Br vox Vex. tux Ancupzscox A. E. Movur, 3.0.
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The old coaching days and the penetration of railways south and south-west of London, I remember well. The London coaches took, I think, two days and two nights ea the rad—some coming by Southampton, some further west; the guards with blunder busses and. other weapons in the coach's boot, " passed our door to our constant delight, stopping always to pat on an extra drag as the far borges wegt down the dangorows hill into Dorchestar—afterwards lowered and rendered safer by my father. Now, you ran down to Dorchester from London proso in three hours and forty-five ies. I used ta go with my bother Charles and our tator, a keen fly-fisher: as we too aspired to be, to Exeter, fifty-two miles by coach. We used to start—the ostlers and the coachman and guard rubbing their eyes and only haltavake—at 3 a.m, on a sammer morning and we reached Exeter at 2 p.m.—a journey which oan be accomplished now, if trains connect, in two and a-half It is interesting to notice the forecasts and prophesies of Gladstone's Railway Bill to the effect that railways woald raise wages all round and adi largely to the employment of the people. Tfoand this to be the case in the small country parish in Dorset which I held for four years. The steady flow of population went to the towns, or to the to better themselves—not always. 'a snocessfal adventare—and imperilling the nation's great asset of the due culture of, her own soil. The employment of navy or " navigator" labour in bauding the countless railways has been of course enormous; and the strength of these rough men phenomenal. I remember a gang of men changing in a month's time the broad gauge of the G. W. R. to an intermediate width over 160 miles track: and all on temperance drinks. It is interesting to surmise how railways in China will effect wages generally drag ba sey sparse agricultural population from the fields, and lower the place of agricul-tare in the country's estimate of dignity and honour—first scholars, second agriculturists, third artisans, fourth merchants. In the August catty rice harvest this year near Ningpo, labour mas scarce and w much higher than of old; and but for the brilliant fre age ait mas, might hare bean half dry weather, the crop, much under I well remember the first 8. W. R. train arriving at Dorebester—the thi class now on our chief lines is) palatial and luxurious in splendour compared with the firsts of those days, and the third-class in 1846 or 80) consisted of bare seats open on the top of first or second-class carriages. I have seen what I daresay north country men here may have seen, the!
Paffing Billy" the first small engine which ran on the original line between Manchester and Liverpool.
Then comes on in my memory's panorama the Anti-Corn Law agitation and the great leaders Bright and Cobden, Sir Robert Peel one of the! earliest and noblest of liberal Conservatives, looking at the movement kindly, Gladstone for " time opposing it vigorously, Their great, if not very high souled, motto was "to bay in the cheapest market, and sell in the dearest."
My memory just touches the fringe of the great movement; for Cobden himself, I think it was, came to Dorchester and addressed a small radical gathering in the Conservative Town, from a waggon in our playing-field beyond the vicarage garden. heard afar the voice; but thought it the correct thing to be " strong Tory, though to tell the trath my dear father's large heart was ever abreast with all trae reform and progress, Far off in my memory' auditorium I am sure I heard the voice of Sir James Graham who died the year Leame to China, 1861; and for whom Gladstone entertained "an enormous admiration,"
My memory just here touches and then glances off from a subject of profound and vital interest to England just now—the subject of national education. Nothing at all was done by the State and the Government in this great work before 1834, and rural Englend at any rate might have gone back to barbarism, but for the unsparing and generous efforts of clergy and ministers, Charch of England, Roman Catholic and Non-Conformist, to give some sort of education to their people. It is worth remembering this-when so-called Denorminational Schools" are being treated rather harshly. [can remember my father getting up ai 5 a.m. to teach the teacher of his village school. He began schools in this large vil which had none before, in 1828 la a small upper room of a cottage; and lio never rested till he bad—though poor himself and with no rich people.in the place—collected money to build a noble school, still standing, to secommodate 400 children, The National and British and Roman Catholic Schools—all voluntary, and till later unaided—saved the land. It is said that £30,000,000 now would be required bay at their fall value the school buildings and land provided by the Church of England alone. Astonishing also is the change all round, that my memory describes. un my father's ancient Church up to, I think, 1875 or so, we never had any light bat tallow dips—and never any warming of the Charch at all by stoves or hot air or water—we just out it out in our thickest great Sir Robert Peel died in 1850. We re out on a summer holiday with my father—and he saw the telegram at the station as we passed. His exclamation of sorrow and anxiety I can hear now. "Now is the stately column broke, The beacon light is quenched in smoke, The trampot's silver voice is still, The warder silent on the hill, 1851 was the Great Exhibition year—the original palace of glass designed and built by Joseph Paxton, afterwards shred, "head gardener I think at the time at Chateworth; but the whole idea was the large thought of the Prines Consort, Prince Albert as he was in those days, the hope of universal and lasting from the barmonious exhibition of the fruits of peace in all lands; and from the happy welcome of those commissioned by all States to attend, I was there with my father and brothers. I can just member the turnstiles and scarlet curtained entrances, It was here that the Frenchman asked his immortal question, French idiom in English dress.
Am I defended to return once more The great and overpowering tones of Grey and Davidson's and of Walker's rival orguus, I oan also hear still, bat nothing more. The Queen and the Prince went into the city to dine with the Lord Mayor, one of the exhibition nights. I and my brothers had sents on the roof of Punch" office in Fleet Street. watched the dense crowds below and the cavalry sentries backing the foreks. Then the royal carriage passed by, and I caught the only glimpse of the Queen's face which I was ever to see. My uncle was printer and publisher of "Punch" in those days, and later of the "Daily News"; and my father calling there met more than once at their weekly meetings the wits and geniuses of the day.—Thackeray, Mark Lemon, Doyle, Dickens.
Our family bad also s connexion with Disraeli, in his younger days; aod in 1824 Disraeli then a Government clerk starting for Brassels on business, was commissioned to take the news of my father and mother's engagement to friends on the Continent. This re minds me of one or two other men of sub: eqnent high name whom I have met and who possibly did just catch sight of me. Professor Richard Owen, probably the greatest anatomist and geologist of hie time, I met, and was introduced to him by my father. He was calling on Owen at the British Museum sbout some of his own discoveries, and Owen with his great laminous eyes looked at starting for hina and gave me to collect specimens of the fauna for him, and he gave me his book of hints and directions for shifting and preparing, which I fear I have never fully followed. In 1856-7 I met in Malta s wan who ought to be far more generally known snd remembered than I fear is the case; kind and true friend he was to me at o time of need, M. Duansot, a Genevese banker, after words. the inventor and founder and
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.