EDINBURGH.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 784, 22 June 1864, Page 6

EDINBURGH.

{FROM OTJH. OVfS CORES? PON DENT.)

April 25th, 1864,

The " Times" and the " Telegraph" are both, in their different ways, first-rate papers, but you must not always believe what they say—or rather yon must not, unhesitatingly, think just what they would have you thiuk. It is possible without telling a verbal lie to convey a very false impression. Both the papers I have named scout the notion of there being any connection between the assembling of the Conference on the Danish Duchies in London, and Garibaldi's very abrupt departure from it—from England, indeed— and from Britain. They may write as sarcastically as they please, but in this case the public obstinately refuses to be laughed out of the conclusion to which it leaped as soon as it heard, to its indignant astonishment, that the General, whom it had hoped to fete for many a day to come, ■was about to leave in so strangely sudden a manner. Of course, no one can doubt the literal -accuracy of the explanations given by the representatives of the Government in the two Hoases of Parliament, but these may be, perfectly unimpeachable, and yet it may remain a fact that Garibaldi received a significant hint that just now his room would be preferred to his compasy in England by the powers that be both here and abroad. The mere circumstance of a Cabinet minister being one of 'hose who became suddenly so anxious about the General's health, was in itself a hint. Some people discover another m a sudden attack of neuralgia that prevented the Queen from holding a Court at which, bad it been held, Garibaldi would have been presented. The masses growl at her supposed dislike of him in regular Republican style. They attribute it to the abiding influence of her deceased Consort. In a London 'bus the other day, I heard a man say that it was a lucky day for England when Prince Albert died. I certainly don't think that —whatever I may think of the toadies who have tried to make him out not merely Albert the Good, but Albert the God—but I do think that at the instigation of somebody or other, Garibaldi has been snubbed. The Prince of Wales has added to his popularity — springing from a belief that his views are more liberal than his mother's, by paying the General a visit. The swellocracy, genuine and sham, have also, as you wilt see, made a fashionable fuss with him—not behaving, by the bye, nearly so pretty as the plebs did in its warm, its boiling-hot welcome of him. The grasp of the horny hand Garibaldi prefers to the touch of the kid glove; but the hearty welcome he was sure of in all parts of the United Kingdom, save Ireland, from ail classes, save the sections ■whose suspicions or subservkney, I think, cut his visit short, would, I am inclined also to think, have given Garibaldi a very mingled joy. He would not, he could not, have doubted its genuineness, and yet, paradoxical as the statement may sound, it would have seemed unreal to him. It wauld have been a tribute to the man rather than to his cause, and it is all of the cause, and nothing of the man, that Garibaldi thinks. We may bellow in his honour until we are blue in the face, we may subscribe liberally to provide for him and his family; but would we go to war, would we even threaten to go to war, to enable him to complete the fulfilment of his glorious dream, to give the finishing blow to the taunt that Italy is "only a geographical expression," to restore her " from the Alps to the Adriatic ?" lam afraid not, and, therefore, I think that ' Garibaldi's triumphant progress throughout Britain would for him have been darkened with the thought—" What will be the outcome of all this enthusiasm ? It is, after all, a mere firing with blank cartridge." Nevertheless, did I not believe that those who have hinted that it would be better for Garibaldi to go, have been able to find a very good pretext for their suggestion, and that Garibaldi would have been thoroughly "done up" had he at once carried out his acceptance of the hail-storm-like shower of invitations which poured in upon him, I should regret that those invitations had not been at once accepted, I cannot see, with Mr Gladstone, that theeffeet of the magnificent welcome Garibaldi received in London, would have been weakened if the welcome had been repeated over and over again in England and Scotland. It is refreshing in this age so often accused of selfish materialism to witness genuine, disinterested, even if unpractical, admiration of moral greatness. Very savage do the inhabitants of Edinburgh, Glasgow, and a long list of provincial towns north and south of the Border, feel at having been deprived of the opportunity of telling Garibaldi, by the voice of enthusiastic crowds of all classes, that they think him ) morally, the greatest man of th time. Bedford, and the one or two othe provincial places that have, by accident M it were, been able to show their appre-' ciation of the cabin-boy, whose name flutters the Cabinets of the world have made their less fortunate provincial rivals fiercely envious. I wa3 lucky enough to witness Garibaldi's triumphal entry into London. I mingled in the crowds that early in the morning began to block the Kennington d. Almost every one seemed enthusi-

