ARCHIBALD FORBES, THE WAR CORRESPONDENT.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3596, 20 January 1883, Page 2

ARCHIBALD FORBES, THE WAR CORRESPONDENT.

Many notable personages, from H.11.H. -ho Duke of Edinburgh to Anthony Trollopc

the recently deceased novelist, have been in New Zealand, but seldom has more interest been manifested about a distinguished visitor than that evinced respecting Mr Archibald Forbes, the most enterprising and successful newspaper correspondent of the age. The story of his career reads like a romanceThe profession of the '' war correspondent,'' as developed by tins brilliant member of the Daily News staff, was unknown before he was sent to chronicle the progress of the Franco - Prussian war. Dr. Russell frequently wrote his Crimean despatches for the Times amid storm and tempest; but it was Archibald Forbes who, not content with sniffing the battle afar off, made it a point to be all over the battle-field, and when the thunder of the artillery was over, invoked heaven's lightning for the purpose of transmitting the news of it all over Europe. "Under fire?" he replied to the editor of the London World, " I cannot tell you how often I have been under fire. A correspondent cannot see anything while hanging in the rear. For my part I have always found ! the front the safest place. I have had some close shaves, of course, but was only wounded twice, although I was once left for dead in the streets at the hands of a Paris mob. You tell me this is not journalism—that the correspondent has not interest enough in the quarrel to risk his life. Brother journalists often tell me this. When I leapt on board the Nyanza from my tug to capture the mate of the Cospatrick, burnt on the voyage to New Zealand, and get his story first, I was told 'wily turns and desperate bounds' of this sort were not journalism. When I volunteered to go down with the exploring party into the Pelsall colliery, I was told that was not journalism. It is a matter of temperament, I .suppose; but I like to see what is going on, and I don't like to be second." This is the remarkable man who, having compassed the old and the new worlds, comes to the Antipodes to tell us, like another Ulysses, of the men and cities and battles he has seen. He is a man fit to stand before princes, and has done so; he is a wonderful exemplar of the perseverance, the courage, the ability of the sturdy race to which he belongs. Mr Forbes arrived in Napier this morning, and will make his first appearance in the Theatre Royal on Monday. The management of his lecturing tour is in the hands of Mr R. S. Smythe. To this gentleman we are indebted for many pleasant evenings. The Rev. Charles Clark was wont to kindle our patriotism when he walked with us through the Tower of London and Westminster Abbey, and to excite our admiration as he talked to us of Dickens and Thackeray. Mr Proctor took us still farther afield, amid all the hosts of heaven, and spoke of the moon, our companion planet, as if he had just returned from spending a " personally conducted tour in that dead world. But Mr Forbes will speak of events he has himself witnessed; of illustrious people he has met and known. As one of his critics says, "The ring of his voice said unmistakably, I have seen what I am telling you, and I feel it now." He saw the Emperor of the French surrender his sword to the Emperor of Germany; he was amongst the Communists when they compelled him to assist in erecting a barricade just before they set Paris in flames ; he was a spectator of the murderous assaults on Plevna, where he attended to the wounded; he was present at the finding of the body of the Prince Imperial, and saw the prints of the wounds inflicted by the Zulu assegais; he knew intimately Skobeleff, Bismarck, Moltke, and other great German generals, including the Red Prince, and the Imperial Crown Prince of Germany. Amongst the British warriors whom he has accompanied through various campaigns arc Lord Wolselcy, Sir Evelyn Wood, and other generals who distinguished themselves in the recent Twenty Minutes' War in Egypt. Nor was it only on the red fields of Mara that this famous journalist gained his laurels ; it was not alwaj'H in the midst of "battle, murder, and sudden death," that he furnished information for the breakfast tables of the world. When the Prince of Wales lay, us it was supposed, sick unto death at Sandringham, all England waited breathless, not for the meagre official bulletin, but for the daily report of the special correspondent, "who afterwards had the pleasure of accompanying . His Royal Highness through India. On