OUR LONDON LETTER.

Te Aroha News, Volume VIII, Issue 484, 28 June 1890, Page 5

OUR LONDON LETTER.

Stanley’s Welcome Home.

Stanley’s welcome home on Saturday last was, I sorrow to state, a horrid muddle. A train-load of the right people—officials, explorers, artists, journalists, and what not —went down to Dover by special early in the afternoon, and if they had had a portion of the Admiralty Pier to themselves on which to receive the “Buccaneer of the Congo,” everythiag would have gone well. Unfortunately, the Mayor and Corporation of Dover had determined (despite Stanley’s telegraphic petition that he might be spared ceremony) to lire off an address of welcome at the much-tried explorer. The police were instructed to enable their Chief Magisfcr*te fco achieve this at all hazards, and so well did carry out their duty that the hero’s personal frionds failed for a long time to get near him. Stanley (looking tired and a trifle surprised) soon found himself in the midst of a seething, shouting, staring mob of nobodies, through which the police forced o difficult passage. At length the special train was reached and artists, journalists, explorers, friends, and nobodies fought wildly with one another to enter the Stanley saloon. You should hear little Paul du Charllu’s description of the scene. He was fortunate himself, beingone of the very few people in whom the grim hero of the hour evinced the faintest interest. Stanley also spoke courteously rather than cordially to to Melton Prior, and uttered a few commonplace phrases concerning his pending visit to the Prince of Walee. Otherwise he declined brusquely to be drawn, treating the band of deferential journalists who flocked hopefully around with a cool contempt they are not likely to either forget or forgive. Strange, isn’t it, that this man, who is an ex-special himself and must knowallthedifficulties and awkwardnesses of an interviewing journalist's vocation, should rejoice in baulking the tired pressmen of the few words they required to work up into copy. There are some who see a deep-laid scheme for enhancing the value of his own writings (magazine articles and what not) in Stanley’s studied rudeness to the press. I confess I don’t believe in anything of the kind myself. The truth is more probably that the poor fellow has been pestered on the Continent by foreign reporters till he loathes the sight of a man with a pencil. Nevertheless, in flouting the smart interviewers of the press on Saturday, and almost ignoring his old employers, the Lawsons, the Buccaneer of the Congo acted unwisely. The acidulated tone of the descriptive articles in the various papers showed this. Hero is an amusing account ot the scene in the Stanley special train by young Morley, of the "P.M.G.” : “ Poor Stanley ! Our new lion and hero looked horribly bored and miserable on Saturday afternoon during bis ride up to London from Dover. Can you be surprised ? There was Mr Ashmead-Bartlett-Burdetb-Coutta sitting on his knee, Sir William Mackinnon treading on hi 3 corns, Sis Francis De Winton struggling to embrace him, the Lawsons fighting for him, and scores of other notables making themselves very obvious. The poor man was suffocating. The squash _ was awful. Twenty pressmen pressed in vain, and shoved and fought, and fought and shoved, bub to no purpose. Half a dozen artists, sketch-books in hand, also tried to catch a glimpse of the hero’s physiognomy, but 1 doubt if any of them was successful in seeing anything but his boots. Poor Stanley read his letters and telegrams during all the turmoil, and never turned a hair, though I have no doubt that he was privately wishing he had all the mob in Central Africa. There were few exceptions: every one stared at the poor man as if he had been somo curious wild beast. In twenty minutestheoxcitement subsided, the crowd dispersed wifchouttheassisbanceof the police, and Stanley puffed away at his cigar with a phlegmatic air. No interviewer drew him, and seldom a word spake this grim and saturnine hero with the snow-white hair and the face of unburnt clay. There were, however, other heroes in the carriage. Lieutenant Stairs, tall and taciturn ; Mr Jephaon, short and smiling; Surgeon Parke, a regular young Apollo ; and Captain Nelson, had taken back Beats, but came in for some close observation. The polish of capitals has supplanted the tan of the tropics, and there is nothing of the savage left in these young gentlemen. It is disappointing, but it iB true. Mr Bonny, another of Stanley’s young men, had even gone so far as to sport a pair of patentleather shoes, a tall hat and a coat cub in the latest fashion. Could this neat and fashionably-dressed young man be the survivor of the rear guard, the man who carried the living skeleton of Troup down to the boat, who buried Barttelob and starved for many terrible months at that famous camp on the banks of the Aruwhimi ? Can effeminate little man who sits there twisting hismoustache he the lepheon who fought and intrigued with Emin? And that slim and delicate young Apollo with the open countenance, is he the plucky Parke we have heard so much of as the man who saved Stanley’s life ? What a contrast these innocent voung gentlemen present to that foxy old Ulysses who puffs away in the corner—grim, imperturbable, impenetrable! Except for his snow-white hair and his Chinaman complexion, Stanley seems to have changed but little during the last three years. He looks fat and well. What effect the London season will have upon him it will be difficult to say. The London Bore is far more deadly than any African fever.” The Mcrder of Makie David.

They certainly manage things oddly in France. Listen to this little story of jealousy and revenge. Madame Laurent, of Chartres, a young married woman and devoted to her husband, returned home from a visit one night unexpectedly, intending to give him a surprise. This she did, and thoroughly, for the faithless wretch was caught in the very act of kissing and cuddling Madame’s pretty maid, Marie David. The outraged wife was furious, not, curiously enough, with. her husband, but with the unfortunate girl. Although it was past midnight, and bitterly cold, she there and then turned her into the streets with kicks and blows. Marie (a good girl in the main) fortunately found shelter with one of the neighbours and next day returned home, thinking little more of the contretemps. Madame Laurent, however, could not forget the incident. She was consumed with jealousy, and laid traps innumerable for her husband, but wholly without result. Nevertheless the miserable woman persuaded herself he meb Marie David somehow. At length, hearing the girl had taken a place at Dourdan, Madame resolved to go there and force the truth from her lips both with regard to the past and the present. En route she bought a pistol, and gradually wertced herself up into a state of hysterical fury. Marie meb her with the calm indifference of mnocence. This so enraged Madame Laurent that she produced the pistol, and before anyone oould interfere, cruelly shot Marie David dead. At Versailles assizes the woman was tried for murder and acquitted by a evmpathetic jury, the Court being of opinion that a fine of £6O paid to poor Marie’s father would meet the case., Inis *, is the more remarkable as Madame s suspicions concerning Marie and her husband ebown to be groundless,