WORDS ON WELLINGTON. (FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.) LONDON, June 28.

Te Aroha News, Volume VIII, Issue 395, 21 August 1889, Page 6

WORDS ON WELLINGTON. (FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.) LONDON, June 28.

Thk following are Borne extractsiifrom pir W. Fraserte,' 4 Words on Wellington, «J 'referred to by me in« f *,Table?Talk:>Y :-ynr \

* c Great ! Events j Worn • ! 'liittle? , ,CXuses} .< •" " Spring.'? ' ' ";;* ', - r ■ " " Amdng the incidents of Waterloo,, r ib is .startling to .find thab i ßulow's ) Division, whose advent first alarmed Napoleon, might have completely,, failed but, for ( the judgment of a single Belgian peasant, pn leaving the woods of Fnsch^rmorib,, to 1 the^ right of, the French army, ./two roads' diverge. T '^The man who guided the' column hesitated- and fora few minutes considered which path J he should take." ( He choose the left one ; saying •• Now we shall take them all." Had he led by the other, the Prussian Division' would have t found it impassable by'their artillery. The rain of the previous night had rendered the ground extremely heavy ; and in fact a mistake might have changed the destiny of Europe; I should have thought that every inch of ground in the neighbourhood .of Waterloo' would have been surveyed ; for it is well-known that the Duke reconnoitred the position tho previous year ; and had previously ' determined where the , fight would be for the protection of Belgium.,

The Dpke's Intensely Practical. • Natork. .. ! ■Brilliant as were tHe abilities of the Duke, he, like other great men, could not talk twaddle. He found no difficulty in speaking to children,' whose naive manners and originality of thought delighted him ; but the wretched trash talked by grown-up children was to him intolerable. The story is well-known of his saying, 1 "I have no small talk, and Peel no manners." We cannot fancy the Duke asking, even, in a railway carriage, "Have you seen Sal-, vini ?" nor " Do you admire Mrs Langtiy ?" , The Duke's whole nature was practical. Instead of considering and theorising as to various arms, garments, belts, &c., worn by the British he sent for a man of a line regiment. Having pro : vided a large nair of scales, he said to the soldier, "Step into that scale with your musket, pouch, knapsack, schako, etc." He had the weight written down. "Now then, get out ; strip yourself naked ; and then get into the scale again." That settled the question. There is, 1 or was, at the Clothing Department in Pimlico a quaint old infantry sehako. It bears Koman numerals on the front. With ib was this memorandum :—": — " The Duke, of Wellington has worn this schako for seven hours to-day. He considers it an excellent head-dress for the soldier." Most men who have tried it on would be very sorry to wear it for seven minutes ; and would differ with the Duke. However, " there were giants in those days."

Assisting "the Greatest Man That Ever Lived." The Duke detested being helped ; no* from ingratitude, but from two distinct feelings— one, that he did not like to be thought, what he certainly was not, ..decrepit ; the other, that he_ knew very well that the majority of persons who helped him simply did so in order to beable to say that they had done so. This was to rl him revolting. Standing opposite to Apsley House in the evening in Piccadilly, when the street was even more crowded than it is now, the Duke was hesitating on the curbstone. A gentleman nearly as old as himself made some demonstration of assisting him to cross the road, •ndeavouring to check the tide of cabs and other vehicles that was setting strongly. When the Duke reached the gate of Apsley House, he touched his hat, and said, '• I thank you, ,sir." The elderly stranger immediately uncovered ; holding his hat at his knee, he addressed the Duke as follows:— "My lord, I have passed a long and not uneventful life, but never did I hope to reach the day when I might be of the slightest assistance to the greatest man that ever lived." The Duke looked at him calmly, and in a voice not in the least choked by emotion, replied, "Don't be a d d fool!" and* walked into Aspley House.

A Hint to Autograph Hunters. On one occasion the Duke received a letter in the following terms : — I correct the spelling: "Mr Tomkins ventures to address the Duke of Wellington. Mr Tomkins' mother is a washerwoman ; Mr Tomkins regrets to say that, having washed for the Marquis of Douro for many years, his mother has been unable to obtain payment for the last three years. Mrs Tomkins is very poor ; and cannot afford to lose .the money. She hopes the Duke will kindly pay it. Mrs Tomkins 1 address is . . . ." After carefully reading and considering the letter, the Duke sent thei following reply: — " Field-Marshall the Duke of Wellington has received a letter from. Mr Tomkins, stating that- theMarquis of Douro -is in debt to his mother, Mrs Tomkins. The Duke of Wellington is not the Marquis of Douro. The Duke regrets to find that his eldest son has not paid his washerwoman's bill, Mrs Tomkins has no claim upon the Duke of Wellington. The Duke recommends her, failing another application, to place the matter in the hands of a respectable solicitor." Some six weeks later the Duke had a dinner party at Apsley House. One of the guests asked the Duke if he was not tormented by applications for his autograph. The Duke replied, "Oh, yes; constantly." The friend then said : "A few days ago I was examining a most interesting collection, with your grace's in the place of honour in the book," "What was that?" said the Duke. "Well, the collector's plan is to write ''to every person of eminence, and to accase his eldest son of bilking his washerwoman. He pastes his own lettter and the reply face to face." I should like to have seen the Duke's face when he heard the first Prussian r cannon at Waterloo ; I shouldalso like to have seen it on this occasion.

Men Who Never Heard of Wed LINGTON OB JNaPOLEON". Soon after the Duke's death, Roebuck/ the member for Sheffield, told a story in a speech ab that place, which he subsequently assured me was precisely truer Staying in a country house, he heard the news of the Duke's death. He spotce in the early morning to the gardener, an elderly man; who, was mowing the lawn, He said : "There, ie bad news come." "Is there, s\v ?" said the man. "Yes," he "said ; "The Duke's' dead at last. " Who, sir?" " The Dufcb of Wellington." "I'm very, sorry' for", the' gentleman," replied the'mah," going on 'with' his work ; " but I never heard of himl" k Walking with Disraeli] he' 1 told me, the following story.' I haye 1 never madeup my mind whether he believed {it "to' bV true" or] not. He spoke as if f he implibitly believed it. Speakihg of the small 'circle in which' even the greatest move, he told nic that 1 the First "Napoleon, a year ' after ' he became' Emperor, was determined to find out' if therelwas Anyone in'the world wfip.had^not heard of ' *hiin\ Within ' aj\ for'ttiighjb the police' 1 of ' Paris had M discovered a 1 \vood- J chopper at 'Motifcma'rfcre'.Svithin l l s aris-, wh l o v had never heard of theßevoluti6n r ; I£ nb/tho ! death of Louis XVI. ; nor of the Emperor.