OUR LONDON LETTER.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 5187, 6 November 1877, Page 2

OUR LONDON LETTER.

London, Sept. 20. Half callous as we are becoming with the horrors of the most barbarous war Europe has witnessed for centuries, the awful catastrophe of the Avalanche profoundly affected the public mind. The news reached London on the morning of the 12th that at half-past nine o’clock the night before, two fine ships, bound to the very extremities of the Colonial Empire, Nova Scotia and New Zealand, had come into collission, and sunk in a few minutes, about twelve miles off Portland. Of the sixty-three passengers by the Avalanche, not a soul escaped. Three of her crew and nine of the Eorest’s succeeded with great difficulty in reaching shore. Over all the rest—the groups of happy families homeward bound to Wellington and Wanganui, stout crew, and gallant captain—the Atlantic waves swiftly closed. The last glimpse caught of the Avalanche showed Captain Williams on the poop with young Pearce, whose first and last voyage it was fated to be, standing by his side. I need not repeat here the full details given in the newspapers from the lips of the survivors of the circumstances under which this terrible accident occurred. As to the preceding causes, there will be a searching inquiry by the Board of Trade. It was intended, I believe, that this inquiry should have commenced to-day, but owing to other engagements of the Wreck Commissioner it cannot be opened before the 3rd of October. Notwithstanding Mr. Plimsolls legislation, the state of our mercantile marine is far from satisfactory. Though the accident may be in no respect attributable to the fact, still I believe there is no doubt that the Forest was decidedly undermanned for a ship of her size, and that of her crew hardly two men were of the same nationality. It is not now expected that any of the bodies which sank with the Avalanche will be recovered. She lies at a depth of thirty fathoms, in waters in which it very difficult to carry on diving operations. The rescue of the survivors was effected at the very great risk of the boatmen who brought them in, seven of whom, in the peculiar flatbottomed high-prowed boats called lerreto used on that coast, fought hard with wind and wave for their lives. The casualties of Australasian navigation are wonderfully few considering the length of the voyage and the number of vessels engaged ; but there is something very heartrending about those that do occur. The element of unexpectedness adds always to the ghastliness of the tragedies of real life ; and what can be less expected than that a fine ship should be sunk in an instant, with all its living tenants, at the very commencement of its voyage ? Such has been the fate of the Avalanche—such was that of the Tasmanian barque run down by a Spanish ship four years ago off Dover. The horrors of fire at sea were never more terribly exemplified than in the case of the Cospatrick ; and not a doubt can new remain of the equally awful, save that it was instantaneous, destruction of the Great Queenslander by gunpowder. Mr. Grant Duff, in a paper written shortly after the war of 1870, speaks of the way in which men, jaded with the work of the session and the pleasures of the season, still lingered in town, negligent of the claims of grouse and partridge, so as to be able to hear from hour to hour the news of the rapid human battues in which the French Empire came to its grave and the German Empire to its resurrection. _ It js much the same now. For this age, fertile in military surprises, the last is far the most startling. That the Prussian should beat the Austrian or the Frenchman was by no means wonderful. Turn back the page of history only one short century and Frederick the Great was to be found doing all that Moltke has done, and rather more—fighting and beat- ■ Austria and France together. But that the “ unspeakable Turk,” the “ effete,” the “incapable,” after allowing the Danube and Balkans to be crossed, should suddenly wake up and display such valor, discipline, skill, and endurance this amazes in a way that Sedan and Sadowa could not. The difference made by the appearance of a man of genius in war was never more remarkably illustrated than it has been in the delence of Plevna by Osman Pasha. That defence has cost the Eussians not less than thirty thousand men directly, and probably the failure of this year’s campaign, with all. its almost inconceivable consequences. But who may Osman Pasha be ? We know the history of Mehemet Ali and of Sulieman Pasha. But I am informed that English officers, who have been in Turkey advising the Government on questions of fortification and army organisation during and since the Crimean war, declare they never met with, never heard of Osman before last month. He is fortunate in his achievements, and unusually fortunate in having them so splendidly recorded by such honest and accomplished witnesses from the enemy’s camp as Messrs. Forbes and MacGahan —the former the “ special, correspondent ” of the Daily Netos, the latter its “ correspondent late with General Gourka’s army.” In its record of the war, the Daily News has so far surpassed all the London journals that no other can be said to be even second to it. It is curious that all the accounts of the fighting at Plevna have come from the Kussiau camp, with the single exception of a letter published in the Telegraph two days ago by a correspondent who had with great difficulty made his way through a country swarming with Cossacks, and strewed with corpses, out of Osman’s camp. We are now daily expecting news of a great pitched battle at Biela, which will prove whether Mehemet Ali possesses the great strategic qualities with which he has been credited. Sir Julius Vogel’s letters to The Times, proposing that . the Indian Famine should be treated ns au Imperial calamity, to be met, not by a public subscription merely, but by a liberal

