THE COMING CEREMONIAL.
AS far as we can understand popular feeling, everybody wishes this Thanksgiving ceremonial to succeed. The Govern- ment certainly wish it, for any fiasco, whether they are responsible or not, will be carried to their discredit ; while a catastrophe, always possible where thousands ascend temporary staircases to sit in temporary galleries, would very nearly destroy them, by confirming the popular impression of their continuous ill-luck. The Londoners resident on the route certainly wish it, for though they have none of the feeling with which Paris inspires Parisians, they have a liking for London ; and the sightseers certainly wish it, for they are paying preposterous sums for windows, five hundred pounds, according to the Echo of Wednesday, having in one instance been offered and refused for a floor with windows facing both ways. There is no faction among us which is sorry the Prince recovered, and the individuals who object to a ceremonial recognition of the goodness of God form an infinitesimal fragment of the multitude. Nevertheless there is still, as we write, a possibility of a failure which it is almost too late to avoid. We do not speak of the weather, but only of the arrangements. Of course, if it rains there is an end of the world. The million and a half of people in sodden broad-cloth and draggle-tailed silks will get as drunk as they can "to avoid a chill," and London will be a dreary Pandemonium. However, it is the sun's business to shine when the Queen is out, and if he fails in his clear duty nobody but the Pall Mall Gazette will ascribe it to Mr. Gladstone. It is want of arrangement we dread. Powerful as individualism is and great as are the results it can sometimes produce in England, interest. The interior of the Cathedral will doubtless be a success. we could have wished to see signs of a little more organization, There are complaints made as to the insufficient number of if it were only voluntary, a mere resolve to hear and to follow the musicians engaged, the anthems published are rather conven- advice of some one competent person in the decoration of the tional, and the children's voices in the dome might have streets. The idea of the Tines to let Mr. Beverley be supreme been used with an effect which all who have ever heard for the day was very clever, and would in any place where in- them will recognize, but nevertheless the sight ought to be a dividualism is less rampant have been accepted, but any leader grand one. The magnificent interior will be bright with colour, accustomed to study pictorial effects would have quadrupled the and thronged with 12,000 representatives of all that is great and result of individual energy. There is, however, no unofficial fugle- distinguished and beautiful and well dressed within the kingdom, man, the Press not being wise enough or united enough to elect one ; the service itself will enforce order, and if Lord Sydney will only and the official fuglemen do not seem as competent as might be destroy his popularity for ever by refusing nine applications in ten, wished. Who, for example, was responsible for that insane idea there ought to be neither crush nor catastrophe in emptying the of returning by the Embankment ? Did he ever see a crowd building, in which we presume no light of any kind save that of anywhere, and more especially in London ; or does he imagine the sun will for the day be allowed. The upper ten thousand will that, like a Prussian crowd, all its male components have learned, have a field day of the kind they like, and will, we doubt not, if as a part of discipline, to swim ? The Press did not rebuke that they can only get back again, be content. But we are much less suggestion half ferociously enough. We do not hesitate to say hopeful of the approaches. London is a difficult city to light up that if it had been adhered to, nothing short of a miracle would by daylight, the people having unfortunately got three ideas into have saved us from one of those catastrophes which sadden a reign, their heads which are almost fatal to effective street decoration. and like the accident at the wedding of Marie Antoinette, live for They will put clothes-lines across the streets and hang flags on ever in pictorial history. Thousands might have been drowned at them, thus destroying the endless vista of varied colour which it is once in the rush after the Queen's carriage, a chance so palpable the object of street decoration to secure. Nobody can see through to the simplest observation that we cannot think highly of the coloured flags any more than they can see through the white linen strategical capacity of those who recommended such a risk. The on a drying-ground, and all distances are reduced to yards. The present route is safe, and the use made of the river, to convey blunder is the more provoking, because the long bit from the rail- officials not in the procession, is adroit, but we do hope some way bridge across Ludgate Hill up to St. Paul's might be military brain has been entrusted with the arrangements round made into a picture nobody would ever forget—an avenue of St. Paul's. The crushing will converge there—in the centre, colour up to the Cathedral—while there is hardly a street that is, of a web of narrow streets—and though English- in the world with the varied capacities of that which stretches men are possessed, when waiting for a show, of almost asinine unbroken from the Viaduct to Bayswater. There might be - patience, will stand for hours immovable with a discretion views in it of miles, views of a crowd such as only London can Frenchmen do not show—though they invented the queue— produce, a