the political condition of Ireland; and, while he disabuses the public of the notion that the English peasantry and lower classes generally are much better off than the Irish, he admits that a multitude of things require to be improved; and he insists that it is only by tracing individually the many disorders that constitute her great disease to their respective sources that a just knowledge of the nature of the evils to be remedied can be obtained. An “ empirical politician, he observes, selecting a particular evil and magnifying it into the whole disease, may apply a nostrum and effect a partial cure ; but the constitutional malady cannot suddenly be removed. Yet one thing must be done at a time, and when right principles are once established we may leave to circumstances to dictate in detail which of the many measures they point out shall first be executed. “ The equalization of the churches ” is one thing recommended by sound principle, and Dr. Forbes believes that the class of statesmen who have emancipated the slave and the Catholic—who have reformed the Parliament, and established Free- trade, will be equal to abate the great religious grievance of Ireland. From his careful inquiries into the habits, manners, social characteristics, and opinions of the people, he is well entitled to say what they desire, and to decide-what might be politically advantageous to them. At the same time, his political observations are neither so valuable nor so numerous as his memorandums of the present social condition of the Irish. His book is a very complete description of that people, and we lay it down with a confirmed conviction that the Irish, when not misled,, are worthy of the better fate which seems dawning on them in their own country, and in the new countries of the Far West, where they are now fixing their homes.

¶ 32 Leave a comment on paragraph 32 1 The Bridges of London. “Are more Bridges Needed?” Answered Affirmatively. By Francis Bennoch. E. Wilson.

¶ 33 Leave a comment on paragraph 33 0 The bridges of the metropolis are its noblest engineering structures; and they are almost entirely the works of our own times. Little more than a century since, London possessed but one bridge; it has now five .bridges, exclusive of the Hungerford Suspension-bridge, for foot-passengers only; but daily experience proves this accommodation to be insufficient for the vastly increased population of the metropolis and its Suburbs.

¶ 34 Leave a comment on paragraph 34 1 Mr. Bennoch, the active and intelligent member of the Court of Common-council, in the pamphlet before us, proves that he has paid especial attention to the details of its subject; and one of its startling facts is, that, within a fraction, London-bridge has as much traffic as all the Other bridges put together; whilst Westminster-bridge has half of London; Blackfriars, half of Westminster; Waterloo, one- third of Blackfriars; and Southwark, one-fourth of Waterloo. To relieve this plethora of traffic, Mr. Bennoch proposes new bridges at St. Paul’s, the Temple, and Charing-cross. These bridges, it is proposed, should be free—and we agree with Mr. Bennoch, that all bridges should be, in a metropolis like London; indeed, the existence of a tollbridge in the first city in the world is a sad scandal to its intelligence, in this age of “ unfettered commercial intercourse.” One of the readiest means of remedying this anomaly—by the purchase of South- wark-bridge—has been negotiated by the Corporation of London; but it is now demonstrated that a bridge may be built for one-third of the sum demanded by the directors of the Southwark-bridge Company. St. Paul’s-bridge, to which the attention of the Corporation is especially directed, is proposed to be built in a line with a new street past the east end of the Cathedral, Old Change, and Lambeth- hill, from Thames-street, across the river to Mason’s-stairs, thence by a straight line to the Elephant and Castle. “ London-bridge,” says Mr. Bennoch, “ has already traffic enough for three bridges of equal width;” added to which, there are difficulties of approach by Southwark- bridge, which render a new level structure the best remedy. There are minor details, which confirm Mr. Bennoch’s affirmation for new bridges ; strengthened in a postscript, quoting the announcement by the First Commissioner of Works, that it has been determined to rebuild Westminster-bridge, and that it is projected to build additional bridges at Charing-cross and Lambeth. If, then, asks Mr. Bennoch, with much point, the new bridge at Westminster, which will be fully as wide as the new London-bridge, is held to be unequal to the traffic of the district, and two additional bridges are demanded, how much  more does the argument apply to London-bridge in favour of an additional bridge within the City boundary; which may be built for £50,000 less than the cost of the repairs of Blackfriars- bridge, now to be taken down ? In conclusion, we recommend the pamphlet before us as a very lucid exposition of a great accommodation to be secured upon the most economical and advantageous terms to the public. Moreover, the brochure is full of interesting statistics; and its arguments are fully supported by documentary evidence, printed in the form of an appendix.

¶ 35 Leave a comment on paragraph 35 1 The Dublin Exhibition continues to be successful, and the attendance at the shilling charge has been very considerable. The expectation of the Queen’s coining awakens great interest throughout the country; several mansions are named as likely to be honoured by a Royal stay. The report of the Royal visit is confirmed. The Black Eagle has been ordered to remain, at Portsmouth in readiness to accompany the Royal yacht to Dublin. Prince Louis Lucien Bonaparte is announced as another Royal visitor already on his way to Dublin.

¶ 36 Leave a comment on paragraph 36 1 The Royal Garden at Holyrood Palace.—I cannot help noticing a disgraceful fact which has only lately come to my knowledge. There is adjoining the Palace of Holyrood, an ancient garden of the old kings of Scotland; in it is a curious sun-dial, with Queen Mary’s name on it. There is a pear-tree planted by her hands, and there are many other deeply-interesting traces of the royal race, who little dreamed how their old stately palaces were to be profaned, after they themselves were laid in the dust. The garden of the Royal Stuarts is now let to a market gardener! Are there no true-hearted Scotchman left, who will redeem it from such desecration.—Notes and Queries.

¶ 37 Leave a comment on paragraph 37 2 The West Kent Poultry Exhibition.—This show was held at Farnham, 14th, 15th, 16th, and 17th inst. ‘ It comprised as usual a large number of Cochin-China fowls, mostly marked at very high prices, which in some cases they realised—a coop of chickens, seven weeks old, fetching £25. There was also a good sprinkling of Dorkings ; a lew game; some very excellent Spanish were shown by Mrs. Owen, and first-rate Polands by Mr. Rawson, and Messrs. Baker, of Chelsea. Mr. John Fairlin, of Chevely, carried off ten prizes; Messrs. Baker, of Chelsea, nine; and Mr. Adkins, of Birmingham, several, for pigeons. We shall next week present our readers with the portraits of Mr. Raw- son’s and Messrs. Baker’s Polish and silk fowls, which were exceedingly fine specimens, and are imported birds. The flower-show was small, but good. The azaleas were particularly fine; there was some good fruit, especially grapes; also melons, cucumbers. On the whole, the show was exceedingly satisfactory. The arch over the bridge, composed of evergreens, flowers, &c., was the most artistic decoration of the kind we remember to have seen.