BURNING OF THE HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 8154, 11 July 1906, Page 4

BURNING OF THE HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT.

A HISTORICAL SCENE. On the night of October IGtli, 1831, a m:iu of H nas one of an excited baud of passengers on the coach from Brighton to London. Faraway on the horiz >n a red glare was pulsing wickedly, and at intervals a bright glare struck tlie clouds above. At last the passengers' enquiries were answered. The Houses of Parliament were on fire. In this, as in every direction, the news had travelled fast. At Dudley it was known within three hours.

To th- man of 40 on the Brighton coach it meant more than to most people. Charles Berry had been born under tho shadow of the Palace of Westminster ; and now, as the sky reddened, the thought came to him that he n.iijht te chosen to rebuild the nation's council chamber. It was a true presentiment.

An appalling spectacle awaited the travellers. The sky was invaded by smoke and embers, and from every suburb crowds were pouring to the bridge. Three regiments of Guards had turned [out. The people knew that the home of British liberty, tho sanctuary of civil rights, perhaps the Hall of Kufus itself—unrivalled in the world, and dear now, if it never was before, to their hearts—were in the greatest peril. On every lip was one prayer, that Westminster Hall might be saved. At the centre that prayer became a determined effort. Engines were taken into the interior, ready to pour water into Bichard the Second's oaken roof. It was a scene which men were to remember on their death-beds. An eye-witness says that behind the dreadful pother the gray towers of the Abbey seemed asleep in the moonlight, unconscious of the red tinge that played among her buttresses. From the sublime to the ridiculous there is never more than a step. Old Dean Ireland, aghast and dusty, was standing with the Keeper of the Be[cords on the roof of thejjChapter House. A gust of wind swept the flames towards them.

The Keeper, foreseeing even more dreadful things, implored him to descend and save the inestimable treasures of the Abbey. But John Ireland was not a Very Iteverend Dean in an Established Church for nothing. He knew his place, and while the sparks were blowing over Henry the Seventh's Chapel, he firmly replied that he could not think of moving anything without permission first from the First Lordot the Treasury. Ict had he gone to consult Lord Melbourne he would certainly have been rewarded with an oath.— 'T.P. s Weekly."