Mr. Gladstone delivered at Hawarden Castle on Tuesday an eloquent
and very graceful address to a number of his fellow- parishioners whom he entertained at a Jubilee treat in honour of the Queen's completion of the fiftieth year of her reign. There were present from 250 to 260 people,—all who had reached or passed the Queen's age were invited,—and they were served with dinner in a tent by members of Mr. Gladstone's family, assisted by the servants at the Castle. Mr. Gladstone contrasted the Jubilee of George III. with the Queen's Jubilee, as a Jubilee of the clams with a Jubilee of the masses. George Ill's Jubilee was celebrated chiefly by great folks, by Corporations, and so forth. Indeed, the masses were then too hard-pressed to think much of Jubilees at all. The condition of the poor in that reign was once pithily thus described,—" The poor starved and were hanged." The food of the people was dear, and their wages low. The most trivial offences were punished capitally. Tea was 8s. a pound ; sugar was four times the price it is now; wheat was more than four times its present price; meat was cheaper only because there was no one in the poorer classes to compete for it ; and wages were little more than half what they are now. The Queen had associated herself with all the great changes for the better which have taken place, by giving a willing and hearty consent to all the legislative measures which have ameliorated the condition of the nation, and by making her Court an example of a pure and noble life. Mr. Gladstone con- cluded a speech which seemed even more happily adapted to the occasion, both in rhythm and beauty of texture, than many of his greatest Parliamentary efforts, by reminding his audience that those in high station are not thereby removed from tempta- tion, but rather more exposed to temptation, and that the Queen deserves and is entitled to the hearty prayers of all her subjects.
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