LONDON LETTER.

Globe, Volume VI, Issue 684, 29 August 1876, Page 3

LONDON LETTER.

{From a correspondent of the Press.) LOND.ON, July 7th, 1876.

Long before this letter reaches you the wires may have flashed the dire intelligence that the Crimean struggle is to be repeated. A great war seems imminent, I trust it may be averted. I think it will be ; but there is no shutting one's eyes to the disagreeable prospect that the peace of this country is in deadly peril. We are bound by the Treaty of Paris in 1866, to maintain the integrity of the Ottoman Empire against outward aggression, and any hour we may hear that Russia has launched her might against the tottering empire of the Sultan. Russia has fomented and maintains with officers, men, money, and arms, the present rising of the Servians against the Turkish dominion, and it needs only a very short step on her part to force upon us two alternatives

—repudiation or fulfilment of the obligations imposed upon us by the Treaty of Paris. I do not think the former course will be adopted. We shall not in this difficulty eat humble pie as has been our custom of late years. The whole tenor of Disraeli's foreign policy, since he came into power, has been to make the voice of England heard in the councils of Europe as it used to be, and he will not shrink from this line even if he has to keep it at the point of the bayonet, and with the thunder of her guns. Our best chance of peace is to let Russia know and feel thoroughly that we mean war. Our army, in point of number, is insignificant compared with hers, but what there is of it is good ; and we have ships and money, which with Russia is now scarce. Bussia also knows that France would cast in her lot with ours—not France as she was a few years ago bleeding and prostrate, but France recuperated and stronger than ever she was. Should we unfortunately be plunged into war, it will be a war in which the English nation will enter in a half-hearted way. War at any time would be deplorable ; but war for an unworthy object, such as the maintenance of a degraded Mohammedan despotism—as this war would be regarded by the majority of our countrymen—would be doubly so. But it is not in this light we should regard the struggle, if unhappily it be forced upon us. It would not be for the sake of Turkey—degraded rotten Turkey—that we would fight, but for the vindication of our honor and the prompt settlement of a question which sooner or later must be settled by the sword. We hare had enough of arbitration. We have lost both in purse and honor by it, and we will have no more. However, as I said before, we are dangerously near the vortex, but still I think that we shall not be sucked in.

The atmosphere of Europe seems charged with warlike particles, and this unsettled condition produces a state of partial paralysis in finance and commerce. Investors are timid and money lies idle. In the iron trade the depression is so great as almost to threaten its extinction. This is owing to the increased cost of production caused by higher wages, shorter hours of labor, and the high price of coal. The country is thus in danger of losing one of the most important elements of its prosperity. The fight between employers and workmen is proving ruinous to both ; and while the internecine squabble is going on, foreign contractors are beating our manufacturers altogether out of the field. A new and better era, has however, dawned upon the history of strikes by the introduction of the ballot system. The other day the Durham colliers decided the question, whether to accept reduction of wages or to strike by ballot. Twenty thousand voted in favor of arbitration and sixteen thousand in favor of a strike. The secretary of the Miners' Association was thereupon directed to inform the secretary of the Coal-owners' Association that arbitration would be accepted. The Home Rule party in Parliament have again been discomfited. Its leader, Mr Butt, member for Limerick, moved for a Select Committee to enquire into the nature, the extent, and the grounds of the demand made by a large proportion of the Irish people for an Irish Parliament with power to control the internal affairs of that country. The House the motion, 61 ; against it, 291; Cabinet Ministers, Mr Bright, Mr Childers, and Mr Forster, voted for the motion Thirtythree Irish representatives voted against it. The thirty?eighth anniversary of Her Majesty's coronation was celebrated on the 28th ultimo in the customary manner. Queen Victoria now stands fifth on the roll of our sovereigns for length of reign, being at present headed by Edward 111, Henry 111, Elizabeth and George 111. May she live to head the roll. Her Majesty is at present in the metropolis, but brings her Highland proclivities from Balmoral to Buckingham Palace. At a state ball a few nights ago a Scotch reel was danced to the national music. It is said that several distinguished foreigners have not yet recovered from the shock to their nervous systems.. The Minister and his Secretary of Legation are not yet pronounced out of danger.

