A hundred years ago From the 'Spectator', 23 October /869—The
Queen has agreed, if her health permits, to open the Holborn Viaduct in person on the 6th November, to the great joy of the City, which has, however, resolved to give no enter- tainment on the occasion. A rumour was circu- lated at the beginning ot the week that the ceremony would be marked by a novel and saddening spectacle. All the unemployed in London were to range themselves in rows on each side of the streets the Queen must traverse, and thus, as it were, offer a silent petition to Her Majesty for aid. The crowd so collected would, we fear, have been enormous, but the idea has apparently been abandoned. It has been strongly discouraged by the papers, and one argument, that the exhibition would give the Queen deep pain while she was exerting herself to please her people, is said to have been used by the unemployed themselves. Its use shows their sound feeling, but we wish there were some means in England through which misery could express itself and make itself seen. It has to seek its racer vales always
among the comfortable. — -
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