Bygones Worth Remembering Volume Ii Part 8

"E. W. Hamilton.

"The Vestry Clerk of Lambeth."

Mr. Hill gave notice of the following motion:--

"That an instruction be given to the Prime Minister that if the proper authorities are willing to hand over the Lambeth Palace grounds for the free use of the public, this Board will accept the charge and preserve the grounds as a portion of the open s.p.a.ces."

Then came a hopeless and defensive letter, before referred to, addressed both to the _Standard, Telegraph_, and the _Times_:--

"Sir,--Some of the statements (including a correspondence with the Prime Minister) which have, during the last few days, appeared in the newspapers with reference to Lambeth Palace grounds, would, I think, lead those who are unacquainted with the circ.u.mstances to suppose that these grounds have been hitherto altogether closed to the public, and reserved for the sole use of the Archbishop and his household. Will you, therefore, to prevent misapprehension, kindly allow me to state the facts of the case?

"For many years past the Archbishop of Canterbury endeavoured, in what seemed to him the best way, to make the grounds in question available, under certain restrictions, to the general public. During the summer months twenty-eight cricket clubs, some from the Lambeth parishes and some from other parts of London, have received permission to play cricket in the field, and similar arrangements have been made for football in the winter, though necessarily upon a smaller scale. The whole available ground has been carefully allotted for the different hours of each day. On certain fixed occasions the field is used for rifle corps' drill and exercises, and throughout the summer, arrangements are constantly made for 'treats' for infant and other schools unable to go out of London. Tickets giving admission to the field at all hours have been issued for some years past, in very large numbers, to the sick, aged, and poor of the surrounding streets; and the whole grounds, including the private garden, have been opened without restriction to the nurses and others of St. Thomas's Hospital.

"His Grace frequently consulted those best qualified from local experience to judge what is for the advantage of the neighbourhood, and invariably found their opinion to coincide with his own--namely, that a more public opening of the ground would interfere with the useful purposes to which it is at present turned for the benefit of the neighbourhood, and that, considering the limited s.p.a.ce, no gain could be secured by throwing it entirely open which would at all compensate for the inevitable loss of the advantages at present enjoyed.--I am, sir, your obedient servant,

"Randall T. Davidson.

"Lambeth Palace, December 16."

On January 6, 1883, I wrote to the _Daily News_, saying:--

"Sir,--Your columns have recorded the steps taken by the Lambeth Vestry and by Lord Brabazon (on the part of the Open s.p.a.ce Society, for which he acts) with respect to the use of the pasture acres connected with the Palace grounds of Lambeth. I have been asked by a clergyman, for whose judgment I have great respect, to write some letter which shall make it plain to the public that it is not the gardens of the Palace for the use of which any one has asked, but for the nine acres of fields outside the gardens, as a small recreation ground which shall be open to the children of Lambeth, who are numerous there, and much in need of some pleasant change of that scarce and pleasant kind. No one has dined at the Lambeth Palace, or been otherwise a visitor there, without valuing the gardens which surround it and which are necessary to an episcopal residence in London. No one wishes to interfere with or curtail the garden grounds. I thought the public understood this. I shall therefore be obliged if you can insert this explanation in your columns. Much better than anything I could say upon the subject are the words which occur in the _Family Churchman_ of December 27th, which gives the portraits of the new Archbishop, Dr. Benson, and the late Bishop of Llandaff. The editor says that 'every one knows the Archbishops of Canterbury have a splendid country seat at Addington, within easy driving distance of London. Within the same distance there are few parks so beautiful as Addington Palace, whilst, unlike some parks in other parts of the country, it is jealously closed against the public. The Palace park is remarkable for its romantic dells, filled with n.o.ble trees and an undergrowth of rhododendrons. There are, moreover, within the park, heights which command fine views of the surrounding country.

It is thought, perhaps not unjustly, that the new Archbishop might well be content with this country place, and, whilst retaining the gardens at Lambeth Palace, might with graceful content see conceded to the poor, whose houses throng the neighbourhood, the nine acres of pasture land.'

This is very distinct and even generous testimony on the part of the _Family Churchman_ to the seemliness and legitimacy of the plea put forward on the part of the little people of Lambeth.--Very faithfully yours,

"George Jacob Holyoake.