,Ac in honor of Garibaldi, and to know why he or ahe was enthusiastic. A few Irish navvies scowled on the Italian colors, which, in silk, flowers, and paper, ■were widely worn; but any such attempt as had been menaced on the part of a mob to mar the greeting which all London had determined to give Garibaldi, would have keen the most moonstruck of madness. As well might a chip have been used as a dam for the Falls of Niagara. An irate female anti-Garibaldian spoilt a Cockney's coat; a cowardly male antiGaribaldian, made Dutchly courageous by muddy porter, stole a pint more of the same, and then tried to bite off the nose of the little man from whom he had stolen the pint, because the little man, undeterred by the beery bully, presumed to say that he admired Garibaldi —that was, I believe, the entire outcome of the menaced onslaught on the pro-Garibaldian Londoners. Most patiently those Londoners waited. The sparse flags, table-covers and hearthrugs hung outside houses, and the banners firooping from ropes, limply extending across streets, made a beggarly display ; the " procession" was a long, limping, absurdity, but most good-temperedly the vast crowd waited on. The police were scarcely visible. Now and then a mounted policeman tried to get up a ten yards' gallop, pro forma, but, having to rein in before he had got over half of even the limited course he had hoped to cover, he contented himself with starting his steed At

the speed of a hearse horse through the crowd, in which he was soon swallowed like a rain drop in the sea. At last came the hour and the Man. Standing up in a carriage, drawn by four greys; with pleasure held in check, the check of a hero's equanimity irradiating his leonine face; pursued by a mighty huzziing crowd, surging like sea waves; into a vast throng which instantly lifted up its oceanic voice to answer; the great little man in the red shirt advanced, at a snail's pace, uncovered ; urbanely endeavouring to raise the glory of his sweet, sad, manly eyes_ on every individual in the throngs of myriads assembled to do him honour. As he passed along, white handkerchiefs fluttered like those vast throngs of passen-ger-pigeons of which Andubon and Wilson tell us, and their fair wavers raised a i cheer that rang, not shrill, but musically clear, above the deep welcome of the men. Garibaldi, by whom all true Englishmen swear, is still more intensely worshipped jby all true English women. The recollection of that great man, receiving that great welcome, makes me. disinclined to write of little men and little things. Nevertheless, as a faithful chronicler, I must write of Dr. Begg^and his doings. When Mr. Buckle drew a parallel between Scotland and Spain, the perfervidum ingenium Scotorum flamed up in wrath against the presumptuous Englishman. The Calvinistic Presbyter only old Romish priest writ large ! The country of the Covenanters under the control of black dragoons! Claverhouse's defiers tyrannised over by Dr. Candlish! The ardent lovers of porridge and private judgment —the worshippers of whiskytoddy and the people's right to make pastoral appointments, denounced the notion as utterly preposterous. The truth is, that the Scotch are very free and easy in their treatment of their ministers when they are on trial. Then, not only their orthodoxy and their "powers of edification," but the way in which they make a bow, blow their noses, part their hair, and trim their nails—even their weight avoirdupois—are considered fair subjects to call in question. But when once a Scottish congregation has obtained the pastor of its choice, it allows him to do almost what he likes. Very few English clergymen could even attempt to do what many clergymen do with impunity iv Scotland. English people would not put up with the clerical interference and clerical assumption of infallibity, which Scotch people submit to as a matter of course. I have had occasion before to speak of Dr. Begg, the professed friend of the workingclasses, who prevented the Edinburgh working-classes from enjoying their Botanic Garden on the only day on which they could enjoy it—the puffed-up Presbyter, who wanted to take the command of the Channel-fleet out of the hands of its Admiral and the Admiralty, — the benevolent bearer of brimstone instead of balm to widows in their affliction —the benighted bigot who would snatch stale crusts and scraps of broken meat from the mouths of poor old women, with none but a few kind Catholic ladies to care for them, and who think the " kist-o*-pipes" the abomination of desolation, and a liturgy worse than the literature of Holywell street. I have now to record another "exhibition of himself" made by this intolerant man. It was proposed to appoint the Rev. Islay Burns a Professor in the Glasgow Free Church College. Dr Begg opposed the appointment, on the ground that Mr Burns was the author of a pamphlet which did not condemn as altogether unchristian every form of Church government except Free Church Presbyterianisra. This pamphlet so vexed the righteous soul of a friend of Dr Begg's that he put it into the fire, and Dr Begg approved the deed. To the disgrace of the Free Church, it must be recorded that Dr Begg's opposition was successful. It brought out a disclosure which deepens the brand of disgrace it burnt into the Church's brow. Dr Hanna, that Cath»lic-minded divine whom troops of his narrow-minded, illiterate brethren bark at as a dangerous heretifi, stated that his illustrious father-in-law had gone farther than Mr Burns I on the road of common sense, and common I charity, and had left, in writing, an expression of his belief " that the New Testament Scriptures do not prescribe definitely and authoritatively any form of Church Government, and method of Christian worship"—an expression of belief which Dr Hanna, he regretfully added, had suppressed when he edited Dr Chalmers' Works, in compliance with the entreaties, or rather, in obedience to the commands of the late Dr Cunningham. As a slight set-off to the miserable littlenesses I have just recorded, it is pleasant to be able to say that the Free Churchmen of Dottar have for some time given the Episcopalians of that town the use of their church. I have allowed myself to run into so disproportionate an amount of comment that I must make short work of the rest of my chronicle.

