MR FORBERS LECTURE.

Feilding Star, Volume III, Issue 75, 6 March 1883, Page 3

MR FORBERS LECTURE.

Never have the Feildiiig people had an opportunity of enjoying such an mtellec-ft-IT'fi-ffcft '44! .ftii - afforded, them last night by that p-ince of war correspondents,: Mr Archibald" Forbesi, and certainly never has such a large, quiet, and thoroughly appreciative audience assembled in our own Town Hall, for the ot listening to any single speaker. As might have been expected there was a «pleu<_U- house, and for nearly two hours Ferbep held, his hearers spell-bound iftibv .the exceedingly graphic accouat of his personal adventures ou various scenes of battle. He commenced by announcing that he -should give the substance of two lectures, wiiich he entitled " My expert ■ence '.as a war -correspondent," and ""Kings "iand Pianees whom IJiave met." Mr Forbes soon convinced his Usteners that though perhaps .not an .orator in every fwssfible _ense of the word, he was most thoroughly inearnesti and had the double tqualificatioh, essential to all public *peake_s, -of deeply feeling every word he uttered, and imparting a% similar feeling to his-auditory. Indeed, in our opinion, Mr Forbes possesses all the main features •that characterises a trUe orator. He : first gave a ' -heart-thrilling account of his ♦experience in connection with the FrancoiPrußsian war, detailing the horrorsofthe #eige of Paris, the .commune, Ac A vivid description of scenes of the Rhsso- j Turkish war was hert given, and the jaudience -toed, in magi-ati.*, and witnessed the ierrible assault on Plevna., The 'lecturer then described his visit to ; .the quarters of the Emperor of Russia ifor. the purpose of giving the results of .the battle at-Shipka Pass, and contrasted - -the s -ene. and the then wan, haggard, and (careworn -ffpfcarattce^ ot *h* Emperor, whom he met face tb 'face without any •other .person being' pre_ent,and when the •thought might possibly flash across the imind ot the Czar, a chance this imin hkf io trSl mc," with the scene of __« meeting t_. Emperor m after days in .-all his Imperial Court splendour at St. Petersburg, when the. cares and anxieties, of war, and the. fears of assass- . r .nation no longer precluded his bearing himself with all the dignity of the ruler j <of a great empire. He next gave a brief ] tsketch of his experience during the Afghan i «war, in which were many exciting scenes, ! and then transported hishearers to Zulu- 1 land, where he said he did not arrive till rafter, the melancholy disaster Tsandula, , -'-' : but he was almost ihe first European lo ' "'. «visit the ifield just four months after that . fatal contest! The scene of a thou- : :_and bodies Of brave British warriors ; -still lying upon the ground exposed rto all the influences of tlie| •weather was, he said, too utterly melan- _ <eho!y for any possible description. A 1 imost pathetic and affecting account of \ the finding of the body of the Prince imperial, after the battle of Uhrtdi, so ■ ■victoriously wok by the British, the j •description of the discovery of the naked Ibleediiig body of the Imperial youth, •covered from' head to foot with assegai nvounds, and the party, of which Mr: Forbes was one, standing reverently with \ •uncovered heads,, while an cut j slocks of the poor youth's hair, and en- -. •closed It in an envelope to forward to his . another,' was deeply affecting, and secured : t& most breathless attention. _i _______——■