PRINCE ALFRED.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume 1, Issue 83, 23 April 1859, Page 3

PRINCE ALFRED.

(From the Times, 30th December.) An existence compounded of the two ideas of Mr. Midshipman Easy and of the Princely hero of a Court Circular seems a strange anomaly, but .that is just the form of existence whicji. prince Alfred is enjoying at the present\mbtneri£ "In. the few remarks we may venture to offer upon the subject we beg most distinctly to be understood as speaking from excess of loyalty. "We are proud —all England is proud — of this handsome, spirited boy. We are proud, too, of our navy and our sea service. The strong heart of England warms to the seaman's blue jacket. Now, we want to see this young Prince, of whom we are all proud, take heartily to the service, of which we are prouder still. We want him to learn his profession — not in a vapid, half-and-half, Royal Highness, kind of way. We hope to see him, notwithstanding the advantages of his position, turned into a real sailor — such an one as could work his own vessel when the elements were doing their worst, or take her into action and bring her out of action with credit to himself and,tp, the country. We like to think of this fine young boy as , ten years hence a Post- Captain, with a gallant frigate under his charge, and in command because he has a right to commana:^T)e(^nrae^.6^^Brfi?^t)^eaniaSi-ana-- . well up. to. his duty. -'^ToW, we* areiMJoirt, to have a little quiet grumble,^ne(Sairee wfiytMtfk'; a .parcel of foolish people are spoiling our^young sailorPrince for us, and we think,. moreover, that they deserve a stern reprimand "for their pains. He was sent out to be trained to salt-water, and it' is upon rosewater that his first lesson in navigation is taking place. What has a young middy to do with royal receptions, and royal salutes, and royal fiddlefaddles of every description ? If he be treated from the first as the Queen's son, not as a midshipman of the Euryalus, he may be nominally promoted in the service as an incident of 'his birth, but he will never be fit to take the royal yacht across from Portsmouth to Osborne without a real sailor at his elbow. Now, this is a point on which Tve could very easily be reduced to silence, for on such a subject we have not the smallest desire' to print one word which would give a moment of annoyance to the royal lady who reigns so gently over the hearts of her subjects. , If ij; is to be so, why let it be so. If Prince .Alfred is sent to sea with the idea that he is ultimately to wear an Admiral's epaulets at the drawing-room, without the slightest pretension to the knowledge of his profeasion, we will very readily acquiesce in the arrangement, and say no more about it. The arrange* ment will be just as good an one as such arrangements usually are, but the result will be that tho country — beyond the small circle of courtiers — • will cease to care about this young prince. Now, England, as yet, does care for him, and care for him very much. His outgoing and his progress in his sea life have been scanned by many an anxious English eye. He is looked- upon almost aatheir own child by millions of persons who speak with English tongues, i If we did not care for Prince Alfred, we would let him take his chance, and subside into, insignificance in his own way j ; but this is not so. - There areigoonany hearts open ■;}i\> him that he will find 'it: a hard task at best to/ JstiQw. himself- worthy;of_su.ch. affection. It is this which gives U3* a' right to speak, and therefore again we say, 'Why are these' foolish people spoiling our young Prince ?' Here are some facts illustrative of the manner in which the yoimg middy is dealt with by those ■who should know better : — The other day — itwaa on the 19th of December — the Euryalus reached Yaletta, last from Tangier. The first thing don© was to fire a royal salute from Fort St. Angelo, and all because a midshipman had come into port. The next thing was, that even before the Euryalus had been admitted to pratique, Sir John Pennefather, with his Staff in full gala, pulled alongside the Euryalus, and could scarcely be prevented, in, the paroxysms of his loyalty, from boarding her even before the port regulations had been complied with. At length the port officer retired ; and now, if all had been a3 it should 'have been, the young Prince would have been standing at the gangway to keep intruders off, or engaged in some other similar act of duty. In