another occasion he was commissioned to report upon an extensive strike of agricultural labourers in the English midland counties. He investigated thoroughly the condition of the hereditary serf of the soil. He boarded himself out with a farm labourer at Wcllesboume, and had experience of the short commons on which Hodge existed. With a pen graphic as that of Dickens, ho described the miserable lot of the peasantry of " Merrie England " —v life of wearying toil find bad living, with no haven ahead but that of the workhouse, and a parish funeral to end his days. "For ten years," says that popular writer, '' The Vagabond,'' who had frequently met the Daily News correspondent, '' Forbes has in every part of the world sustained and added to the reputation he acquired during the days of the Franco-Prussian war and the Commune: and if now his brows arc bound with victorious wreaths, his bruised arms hung up* for monuments, the battlefield exchanged for the safer position of the lecture platform, and the task of watching the movements of Arabi Bey for that of delighting colonial audiences, Archibald Forbes has well earned the rest, repose, and pecuniary reward which Providence and Smythe havo brought to liim." Tlie juterost of Archibald Forbes' achievements is enhanced by the fact that they relate to events of contemporary history. When the Queen desired him to visit her at Balmoral, it was, doubtless, that she might_ have the evidence of an eye-witness. Accordingly when Forbes was in America the only question that arose was as to his identity. "People are very strange," said the distinguished journalist to the reporter of the N. IT. Tribune, who Tvas interviewing him about his Canadian successes. '' Sometimes a man would buttonhole me and naively usk —' Are you really the man who rode all the way from Shipka to Bucharest, outstripping the Czar's couriers, with news of the great assault on Plevna, ?' Another would say—' Is it a fact, now, that you're the man ivho, after being wounded at the battle of Ultuidi, rode 100 miles in the dark in 14 hours, to telegraph the victory to Sir Garnet Wolscley? , " The simplicity which prompted such questions is amusing, and yet, perhaps, it is not surprising that people in the country that produces wooden nutmegs should feel a little incredulous as to the identity of the lecturer with the famous soldier .scribe. In Now Zealand there is no room for such doubts. Probably even in this colony there are men who went to school with Archibald Forbes and his brothers in the little hamlet of Bohuvm, and others who were fellow students with him at Aberdeen University. The reception Avhich has everywhere been accorded to Mr Forbes during his colonial tour has been enthusiastic in the highest degree. On arriving at Sydney he was met on~the mail steamer by a deputation from the Highland Society of New South Wales, and the same evening the Athenamm Club entertained him at a banquet, the chair being taken by Mr W. B. Dalley, Q.C. A Ministerial picnic to the Blue Mountains was organised in his honor. In the Town Hall, Melbourne, the Mayor gave a grand banquet, to which the Ministry, members of both Houses of Parliament, the leading clergy, the University authorities, and the other principal representatives of literature, science, and art in Victoria, were invited to meet the brilliant journalist. In Adelaide, where our new Governor, Sir William Jorvois, attended every lecture, similar compliments were paid him. The Caledonian Societies in Otago delighted to do honour t o their adventurous countryman, and last Saturday in Christchurch lie was the guest of the representatives of the Press in that city. The platform success of Mr Forbes has been equally gratifying. In Melbourne he had to repeat his course of lectures on i alternate nights, but even then the Opera House was altogether too small for his audiences, and he subsequently gave a third course. In Adelaide the magnificent town hall was thronged nightly by a most attentive audience anxious to hear the bold rider and brilliant writer recount his varied and marvellous experiences. Thus it is satisfactory to know that the "king of the .specials " has lost none of his old energy. Although he has been lecturing nearly every night for the last nine months he has found time to deliver himself of sonic interesting utterances on important Australian topics—such as colonial defences and federation —on which latter question two clover letters from his pen recently appeared in the Argus. At the present time ho is "•ivin"- hi.?impressions of the colonies in a Series of articles in the Sydney Morning Herald.