crowd under a clear blue sky, equal perhaps to ten still the major portion of mankind are unaware that it armies, ranged between lines of colour and forests of banners, all takes time for troops and still more time for crowds to standing out in the sunlight, and as visible as the procession pass through doorways however tall, or street-mouths however advances as if they were on the ground. But if the view is to be wide ; and there may be heavy blocks. Captain Labalmondiere broken at every ten yards by clothes-lines covered with red rags and his aides will have to show high topographical capacity and no —for a large banner so hung looks a rag—and by scrolls with little faculty for organization in devising means to resist or regulate imbecile mottos, the procession might almost as well advance the sway of the crowds towards the Cathedral, and particularly of through a series of cellars. We say "imbecile" mottos, for a man that stampeding crowd which will follow the Queen. The Alex- who should be made to write epitaphs for the rest of his life has andra procession had no "point," but this one has. The difficulty advised that the decorations ought to suggest the Prince's illness is enormously increased by the preposterous limitation of the pro- and recovery, as well as the people's joy, and that splendour should cession, which leaves the people no endless line to watch, and be tempered by sadness and religious feeling. We knew, as we therefore tempts them to a rush. There are to be only nine read the words, that they would hit the popular taste, which is in carriages, and seven of them will be filled with the most unin- favour of what it calls "sentiments," and that the Londoners, teresting and least known individuals in Great Britain. Who ever being Englishmen, would not have a notion how to combine the saw even in the Stereoscopic Company's window a photograph of two ideas in anything more subtly symbolical than scrolls "The Court"? The "Household," we believe, thinks itself quite with sentences or texts on them, neither of them very artistically as important as the Cabinet, but the number of men who would chosen. We should not be in the least surprised to see a great notice an announcement that it had gone to Japan, or who could yellow flag stretching all across Holborn with "Honour to Gull" name half-a-dozen of its component individualities may be in fat black letters ; or to see busts of Jenner on the top of tall counted on the fingers. The people will gaze, we dare say, with poles ; or to hear that the whimsical notion of the roughs, that the interest at the Duke of Edinburgh, for they have an idea, whether Prince was cured, after medicine had failed, by drinking bitter beer, well or ill founded we do not know, that his marriage with an had been embodied in the decorations of half the publichouses on the Archduchess is to be the next Royal event, and that is something route. Then—and this is the last cause of our frequent failure in new, but with this exception nobody out of the last carriage will such pageants,—the British public is shy, and very much afraid of be so much as looked at. That carriage, of course, with the ridicule. Each householder along the line is probably aware that Queen the Prince and the Princess in it, will be the centre of all if everybody would hang anything brightly coloured out of every eyes, and for that very reason the object of every rush, which it window, be it baize, or carpet, or curtain, or bunting, the total would not have been if those responsible had remembered that for effect on those long lines would be indescribably bright ; but as no Kings in national ceremonials there can be but two fitting distinc- advice of that kind has reached him from anywhere, he is afraid tions. They should be alone, or they should be surrounded by the all will not do it, and that his house will look singular, and so great bodies of the State. Courtiers are not imposing people, and trusts entirely in his flags, a very valuable addition to wall decora- there are not enough of them to make up a grand procession, tion, but a very poor substitute for it. The Telegraph says, we which certainly ought not to have consisted of less than a thousand perceive, that the proceeding which lights up even Amster- carriages two abreast. Why should not both Houses have fol- dam, a city many degrees gloomier than London, is opposed lowed the Sovereign in their carriages, thus forming at once a to our manners, and would suggest that every house had an splendid procession of the representative men" of the country? execution in it, and that poor joke of itself will be sufficient to They would have caused no delay, for anything like quick driving prevent the attempt. John Bull cannot face a joke of that kind will raise a burst of popular feeling, as the mere rumour of such a unless he has a leader, and there is no leader to be found. The mistake did when the Princess of Wales entered London, and Lord Chamberlain, whose business it is, would not express an they would have raised the procession into a memorable pageant, idea for the world, even if he has one. The City Council con- a grand State parade. As it is, the single object of interest will sider that the world for them ends at Temple Bar. London as be the Queen's Carriage, and though the sight of the Sovereign such has no head, and the daily newspapers, which could, if they may repay the multitude, it will not keep them rooted to their liked, select, adopt, and popularize a programme with an idea places. The soldiers are no help, for as all soldiers are alike the in it,—a programme intended to secure a few broad and