use of the Imperial revenues, has attracted more than temporary attention. The Times, at first rather hesitating, strongly endorsed the proposal, and the cartoon of Punch, this week represents John Bull interviewed by Lord Beacousfield and Sr Stafford Northcote rather pooh-poohing the Mansion House list, and saying, “Yes, this is very creditable so far as it goes, but it is ‘ a mere drop in the ocean.’ Make it a Government matter, and I’ll back yon up ! ” Lord Beaconsfield would certainly be favorably disposed tosuch a policy. I remember when he first came into office another Indian famine was impending, and he intimated in oue of his speeches a disposition to appropriate a portion of the large surplus left by the previous administration to its relief. But before Parliament met the worst had passed. On the present occasion the resources of the Indian Government are being seriously overtaxed already. Yesterday ■ Marshal MacMahon issued his proclamation to the French people on the coming General Election, and yesterday Prince Bismarck and Count Andrassy met to compare notes on the war. The two chancellors must have glared at each other like the Roman augurs, remembering in what dependence both Austria and Prussia have stood from time to time on the gigantic Empire of the North, now so maimed and pummelled by the despised Turk. The English Press with one voice assumes that Marshal MacMahon must be iguominously defeated at the poll. But that is not the opinion of Frenchman long familiar with the ways of their countrymen. Mr. Wilkie Collmis'is almost as fortunate as a dramatic author as he is as a nsvelist. His stories lend themselves to dramatic adaptation very well, and more than one of them has had a “run ”on the stage. Strange to say, “ The Woman in White,” which urns the first of his works to attain very wide and lasting popularity, was the least successful in a dramatic form. “ Husband and Wife ” did very well indeed acted by the accomplished artists of the Prince of Wales Theatre, and “ Miss Gwilt” had a great success in the provinces, and was well received in London. His “ New Magdalen ” formed quite an era in the history of the Olympic Theatre, and an important step in the career of Miss Ada Cavendish, who plays the title role ; and at present the . two novelties of the just-commenc-ing dramatic season are “ The Dead Secret ” at the Lyceum and “ TheMoonstone ” at the Olympic Theatres. Theformer has not been so successfully adapted for stage representation as the latter; but the scenery is beautifully contrived, and the piece has the advantage of being acted by Miss Bateman (Mrs. Grove), who fills the principal role, that of Sarah Leeson, the mother of the false heiress, and by her sister, Miss Virginia Francis, who is rapidly rising to a high place among the actresses of comedy in England. The latter lady plays the part of Rosamond Frankland, and displays, especially in the closing scene, ability of a high order. The production of the piece was personally superintended by Mr. Irving, whose universal genius in things theatrical reminds one of the description of Nasmyth’s hammer, that nothing is too big ortoo little for it to manage, and it is in all the details of the stage as perfect as it can be. “ The Moonstone” presents a great contrast to- “ The Dead Secret”: there is no mystery in the play, and no change in the scene. Mr. Wilkie Collins has dramatised his famous novel himself, and has exactly reversed the process by which he attracted interest in the latter. The entire action of the story is restricted to twenty-four hours, and the scene is the inner hall of Miss Verinder’s house. All the mystery of the diamond is removed, the Indians are suppressed, and the' whole play turns on the two sleep-walking scenes, in which the hero of the love story abstracts the Moonstone twice over from the Indian cabinet. The dramatic version is very clever, and was very well received on the first night of representation. Mr. Henry Neville played the part, of Franklin Blake with great spirit and effect, and Miss Bateman as Rachel Verinder created a more favorable impression than she has yet done. The house was very full, surprisingly full considering the season, and Mr. WilkieCollins was called for with great warmth. He has been laid up with rheumatism in the knees, but he managed to present himself, and though looking ill, was evidently much gratified by the reception of “The Moonstone.” Mr. Byron is so successful a playwright that it seldom falls to the lot of the chronicler to record a failure of his. He has, however, madea very big one in the instance of “ Guinea Gold,” brought out at the Princess’s. The piece is an absurd mixture of violent melodrama and dull pantomime, and has been unanimously condemned. En revanche, “ Our Boys” is still drawing crowds to the Vaudeville Theatre, though it is well on towards the nine hundredth night of its performance. What would Garrick have said to that ? Probably that it must mean ruin to the actors, in so far as their progress in their art was concerned, though fortune to the manager and the author. For the winter season there are fine theatrical prospects —“Charles II.” at Drury Lane, and “Louis XL” at the Lyceum. Historical dramas are thoroughly “ revived.”