place of this he was called upon to receive the Commander of the Forces, who bad just come off to invite him to grace an evening entertainment with his princely presence. To the urayer of this petition the young midshipman was graciously pleased to assent. We are not caricaturing the report ; here are the very words, — 'The invitation was graciously accepted, and the entertainment came of with great ;4clat, having been attended by all the hlite of the garrison.' If this be the way in which all matters are managed on board the Euryalus, Prince Alfred might just as well be tempting the perils : bf Virginia water. The next wise step was to make him. the hero of a great Court ceremony. The Governor issued a circular- to :th& ; Members, of the Council, to the Bishop of Gibraltar, to the Bishop of Malta, to the- Judges, theJMagistrates, and the Foreign Consols. All .thesji' wise, and reverend* and dignified personages 'HfceF& -to meet together and consult how they could best, show honour to> the young midshipman. ■Jfihs. end 1 of it was, that the young gentleman, 'shortly baforja^V embarked in a barge, and between two lines, of men-of-war's boats proceeded to the shore under the Royal salutes of the ships in port. Then the garrison fired royal salutes; then, there was a .guard of honour waiting for the Prine*.; it could, not be .for the midshipman:. The National Anthem was^* N ( pealed forth 'in .thrilling tones,' and there was a royal progress to the palace, and a royal reception, at .which all sorts of 'stately persons were presented to his Boyat Highness; and so on, until this kind of pageant was played out. After-this- — but we? must ieally let the reporter speak,— 'His Royal Highness left the Palace in an open carriage, accompanied by the Governor, General Penneiather, 'and Major Cowell, and drove round the town and bastions to the Pieta. : On returning to the Palace his 1 Royal Highness partook of >*. cold collation, which had been spread in the Hall of Sb; Michael ''aiid St GfeoVge? "The next- day there was trical entejtfamraerit, arid" j&etowtf w^ ' jjltimM^teff^aridJove^ the I Mqa&edttiieina^ga«sf^ ' shoiffln conspicuous letters words ' Ftba fredo !' Why not SViw ■' Easy ?': ■ If. ; the young Prince be i not spoilt-Tor life by/euch ih«; ,; judicious demonstrations .of loyalty as these^ 'ha,

A.

must be the most wonderful young gentleman who ever wore bluejacket. How is it possible, if Prince Alfred be thus received whenever he puts foot ashore,, that he can be trained inhabits of subordination by the officers whom he should be; taught , to obey, ? How is it thathis young companions can 1 ever^fre brought to"----mix with him upon equal terms, if the Crown Royal of England is suffered so constantly to peep forth from beneath the midshipman's uniform? We doubt not that a parcel of tutors and instructors will readily enough teach the young Prince allthat books and instructors can teach him of the 'learning' of his profession — but that is the smallest part of a sailor's training. How is the young middy to acquire habits of discipline and the inestimable advantage of self-reliance when he sees nothing around him but courtiers ? If Prince Alfred be sent to sea as a royal Prince all this is well enough. Let him have observance and adulation in good storey let his eye rest upon marine courtiers wherever he turns it ; but in such a way he will never become either a sailor or a man. How excellent a thing for him it would be if a stern veto were interposed between the young ' 'midshipman and all these idle demonstrations for the future ! ...*„ Money-Making. — The announcement that the § ted Mr. Barnum was about to deliver an ad- . dress on 'Money-making* at St. James' 3 Hall, last night, had at least this recommendation about it, . that the lecturer, to everybody's knowledge, was thoroughly 'vp 5 in his subject. That he has often used 'humbug' as an expedient for getting money, he has already confessed with terrific frankness, but that in the art of money-making itself he has . proved himself a genuine proficient no one can doubt for a moment. However, the mere fitness of the lecturer to his theme could not account for the excessive eagerness with which hundreds of people pressed one after another into the large Music-hall for the purpose of seeing and hearing the most adventurous and least scrupulous of showmen. Often had Mr. Barnum to stop at the commencement of his discourse to allow the noise occasioned by fresh arrivals to subside into silence. The whole scene was, in fact, an apotheosis of notoriety. 