Since the Prince of Wales's visit to the Bast our Indian fellow subjects seem to meet with more consideration in England than formerly. Sir Salar Jung, the Nizam's Prime Minister, and one of the most enlightened statesmen of India, is at present in this country, and is treated with an amount of ceremony and respect generally shown only to royalty. An amusing mistake was made the other day by the Court Circular in reporting Sir Salar Jung's visit to the Queen at Windsor. It is an Indian custom on occasions of this kind to present an offering of money, as a token of submission and respect, which is merely touched and returned. The Court Circular in describing this simple act, wished to impress its readers with its knowledge of Hindustan, and the report Jatood thus :—" Sir Salar Jung was yesterday received by Her Majesty, and had the honor of presenting his alligator, which her Majesty was graciously pleased to touch." The Prince of Wales has now two Indian aides-de-camp, native officers of Bengal Laucers, and their stalwart forms and magnificent uniforms are to be seen whenever the Prince appears in public. His Royal Highness's Indian presents have been arranged at the Indian Museum, completely filling two large galleries, which are now thrown open to the public. The display, "rich with barbaric pearl and gold," is magnificent and dazzling to an extent that wearies the eye. The Oude crown, covered with diamonds, pearls, and great pear-shaped emeralds, is in itself a treasure such as one might think of in " dreams of wealth beyond the potentiality oEavarice;" and yet thisis but an insignificant item amidst thesejsubstantial and magnificent expressions of Indian loyalty. Hero are some of the articles which meet one's astonished gage :—Saddlery and elephant trappings, gorgeous with golden embroidery; albums, from various places, bound in covers of beautiful inlaid wood and containing photographs of local magnates and local scenery; exquisitely bound Bibles, in the vaiious languages of India—Sanskrit, Hindi, Panjabi, Malayalini, &c; carvings in ivory and sandal-wood of every shape and description, mounted in gold and silver and sometimes studded with precious stones ; massive silver and golden caskets, containing the addresses presented to the Prince; models in ivory, ebony, and the precious metals, of nearly every description of Indian articles used in the household, in warfare, in the chase, and in religious ceremonies; an elaborately carved ivory bedstead— % regular full-sized four-poster; a massive silver throne; textile fabrics from all parts of India, "Kincob" cloth of gold, damasks, Kashmir shawls, table covers of velvet stiff with gold and powdered, witfe emeralds.

rubies, and turquoises ; armour and arms, hilts of swords and daggers studded with diamonds, butts of matchlocks and pistols of chased gold and silver, sparkling with gems. , The above is just taken from notes made at | random, and utterly fails to give an adequate conception of the vast collection of treasures. I might go on writing in the above strain for the next two columns, and still feel I was not much nearer the end of the description. About the last, but by no means the least, welcome, the Prince has received since his return to our shores, has just been given him by the Volunteers. Over 30,000 of them from all parts of the country assembled in Hyde Park last week for this purpose. The review passed off without a hitch, and has raised the Volunteers in the estimation of a great many. The divisions were under the command of general officers of the regular army, but most of the brigades were under their own Volunteer Brigadiers. There were no manoeuvres attempted. There was merely marching past and an advance in line in review order. The concourse of spectators was enormous.