mob can see them while running at full speed. visible effects, such, for example, as the predominance of It is too late now, we imagine, to alter the composition of the the Royal colour in one street and of the Prince's plumes procession, and we can only hope that the scene through which in another—are hopelessly disunited as to the ends to be obtained. and to which it will proceed may make up to the spectators for But for that, the organization of a street pageant in London would any failure of dignity, want of beauty, or absence of continuous be the easiest of all things, the people being quite hearty, quite good-
and great as are the results it can sometimes produce in England, interest. The interior of the Cathedral will doubtless be a success. we could have wished to see signs of a little more organization, There are complaints made as to the insufficient number of if it were only voluntary, a mere resolve to hear and to follow the musicians engaged, the anthems published are rather conven- advice of some one competent person in the decoration of the tional, and the children's voices in the dome might have streets. The idea of the Tines to let Mr. Beverley be supreme been used with an effect which all who have ever heard for the day was very clever, and would in any place where in- them will recognize, but nevertheless the sight ought to be a dividualism is less rampant have been accepted, but any leader grand one. The magnificent interior will be bright with colour, accustomed to study pictorial effects would have quadrupled the and thronged with 12,000 representatives of all that is great and result of individual energy. There is, however, no unofficial fugle- distinguished and beautiful and well dressed within the kingdom, man, the Press not being wise enough or united enough to elect one ; the service itself will enforce order, and if Lord Sydney will only and the official fuglemen do not seem as competent as might be destroy his popularity for ever by refusing nine applications in ten, wished. Who, for example, was responsible for that insane idea there ought to be neither crush nor catastrophe in emptying the of returning by the Embankment ? Did he ever see a crowd building, in which we presume no light of any kind save that of anywhere, and more especially in London ; or does he imagine the sun will for the day be allowed. The upper ten thousand will that, like a Prussian crowd, all its male components have learned, have a field day of the kind they like, and will, we doubt not, if as a part of discipline, to swim ? The Press did not rebuke that they can only get back again, be content. But we are much less suggestion half ferociously enough. We do not hesitate to say hopeful of the approaches. London is a difficult city to light up that if it had been adhered to, nothing short of a miracle would by daylight, the people having unfortunately got three ideas into have saved us from one of those catastrophes which sadden a reign, their heads which are almost fatal to effective street decoration. and like the accident at the wedding of Marie Antoinette, live for They will put clothes-lines across the streets and hang flags on ever in pictorial history. Thousands might have been drowned at them, thus destroying the endless vista of varied colour which it is once in the rush after the Queen's carriage, a chance so palpable the object of street decoration to secure. Nobody can see through to the simplest observation that we cannot think highly of the coloured flags any more than they can see through the white linen strategical capacity of those who recommended such a risk. The on a drying-ground, and all distances are reduced to yards. The present route is safe, and the use made of the river, to convey blunder is the more provoking, because the long bit from the rail- officials not in the procession, is adroit, but we do hope some way bridge across Ludgate Hill up to St. Paul's might be military brain has been entrusted with the arrangements round made into a picture nobody would ever forget—an avenue of St. Paul's. The crushing will converge there—in the centre, colour up to the Cathedral—while there is hardly a street that is, of a web of narrow streets—and though English- in the world with the varied capacities of that which stretches men are possessed, when waiting for a show, of almost asinine unbroken from the Viaduct to Bayswater. There might be - patience, will stand for hours immovable with a discretion views in it of miles, views of a crowd such as only London can Frenchmen do not show—though they invented the queue— produce, a crowd under a clear blue sky, equal perhaps to ten still the major portion of mankind are unaware that it armies, ranged between lines of colour and forests of banners, all takes time for troops and still more time for crowds to standing out in the sunlight, and as visible as the procession pass through doorways however tall, or street-mouths however advances as if they were on the ground. But if the view is to be wide ; and there may be heavy blocks. Captain Labalmondiere broken at every ten yards by clothes-lines covered with red rags and his aides will have to show high topographical capacity and no —for a large banner so hung looks a rag—and by scrolls with little faculty for organization in devising means to resist or regulate imbecile mottos, the procession might almost as well advance the sway of the crowds towards the Cathedral, and particularly of through a series of cellars. We say "imbecile" mottos, for a man that stampeding crowd which will follow the Queen. The Alex- who should be made to write epitaphs for the rest of his life has andra procession