The Lord Mayor's Day, yesterday week, had its remark- able
aspects, but they were hardly aspects involving any political surprise to the nation. It was remarkable for the interpolation in the procession of a van of frozen meat from the Antipodes, which somehow'contrived to make itself a principal feature of the Lord Mayor's Show. It was remarkable, again, for the presence at the Lord Mayor's banquet of a French engineer so famous and so jealous for his own country as M. de Lesseps, and for his cordial reception of the compliments showered on him on all sides by " perfidious " Englishmen. It was remarkable for the circumstance that France was repre- sented by an Ambassador who spoke English like an English- man, and who, while treating the French Republic as a great experiment of only thirteen years' standing, appeared to regard the alliance between England and France as no longer an experiment, but a policy necessary to the welfare of both countries. It was a remarkable thing to have a Lord Mayor—Mr. R. N. Fowler, M.P., one of the Members for the City of London—who quoted both Greek and Latin, both Homer and Horace, to his audience, though he condescended sufficiently to give them a poetical translation of the Greek. And it was remarkable that of all the foreign Ministers present, the one who attracted most interest was perhaps not even M. Waddington, in spite of his English descent and education, his ability and his cordiality, but the Chinese Marquis Tseng, who has attained so suddenly a reputation for diplomatic skill almost beyond the standard of Europe. But the announcements of policy made were not re- markable, and Mr. Gladstone's speech, happy and graceful as it was, was happiest in its way of announcing that there was very little to announce, and that the newspapers had prophesied (truly or falsely) the purposes of the Government, rather than
disclosed them. •