"22, Ess.e.x Street W.C."

News of the Palace grounds agitation reached as far as Mentone, and Mr. R. French Blake, who was residing at the Hotel Splendide, sent an interesting letter to the _Times_--historical, defensive, and suggestive. He wrote on January 3, 1883, saying:--

"Sir,--Attention having recently been drawn to the Lambeth Palace grounds and the use which the late Primate made of them for the recreation of the ma.s.ses, it may be interesting, especially at this juncture, to place on record what were his views with regard to those historic parts of the buildings of the Palace itself which are not actually used as the residence of the Archbishops. These chiefly consist of what is known as the Lollards' Tower, and the n.o.ble Gate Tower, called after its founder, Archbishop Moreton. The former of these has recently been put into repair, and rooms in it were granted to the late Bishop of Lichfield and his brother, by virtue of their connection with the Palace library."

Mr. Blake then adverts to the affair of the grounds. He says:--

"Nor can I suppose that any well-informed member of the vestry could imagine that it is in the lawful power of a Prime Minister, or even of Parliament, to alienate, without consent, any portion of the Church's inheritance. It may be a somewhat high standard of right, which is referred to in the sacred writings, to 'pay for the things which we never took,' but in no standard of right whatsoever can the motto find place to 'take the things for which we never pay.' Although the Archbishop may have deemed that he turned to the very best account the ground in question, for the purposes of enjoyment and health to the surrounding population, he was far too wise and too charitable to disregard, so far as he deemed he had the power, any pet.i.tion or request which might, if granted, add to the pleasure and happiness of others, and if it had been made clear to him as his duty, and an offer to that effect had been made to him by the Metropolitan Board of Works or others, I am satisfied he would have consented, not to the alienation of Church property, but to the sale of the field for a people's park, and the application of the value of the ground to mission purposes for South London, and such a scheme I happen to know was at one time discussed by some of those most intimately connected with him."

Afterwards, January 13, 1883, the _Pall Mall Gazette_ remarked that "it is not a happy omen that the consent of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners is required before the well-fed donkey who disports himself in the Palace grounds can be joined by the ill-fed, ragged urchins who now have no playground but the streets." The _Daily News_ rendered further aid in a leader. Then a report was made that the condition of the streets, "to which, in his correspondence with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Mr. Holyoake had called attention, had been ill.u.s.trated by the fall of several miserable tenements, in which a woman and several children were fatally buried in the ruins." The writer says there is "no hope that the unkindly exclusiveness of 'Cantuar' will be broken down."

So the matter rested for nearly twenty years before the happy news came that the London County Council had come into possession of the ecclesiastical fields, and converted them into a holy park, where pale-faced mothers and sickly children may stroll or disport themselves at will evermore. All honour to the later agents of this merciful change. There is an open gleam of Nature now in the doleful district.

Sir Hudibras exclaims:

"What perils do environ Him who meddles with cold iron."

Not less so if the meddlement be with ecclesiastical iron and the contest lasts a longer time.

CHAPTER x.x.xIII. SOCIAL WONDERS ACROSS THE WATER

Being several times in France, twice in America and Canada, thrice in Italy and as many times in Holland, under circ.u.mstances which brought me into relation with representative people, enabled me to become acquainted with the ways of persons of other countries than my own.

There I met great orators, poets, statesmen, philosophers, and great preachers of whom I had read--but whom to know was a greater inspiration. Thus I learned the art of not being surprised, and of regarding strangeness as a curiosity, not an offence awakening resentment as something unpardonable, or at least, an impropriety the traveller is bound to reprehend, as Mrs. Trollope and her successors have done on American peculiarities. On the Continent I found incidents to wonder at, but I confine myself in this chapter to America and Canada, countries we are accustomed to designate as "Across the Water,"

as the United States and the Dominion which have imperishable interest to all of the British race.

Notwithstanding the thousands of persons who now make sea journeys for the first time, I found, when it came to my turn, there was no book--nor is there now--on the art of being a sea pa.s.senger. I could find no teaching Handbook of the Ocean--what to expect under entirely new conditions, and what to do when they come, so as to extract out of a voyage the pleasure in it and increase the discomforts which occur in wave-life. One of the pleasures is--there is no dust at sea.

