OUR LONDON LETTER.

Globe, Volume II, Issue 191, 19 January 1875, Page 3

OUR LONDON LETTER.

(From a correspondent of the Press.') London, November 27th, 1874. November in London ia chiefly famous—or rather infamous—for Guy Fawkes' day, the Lord Mayor’s show, fogs, and, according to some curious statistics recently published, suicides. It is indeed a triste mouth. The French call it le moU deg marts , and this November seems to bo thoroughly earning its gloomy reputation. We have been having an exceptionally sickly season, and accidents by land and sea have been rife amongst us. On Thursday evening last a man-o’-war’s boat was upset by a steamer in the Clyde, with a loss of fifteen lives, and on Friday morning a terrific colliery explosion occurred •t Rawmarsh, in Yorkshire, by which twentythree men were killed. It has been a season of explosions, and it would seem as if the French, with characteristic jealousy, were pmyilling to be outdone by us in this respect. A terrible explosion, on much the sajpe principle as our Regent’s Park catastrophe, happened in Paris last week; but as a piece of rivalry it was a failure; ours was on a larger scale. The most absorbing question with us just now is the one raised by Mr Gladstone in his pamphlet, *‘The Vatican Decrees in their bearing on Civil Allegiance.” It is a sequel to his former article on “ Ritual and Ritualism,” and is a lengthy and exhaustive exposition of his statement in that article, that no one can become a convert to Rome without placing his loyalty and civil duty at the mercy of another. Mr Gladstone in the first line assures us that bis “ purpose is not polemical, but pacific.” Whatever the purpose, however, polemical the result has been, bnd pacific it most certainly is not proving itself to be. Doctor Manning, the Romau Catholic Archbishop of Westminster,' was the first, »8 Mim* the position of Papal ttfprs-

sentative in this country, to take up the glove, and the religious conflict waxes more and more bitter every day. There is a split in the Roman Catholic camp, and a serious one too. Lord Acton, Lord Camoys, and Mr Petre, three influential Roman Catholics, publicly repudiate the powers of the Vatican in the matter of loyal duty, and hold that their civil allegiance is- irreconcilable with the Papal pretensions. Not only England, but half Europe, is plunged into a polemical war concerning the powers of the Pope. Dr. Manning has proceeded to Rome. Our “hearts of oak” have been gladdened by the determination of the present Government to tit out another Arctic Expedition. Our secession from Arctic exploration, after having striven so gallantly in the cause, has for many years been a source of regret to the navy, it was a field where lessons invaluable to seamanship—self-reliance, energy, endurance, promptitude in the face of danger, fertility in resource—were to be learned, and in these days of peace to abandon Arctic exploration was to give up the only valuable practical training school for our navy that we had, Nelson himself said that his experience gained amidst the dangers and difficulties of Arctic voyaging was ever serviceable to him ; or, to put it in his own words, " Made me confident of myself amid rocks and sands, which has many times since been of the greatest comfort to me.” But it is not only from this point of view that the action of the Government is satisfactory. A large section of the scientific world are highly favorable to the project. That vast unknown region which lies within the 80th parallel of latitude, comprising two millions of square miles, is of mysterious interest to the man of science : —*• It may be shown that no such extent of unknown area in any part of the world ever failedsto yield results of practical as well as of purely scientific value ; and it may be safely urged that as it is mathematically certain that this area exists, it is impo sible that its examination can fail to add largely to the sum of human knowledge.” The expedition will start in the course of next spring, probably in May. It will consist of two whaling steamers, now being selected in our northern whaling ports of Scotland, with a complement of from 100 to 120 officers and men, belonging exclusively to the royal navy. They will be absent about two years and a half, their instructions being to return under any circumstances in the fall of 1877. The officers will be selected for their scientific qualifications, and the staff of the expedition will be organised at once. The command, it is reported, will be given to Commander Markham, now serving on board H.M.S. Sultan, The arrangements are being made thus early in order that the officers may at once apply themselves to the further acquirement of the special scientific knowledge required. For years we have yielded our post of honor in this field of daring enterprise to America, Germany, and even inland Austria, and the resumption of our old place in the van of Arctic discovery is hailed with satisfaction throughout the country. So popular is the movement in the navy that the Admirals Superintendent at the different ports are already overwhelmed with applications from volunteers—both officers and men. The cost of the expedition is estimated at £30,000 a year. Lady Franklin has taken the opportunity to announce that her reward of £2OOO for the recovery of the official records of Sir John Franklin’s expedition still holds good. Interesting news has been received from Colonel Gordon, who is exploring the Upper Nile. On the sth September he was at Gondokoro, fully confident of being able to launch the steamer, sent outfrom England in sections, on the famous Albert Nyanza, before the end of September. News has also arrived from Mr H. M. Stanley, who is now in East Africa continuing, under the auspicies of the New York Herald and the London Daily Telegraph , Livingstone’s work. His letter, a long and interesting one, appeared in the above journals on the morning of the 24tb, simultaneously in London and New York, a sign of the times, over which the Daily Telegraphne.tma.Wy, and perhaps pardonably, has its little gush. Mr Stanley’s expedition is equipped and maintained by these two journals, and a little flourish of trumpets over their own spirited conduct is excusable. So far Mr Stanley’s labors have been confined to ascertaining the navigability of the Rufiji river, an important gateway to EastCentral Africa and the main passage of the slave traffic in those, parts. For a steam launch of light draught the river is practicable for a distance of 240 miles inland, and of the prospect of trade in the surrounding region, rich in copal diggings and ivory, Mr Stanley draws a glowing picture. Copal is a substance largely used for making carriage varnish, and the supply in. these districts is described as inexhaustible. Of the fortune to be made in ivory out there Mr Stanley draws up a tempting tabular estimate. But first the slave traffic must be crushed. This obstacle is easily to be removed according to Mr Stanley, and he puts the cost of doing so at the modest sum of £SOOO. “A small stern-wheeler,” he says, “ drawing but eighteen inches of water, armed with one mountain steel seven-pounder and a couple of rocket tubes, with a crew of forty men, could for ever solve the problem of how to stop the Bast African slave trade.” If this is really all that is required it is to be hoped that Government will lose no time in instructing the officer commanding the English squadron on that coast accordingly. It is strange, however, that that officer has not already found out this easy remedy himself. The National Society for Woman’ Suffrage, according to the report read at its last meeting a short time ago at Manchester, seems to be gaining ground. Its declared friends, it appears, in the new Parliament are in excess of its supporters in the old, and the chairman of the meeting, no less a gun than Mr Jacob Bright, confidently predicted that the extension of the suffrage to women would be as successful in Parliament as household suffrage had been. Outside the comparatively small circle of the society I do not think that the mass of Englishwomen are at all anxious for the honor which a few of their masculine and energetic sisters are striving to thrust upon them. As we value the domestic happiness of the next generation, if not of our own, let us fervently hope that women will keep .out of the arena of politics. Heaven knows, and so do all married people, that man and wife have enough to fall out about without this additional source of discord. Matrimony is already at a discount in this country, and if this sort of thing goes on, it will cease altogether to be an institution. A man’s home shou’d be a relaxation from the consideration of the serious questions of public life, not a renewal of it under probably more exciting conditions. The Empress o! Eussif, ■with the Cxarewitch and the Grand Puks AJafcis, hare been