had no "point," but this one has. The difficulty advised that the decorations ought to suggest the Prince's illness is enormously increased by the preposterous limitation of the pro- and recovery, as well as the people's joy, and that splendour should cession, which leaves the people no endless line to watch, and be tempered by sadness and religious feeling. We knew, as we therefore tempts them to a rush. There are to be only nine read the words, that they would hit the popular taste, which is in carriages, and seven of them will be filled with the most unin- favour of what it calls "sentiments," and that the Londoners, teresting and least known individuals in Great Britain. Who ever being Englishmen, would not have a notion how to combine the saw even in the Stereoscopic Company's window a photograph of two ideas in anything more subtly symbolical than scrolls "The Court"? The "Household," we believe, thinks itself quite with sentences or texts on them, neither of them very artistically as important as the Cabinet, but the number of men who would chosen. We should not be in the least surprised to see a great notice an announcement that it had gone to Japan, or who could yellow flag stretching all across Holborn with "Honour to Gull" name half-a-dozen of its component individualities may be in fat black letters ; or to see busts of Jenner on the top of tall counted on the fingers. The people will gaze, we dare say, with poles ; or to hear that the whimsical notion of the roughs, that the interest at the Duke of Edinburgh, for they have an idea, whether Prince was cured, after medicine had failed, by drinking bitter beer, well or ill founded we do not know, that his marriage with an had been embodied in the decorations of half the publichouses on the Archduchess is to be the next Royal event, and that is something route. Then—and this is the last cause of our frequent failure in new, but with this exception nobody out of the last carriage will such pageants,—the British public is shy, and very much afraid of be so much as looked at. That carriage, of course, with the ridicule. Each householder along the line is probably aware that Queen the Prince and the Princess in it, will be the centre of all if everybody would hang anything brightly coloured out of every eyes, and for that very reason the object of every rush, which it window, be it baize, or carpet, or curtain, or bunting, the total would not have been if those responsible had remembered that for effect on those long lines would be indescribably bright ; but as no Kings in national ceremonials there can be but two fitting distinc- advice of that kind has reached him from anywhere, he is afraid tions. They should be alone, or they should be surrounded by the all will not do it, and that his house will look singular, and so great bodies of the State. Courtiers are not imposing people, and trusts entirely in his flags, a very valuable addition to wall decora- there are not enough of them to make up a grand procession, tion, but a very poor substitute for it. The Telegraph says, we which certainly ought not to have consisted of less than a thousand perceive, that the proceeding which lights up even Amster- carriages two abreast. Why should not both Houses have fol- dam, a city many degrees gloomier than London, is opposed lowed the Sovereign in their carriages, thus forming at once a to our manners, and would suggest that every house had an splendid procession of the representative men" of the country? execution in it, and that poor joke of itself will be sufficient to They would have caused no delay, for anything like quick driving prevent the attempt. John Bull cannot face a joke of that kind will raise a burst of popular feeling, as the mere rumour of such a unless he has a leader, and there is no leader to be found. The mistake did when the Princess of Wales entered London, and Lord Chamberlain, whose business it is, would not express an they would have raised the procession into a memorable pageant, idea for the world, even if he has one. The City Council con- a grand State parade. As it is, the single object of interest will sider that the world for them ends at Temple Bar. London as be the Queen's Carriage, and though the sight of the Sovereign such has no head, and the daily newspapers, which could, if they may repay the multitude, it will not keep them rooted to their liked, select, adopt, and popularize a programme with an idea places. The soldiers are no help, for as all soldiers are alike the in it,—a programme intended to secure a few broad and
mob can see them while running at full speed. visible effects, such, for example, as the predominance of It is too late now, we imagine, to alter the composition of the the Royal colour in one street and of the Prince's plumes procession, and we can only hope that the scene through which in another—are hopelessly disunited as to the ends to be obtained. and to which it will proceed may make up to the spectators for But for that, the organization of a street pageant in London would any failure of dignity, want of beauty, or absence of continuous be the easiest of all things, the people being quite hearty, quite good- humoured, and quite willing to be told, if only they are told in an accustomed way, with plenty of words in print, what they ought to do. There are six men in London who, if they liked to select an artist, accept his programme, and stick to it, could secure its execution almost as certainly as a law would, and yet there is no chance of coherence in the display, which, nevertheless, everyone wishes heartily to make.
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