I am sorry to say that the London Press is becoming notoriously personal. No less than four actions for libel against newspapers have been before the Courts. The culprits are the Examiner, the World, the Bovr, and the Weekly Register. The World is a clever journal, but an habitual offender in this line. It has been in Court numerous times, but has always managed to wriggle out of the scrape with an apology: but on this last occasion it seems likely to be brought to book. The Lord Chief Justice, presiding in the Court of Queen's Bench, objects to the process of the Court being used for the purpose of obtaining an apology, and granted the application for a criminal information against the World, on the understanding that the matter was to be proceeded with to the bitter end. The action for libel against the Examiner has been amusing, and showed us out of what very base clay after all great poets are moulded. The action arose out of a quarrel between Mr Robert Buchanan, a well known essayist and poet, and Mr Swinburne, who is the leader of what has been termed the " Fleshly school" of writers. In his poems Mr Swinburne clothes gross sensuality in beautiful and elegant language, and four or five years ago Mr Buchanan fell upon him in a review, and slaughtered him with righteous wrath. Thereupon commenced a warfare in prose and verse which has lasted all these years,, and which at last oulminated in the Court of Queen's Bench. Each cast at the other the most contemptibly trivial personalities, only worthy of boys and girls; but at last Mr Swinburne went just a little too far in an article in the Examiner, and Mr Buchanan has obtained £l5O damages from the proprietor of that paper, who is legally the responsible party. At the annual sale of yearlings last month at the Cobham Stud Farm—a full description of gwhich establishment I gave you in a previous r 'letter—a yearling colt fetched the enormous and unprecedented price of 4100 guineas. This nearly double the largest sum ever yet given for a yearling. The purchaser was the Duke of Westminster's trainer,- and I cannot but think that his judgment was hardly equal to his pluck. The reason of the great increase in the price paid for racing yearlings lies in the great rise during the last few years in the value of the prizes offered. In the early days of the turf the committee of management at great race meetings were thought to be doing the thing very liberally if they gave away a prize of £2OO, the rest of the events being meresweep9takes; but now at the greatmeetiugs £SOO and even £IOOO are often added to a single race At the Ascot meeting the other day £25,000 were given away in prizes, and at Goodwood this month there will probably be nearly as much to be competed for. It is not an impossibility now for a successful racer to win his weight in gold during his sporting career. Taking this into consideration, the 4100 guineas paid the other day by the Duke of Westminster's trainer is not as preposterous as it would seem at first sight. If the colt turns out well, as there is great reason to believe he will, he may win his owner his purchase money back over and over again. A gentleman tolerably well known in sporting circles has just made one of the luckiest hits on record. He received from a bookmaker odds of 800 to 1 in sovereigns against his naming the three winners of the three races —the Two Thousand, the City and Suburban, and the Derby. The gentleman named Petrarch, Thunderer, and the Mineral Colt, and thus pulled off what is termed in sporting language the "triple event." The £BOO was paid punctually on settling day. I can vouch for the truth of this, as the lucky individual in question is a near relation of the writer's. The bet, with a great many variations and exaggerations, has been going the round of the papers. There is no lack of sport at this season of the year. The Oxford and Cambridge cricket match, though a three days' one, was a hollow affair. Cambridge won with nine wickets to go down. The Light Blues are thus one to the good in the whole series of matches. The Sculling Championship of England has been wrested from us by an Australian; Edward Trickett, hailing from the Antipodes, has beaten with ease Joseph Sadler, our crack sculler. Trickett is considered here as the most powerful sculler ever seen in this country. The news has ere this reached you of the death of the Agent-General for New Zealand, the Hon J. E. Featherston, after an illness of two months' duration. The arduous and important duties which devolved upon him in the responsible position he held ever siuce the office was instituted in 187/1, and which he discharged with so much credit to himself and to his Government, seem to have undermined his health. All those who were brought into contact with him speak in high terms of his high bred courtesy and his capacity for business. He was the fourth son of Mr Thomas Feather3ton of Cotfield House, in the county of Durham, and was but sixty-two when he died. He is widely and deeply regretted in England. Sir William Power at present holds the appointment. A collection of water color drawings by Mr C. D. Barraud, illustrating the scenery and the inhabitants of New Zealand, is now being exhibited in Pall Mall. Some of the landscapes are greatly admired and remind ■people here of the most beautiful parts of . Devonshire. The pictures which attract ; most notice are a view of "Te Tarata " or !"The White Terrace," and a full length . portrait of a chief called Rangihaieta, who, ; I believe, took a prominent part in the earlier ': New Zealand wars, and was concerned in the J Wairau massacr ; also, the portrait of an I old chief, Te Puni, described as being very ' friendly to Europeans.