A BRITISH WEAKNESS.

Westport Times, Volume V, Issue 849, 12 August 1871, Page 3

A BRITISH WEAKNESS.

The following is from the " Pall Mall Gazette " :—lt is stated that on Good Friday the police found it necessary to direct the removal of a " grand stand " erected at Chislehurst to enable excursionists at a small charge to witness the Emperor Louis Napoleon proceeding to church. With every respect for excursionists, whose refinement of manners is beyond dispute, we must say that this i 8 going a little too far. Fallen greatness is not a thing to be inspected by flourishing suiallness from the top of a van improvised into a grand stand, and greeted with the popping of gingerbeer bottles. It would have served these people perfectly right if they had all been captured, placed in a large cage, and themselves inspected by the ex-Em-peror as specimens of British excursionists. To have his footsteps dogged and aJJ. his movements watched by a parcel of inquisitive persons who will

not even let him perform his devotions in peace must bo extremely painful to one who above all others yearns for rest. His bitterest enemies will, at all even'cs, admit that in the treatment ho receives from his admirers his "punishment exceeds his offence." " His Majesty wishes for seclusion," remarked a gentleman the other day to an excursionist at Chislehurst, whose gaudy neckcloth formed a pleasing contract to his unwashed face. " Seclusion be !" rejoined the excursionist ; " Hooray ! vivo Lumpercr !" While this good feeling lasts remonstrance is of course useless, but it is evidently no joke for greatness to fall into the hands of a " large-hearted and generous people" like the British.