GENERAL BOOTH'S AMERICAN VISIT.

Auckland Star, Volume XVII, Issue 292, 11 December 1886, Page 4

GENERAL BOOTH'S AMERICAN VISIT.

Experiences On Board The Aurania,

Staff-Captain Vint, who accompanies General Booth in his visit to America and Canada Bends home a description of the General's passage to Now York in the steam-ship Aurania, and adds that on their reachiug that city in safety, " the General was immediately seized by the reporters, for information. En route, for Brooklyn, where he ia to stay for the night, one of them coolly istopped the cab, asked the coachman whore he was going, and told him where to put him down as he unblushingly entered the vehicle, remarking that they had to interview ■ that way etjmetimaa. At the house ot our kind host another couple of gentlemen of the FreßS were ready for tho General; and, in justice, it must be paid that they were very courteous and highly intelligent." In a personal letter to Mr Bramwell Booth, " chief of the stuff," the General Bays his voyage out haa " done him more good than any rost he has had for years, and that all the way he was not soa-sick." Merely in anticipation of his visit, the American papers had written columns on columns about him, and the work of the •. alvation Army. From, the notes in Captain Vint's "log," it appears that several theatrical companies wore among their fellow passengers. "In the saloon," he says "some actresses arc drinking brandy, writing "letters, and chattering like magpies. The gossip and laugh, and making. punp, joke and seem to be very merry. But one of them lets the cat out of the bag, as she looks one of her friends in the face with a sad heart-weary expression, and says, ' I am so miserable this morning ; I have just had a pint of champagne, and feel a little better now. Here they ordered some more brandies and sodas, under the stimulus of which they kept up their flippant talk and excitement a little longer. Bub they cannot keep God out of their thoughts laugh as they will. One inquires if their ia a service on board, and if their is a clergy man.'.' Captain Vint relates how "the General has just had a few words with a Roman Catholic priest, who admires he good work accomplished by the Salva fcion Army, but thinks tho General ought to be a Catholic, His idea seems to be that there can be no good done apart from the Roman Catholic Church, and that God acts exclusively through it, and has specially commissioned her to concert the world, &c.However, we believe' Go ye oiit intp all the world,' means us, and here we are off to America to do it." j