making a long stay; but an English November lias been too much for even a Russian, and her Imperial Majesty, after having been confined to her room for the greater part of her visit, has at last been forced to flee from onr vile damp and fog to the sunny climes of Southern France. Before the departure of our Imperial visitors, the ceremony of christening the infant Prince Alfred of Edinburgh was performed wilh duesolemnity. To your readers it will be of small moment to learn that the infant prince was “ attired “in a mantle, gown, and cap of Honiton “ lace, being the identical dress in which all “ the Queen’s children were christened;” or that “ Her Royal and Imperial Highness, the “ Duchess of Edinburgh, wore a petticoat of “rich pale pink corded silk trimmed with “plaitings of the same;” but I presume this must all be very interesting to us here, for to these and similar matters the daily papers, whose business it is to know and administer to the public taste, devote a column and a half each. The Royal infant rejoices in five names. Alfred Alexander William Ernest Albert, which, for a Royal Prince, is getting off rather cheaply ; particularly considering the following imposing array of sponsors :—The Queen, the Emperor of Russia, the Emperor of Germany, the Prince of Wales, the Crown Princess of Germany, and the Reigning Duke of Saxe Coburg and Gotha. Most of these were represented by proxies. Bicycling seems to be taking a stronger hold every day on the tastes of the young men of the middle and trading classes. Bicycle clubs are springing up in all directions. The other day when the Prince and Princess of Whies visited Coventry, a somewhat novel escort of twenty picked bicycle riders met them five miles from the town, and though the four horses in the royal carriage were pushed along at a hand gallop, the escort kept up with the greatest ease. The Ten Mile Bicycle Championship Medal has just been competed for. The winner accomplished the ten miles in 36tnin 32sec. He is said at practice to have beaten this performance by two minutes. The manufacture of bicycles forms quite an important business now at Coventry, Birmingham, London, and other centres of industry. They make them now of an enormous height compared to those first introduced, the fore wheel often measuring 58 inches or CO inches in diameter. We are having a brilliant revival of Shakapeare in the metropolis, “A Winter’s Tale ” at one theatre and “ Hamlet” at the Lyceum are now being played. It is of the latter, however, that I speak. Of all Shakspeare’s plays “ Hamlet ” is the best known, the most admired, and the oftenest quoted. Indeed, so thoroughly have its sayings and expressions entered into our language that people who have never read two lines of Shakspeare often talk “ Hamlet ” without knowing it. It is, moreover, looked upon as the crucial test of a tragedian’s powers. No actor who considers himself an interpreter of the tragic muse ever rests satisfied until he has given the world Ms rendering of the sorrowing and avenging Danish Prince. When it was known that Mr Henry Irving, who of English actors of the day is looked upon as facile prinoeps , was going to take the part of Hamlet, the desire to see was so intense that old stage-goers describe the rush to the Lyceum as 'reminding them of the old Jenny Lind nights, when Duchesses were content with a back seat anywhere. Mr Irving’s Hamlet is a wonderfully good piece of acting. He is less stagy than any Hamlet I ever saw, and in one or two parts he is superb. But to my mind he is not Shakspeare’s Hamlet. There is not that undercurrent of banter in Mr Irving’s rendering which there is apparent in the text. He is always miserable, and his misery seems part of his nature, and not the result of circumstances. That he has achieved a brilliant success, however, is undeniable, and all London is flocking to see him. Hamlet, well acted, is always pleasant to see, but there is ■mch a thing as too much Hamlet. There is another Hamlet at the Standard Theatre, another forthcoming at Drury Lane, and another in preparation at the Princess's. There is a regular rage for “ Hamlet,” and this being the case it is almost needless to add that there is a “ Hamlet ” burlesque. Emigration to New Zealand has been going on steadily at the rate of about 3000 emigrants a month. At the present season, however, it is rather slack. People, no matter how lowly and poverty-stricken their homes? have an old fashioned prejudice against leaving them at Christmas time. At this time of the year, too, the sea passage is fraught with greater terrors. I have just learned on reliable authority that the Fiji Islands will be governed as a Crown colony.