• Mrs Theodore Martin — that is the mortal name of her known to the gods as Miss Helen Faucit, has been delighting her Edinburgh admirers at the Queeen's Theatre. The more enthusiastic of them make out that she even looks Juliet as well as she ever did. Considering however, that she wa3 born in , but I won't be ungallant enough to indicate her exact age, it seems to me to be piling up the adulation rather too mountainous to maintain that Miss Faucit represents to the eye the beautiful Italian girl, of whom her old nurse prattled :

" Come Lammas eve, at night, {shall she be

fourteen Susan and she—God rest all Christian souls !

Were of an age,— well, Susan is with God ;

She was too good for me. But, as I said, On Lammas eve, at night, shall she be fourteen." Connoisseurs of another kind have had an opportunity of competing for a portion of the late Marquis of Breadalbane's famous wines, &c. They were left in four parts, and one of the quarters was put up to auction in Edinburgh, recently. Some of the rum sold for a pound a bottle, sherry, in magnums, at 15s. a bottle. The unequalled bouquet of those beverages reminds me by contrast of an unrivalled odour of an opposite description. A short time ago the Edinburgh scavengers struck en masse, and the Old Town, always malodorous, became pestilential. A mile off might the most callous-nosed traveller have exclaimed, " Sweet Embro', I smell thee noo ! n A number of men volunteered to take the place of those on strike, and under the protection of the police the knobsticks, or knob-broomsticks, restored Auld Reekie to its normal state of barely endurable odoriferousness. A variety of schemes for ventilating and otherwise improving the Old Town, have recently been proposed. One, which seem 3 a very good one, is to run a broad street with handsome buildings from the South Bridge to George the Fourth's Bridge. Corks Tavern would oe knocked down, the top of College Wynd cut off, and the Wyud widened to match West College street, and

the Gaelic Church would be removed i some yards farther back. In this way good views of the north front of the college (which would have a handsome archway formed in it), and of the fine industrial museum would be given. A college hall would probably be one of the new buildings, if the scheme were carried out. Professor Pillans is dead. Many a Scotsman in New Zealand must cherish a pleasant memory of the cultivated, genial old man, whom Byron abated when young, and the small would-be satirists of the " Edinburgh Courant" fondly fancied they annoyed when old. Following the example of the London University, the Edinburgh University is going to grant degrees in science. The rest, of my Edinburgh news may soon be summed up. We"have had a great fire in the West Port, and another disgraceful " clerico-police fax" row, in which the " roughs" and the I " men of conscience" played into one another's hands most amicably, Prince ! Alfred, after a six month's course of study and toadyism, has left Holyrood, and it is | proposed to bridge the Forth just above Queensferry. From Glasgow emigration has increased marvellously in the past mouth. A very large proportion of the 'emigrants were Irishmen and Germans 'going out to America to provide billets for Confederate bullets. Two hundred were workmen bound for Egypt, to dredge i and generally keep in order the French i Canal; forty had sensibly selected Otago as their destination.