'La fettle attire lafoule,' say the French, and we may assert, with equal truth, that notoriety puts itself out at compound interest. If Mr. .Barnum has got nothing else by the admiring throng who pushed, and listened and cheered yesterday evening, he has at least got a new chapter for a second edition of his autobiography. Having already related how he drew together a mob ■of Yankees to see a few tame bulls, he can now the eagerness of John Bull to see the most enterprising of Yankees. Though Mr. Barium's 'address' Howed on from beginning to end without any interruption, save what was occasioned by the noise of the crowd, it may fairly be di■vided into two parts — one relating to moneymaking in general, the other to that particular branch of the art which is associated with the word 'humbug.' The first part comprised a defence of that love of lucre which is so conspicuous in the present generation, and also contained a., ■series of sage maxims on the relations between in*| come and expenditure, which were much in the? tone of Poor Richard's Almanack, but were illustrated by a number of diverting stories. But it was when he came to the treatise on 'humbug' that the admiration of his bearers rose to its greatest height. Had he satisfactorily demonstrated that he was John Howard or Alfred the Great, or any other immortal benefactor of his race, he could not have been honoured with more encouraging cheers than when, with marvellous effrontery, he declared that he himself was considered the greatest 'humbug 1 in the whole world. However, before he had placed himself on this high moral pedestal, he had so defined the word 'humbug' as to render it comparatively harmless. The man who sells a bad article, or even a good article at too high a price, is, according to the Barnum lexicon, a mere 'cheat,' who has no right to the ennobling title of humbug.' The 'humbug' proper is, in fact, an honest soul, who vends a good article at a fair price, but does not scruple to sound his own trumpet in order to bring customers together. In plain Mr. Barnum limits the word 'hum,bug to the signification which we commonly denote by the word 'puff.' . Thus the Frenchman who clapped a helmet on his head to draw attention to the really excellent lead-pencils which he .sold in the street was a 'humbug' of the most virtuous kind. So also was Mr. Barnum himself when he opened a really excellent museum to the .public at a low price, though he used ploughing- , elephants, docile buffaloes, and manufactured merimaids as expedients to obtain notoriety, and 'though the pictures outside the museum bore the least possible resemblance to the curiosities within. This fine tissue of sophistry was illustrated by ;some capital stories, of which Mr. Barnum himself was generally the hero, and which, though •many of them must have been familiar to several .of the audience, were rendered infinitely amusing to all who heard them by the humour with which jthey were told. Whether a huge multitude applauding an orator for a' deliberate panegyric of •'humbug' may be considered as a sign of the high moral state of a nation is a point that we will not ihere discuss. But we are bound to admit that Mr. Barnum. is one of the most entertaining lecturers that ever addressed an audience on a theme universally intelligible. Cicero's great work 'De Ofljoiis' is not more systematically drawn up than Mr. Barnum's discourse on the particularly profitable virtue to which he has given his attention,' And -thus the fun attached to a series of successful impositions is heightened by their envelopment in 'a .'grave ethical essay. The appearance of Mr. Barnum, it .should be added, has nothing of the 'charlatan' about it, but is that of the thoroughly respectable man of business ; and lie has at command a. fund of dry humour that convulses everybody with laughter, while he himself remains perfectlyserious. A sonorous voice and an admirably ; clear, delivery, complete his; qualifications as a lecttirer, in :which capacity he is no 'humbug' either in the higher or, the, lower sense of the word, i Whether, people feel wiser and.better after listen- , .ing to his sage maxims and odd examples may be : doubtea^ but i^is certain,that a comfortable sense ; of shrewdness: comes over ..them when, they reflect f on ; what they ■ ;have! heard two hours . of Mk^P^S^{\ : -' 'y '"<■:■''■'■' ''- : '"'''" .'-' : '-'- i: ■'-.'■•. .'''■'■ ■