"TO GENERAL GRANT, CARE OF QUEEN VICTORIA."

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XII, Issue 228, 26 September 1877, Page 4

"TO GENERAL GRANT, CARE OF QUEEN VICTORIA."

The following amusing article appeared in the New York Times : — Yesterday morning, Governor HarSranffc, of Pennsylvania, rose, somewhat subsequent to the lark's usual hour, and after grasping the fact thai ha waa in Providence, and had on the previous evening attended a meeting of the Grand Army of the Republic, immediately became a prey to melancholy. He remembered that he had sent a telegram ,to General Grant, " care of .her Majesty, Queen Victoria, Buckingham 'Palace, London," an<i a terrible doubt as to whether that telegram had been properly directed, made his head ache to a most painful extent. When he directed thai telegram he wanted to make sure that it would reach the exPresident, and assuming that the latter was stopping with the Queen, he had ao hesitation in sending it in care of her Majesty. It was not until yesterday morning that ie occurred to him that the Queen might not be at Buckingham Palace just at present. He was not all disturbed by the assertion of one of his aides that the Queen constantly resides in the Tower of London, for he was well aware that Buckingham Palace is merely a wing added to the Tower by the late Prince Consort. What made him uneasy was the recollection that the Queen has a country seat at Balmoral, in Scotland, where she resides when Buckingham Palace is undergoing its annual cleaning. If, thought he, at this very period Buckingham Palace is being scrubbed and whitewashed, and the Queen is at Balmoral, that telegram may never reach General Grant. What is worse, that box of cigars which was forwarded last Monday, directed precisely as was the telegram, may fall into the hands of the local colored minister who whitewashes the palace, and may be smoked by the indiscriminating artist and his personal friends. The more Governor Hartranft thought over the affair, the more bis head ached, and the more dearly he saw that he had been too hasty. Had he directed that telegram to " Beaoonafield, Esq.," and requested him to forward it to General Grant, without delay, there would have been no doubt that General Grant would have received it. As it was, the telegram might never reach the Queen, and if it did reach her, she being a woman, might have put it on the mantelpiece, at Balmoral, and entirely forgot to mention it to General Grant for three or four days. Governor Hantranft groaned aJoud as this last contingency occurred to him. That a telegram which so chastely and beautifully informed General Grant that w your comrades . . . , . desire, through you, to England's Queen, to thank you for Grant's reception," should miscarry simply because of a mistake in the address, was a bitter thoaghi, and as Governor Hartranft rang for more sodawater, he inwardly resolved never to send another telegram after dinner. It is a pleasure as well as a duty to relieve so excellent a man as Governor Hantranftfrom his present state of painful uncertainty. Fortunately there is no difficulty in so doing. From sources as exclusive and as authentic as those from which the Herald obtains its war telegrams, the Times has received a full account of the reception of the Governor's telegram in England, and can assure him that it is already in the ex-President's hands. At the same time it is proper to say that had it not been for a lucky incident that telegram would never have reached its destination. At 2 o'clock on Wednesday morning the Prime Minister, who during his fcerm of office always occupies the second storey front bedroom in Buckingham Palace in order to be handy if the Queen wakes up in the night and thinks she would like a Dew title, was aroused by a tremendous knocking at the front door. Hastily springing out of bed and opening the window h8 saw a boy in the uniform of (he Atlantic Cable Company standing on the front step, and whistling "Rule Britannia." To the Premier's excited dement to know where the Ore was, the boy coldly replied, "Telegram for your missus," whereupon Lord Beaconsfiele), angrily exclaiming, "Holy Moses!" closed the window, put on his trowsers, and descending to the door, told the boy to "hand it over." Now, a cablegram costs a good deal. There was £84j 3Jdue on Governor flarlranft's telegram, and the boy refused to deliver it without the money. Hence it became necessary to wake the Queen, The noble Earl had to lake this delicate duty upon himself, since the servants remained invisible, and it was with many misgivings that he knocked at her Majesty's door, and after informing her that a boy was waiting with a telegram 'for General Granf, and that he wauted £8 4a 3J, meekly suggested that she should hand him the mouey through the crack of the door. The Queea may not be a particularly irritable woman, but it waa hardly to be expected that she would get out of bed, atrike a light, and hunt up her purse without betraying some little annoyance. la fact, she waa extremely angry, and not only refused to receive General Gram's telegram, but informed Lord Beaconsfield that if ever ho woke her up again in the middle of the sight to ask her to pay £9 for somebody else's telegrams, she would dismiss him without a character. " Why, even Gladstone, added the irate Queen, "hasn't lumper • ance enough to come and 'ammer at my door and ask for £15 or £20 at this

time of night." After this there was nothing left for the Premier to do but to tell the boy that no person by the name of Grant lived at that house, and to shut tha door in his face. At that moment the fate of the telegram seemed sealed. The boy started to return it to the office, where it would have been endorsed " Not found," and Governor Hartranft would . have been charged with its cost. It so happened, however, that General Grant and the Prince of Wales, who had been attendBng a meeting of the Society for Propagating the Gospel among the Jews, were on their way to the General's lodgings, and, passing Buckingham Palace, met the boy descending the front steps, The prince stopped and questioned him, and, on learning that the Queen had refused to pay for a telegram, remarked to General Grant that some day u mother would get into difficulties by refusing to pay for telegrams," and generously told the boy to give him the, telegram, and he would call and pay for it the next day. Meanwhile, General Grant had caught sight of the address, and thereupon paid the boy, opened the telegram on the spot, and read it. Thus Governor Hartranft'e telegram reached its destination, and when he reads this morning's Times he will regain his usual spirits. He is a good. soldier, and a good Governor, but it does not seem as if nature intended him to send telegrams to the ex-Preaident in England Governor Hartranft ought to recognise the fact that no man can do all things and to concede that sending telegrams to General Grant in care of Queen Victoria is not a practice for which he is peculiarly fitted.