On my visit to America in 1879, I, at the request of Mr. Hodgson Pratt, undertook to inquire what were the prospects of emigrants to that country and Canada, which cost me labour and expense. What I found wanting, and did not exist, and which does not exist still, was an emigrant guide book informing him of the conditions of industry in different States, the rules of health necessary to be observed in different climates, and the vicissitudes to which health is liable. The book wanted is one on an epitome plan of the People's Blue Books, issued by Lord Clarendon on my suggestion, as he stated in them.

When I was at Was.h.i.+ngton, Mr. Evarts, the Secretary of State, gave me a book, published by local authorities at Was.h.i.+ngton, with maps of every department of the city, marking the portion where special diseases prevailed. London has no such book yet. Similar information concerning every State and territory in America existed in official reports. But I found that neither the Government of Was.h.i.+ngton nor Ottawa would take the responsibility of giving emigrants this information in a public and portable form, as land agents would be in revolt at the preferential choice emigrants would then have before them. It was continually denied that such information existed. Senators in their turn said so. Possibly they did not know, but Mr. Henry Villard, a son-in-law of Lloyd Garrison, told me that when he was secretary of the Social Science a.s.sociation he began the kind of book I sought, and that its' issue was discouraged.

On my second visit to America in 1882, I had introductions to the President of the United States and to Lord Lome, the Governor of Canada, from his father, the Duke of Argyll, with a view of obtaining the publication of a protecting guide book such as I have described, under its authority. When I first mentioned this in New York (1879) the editor of the _Star_ (an Irishman) wrote friendly and applauding leaders upon my project. On my second visit, in 1882, this friendly editor (having seen in the papers that Mr. Gladstone approved of my quest) wrote furious leaders against it. On asking him the reason of the change of view, he said, "Mr. Holyoake, were Mr. Gladstone and his Cabinet in this room, and I could open a trap-door under their feet and let them all fall into h.e.l.l, I would do it," using words still more venomous. Then I realised the fatuity of the anti-Irish policy which drives the ablest Irishmen into exile and maintains a body of unappeasable enemies of England wherever they go. Then I saw what crazy statesmans.h.i.+p it was in the English to deny self-government to the Irish people, and spend ten millions a year to prevent them taking care of themselves.

The Irish learned to think better of Mr. Gladstone some years later.

One night when he was sitting alone in the House of Commons writing his usual letter to the Queen, after debates were over, he was startled by a ringing cheer that filled the chamber, when looking up he found the Irish members, who had returned to express their grat.i.tude to him.

Surely no nation ever proclaimed its obligation in so romantic a way.

The tenderest prayer put up in my time was that of W. D. Sullivan:--

"_G.o.d be good to Gladdy_, Says Sandy, John and Paddy, For he is a n.o.ble laddy, A grand old chiel is he."

I take pride in the thought that I was the first person who lectured upon "English Co-operation" in Montreal and Boston. It was with pride I spoke in Stacey Hall in Boston, from the desk at which Lloyd Garrison was once speaking, when he was seized by a slave-owning mob with intent to hang him. As I spoke I could look into the stairway on my right, down which he was dragged.

The interviewers, the terror of most "strangers," were welcome to me. The engraving in Frank Leslie's paper reproduced in "Among the Americans," representing the interview with me in the Hoffman House, was probably the first picture of that process published in England (1881).

I advocated the cultivation of the art in Great Britain, which, though prevalent in America, was still in a crude state there. The questions put to me were poor, abrupt, containing no adequate suggestion of the information sought The interviewer should have some conception of the knowledge of the person questioned, and skill in reporting his answers.

Some whom I met put down the very opposite of what was said to them. The only protection against such perverters, when they came again, was to say the contrary to what I meant, when their rendering would be what I wished it to be. Some interviewers put into your mouth what they desired you to say. Against them there is no remedy save avoidance. On the whole, I found interviewers a great advantage. I had certain ideas to make known and information to ask for, and the skilful interviewer, in his alluring way, sends everything all over the land. Wise questioning is the fine art of daily life. "It is misunderstanding," says the Dutch proverb, "which brings lies to town." Everybody knows that misunderstandings create divisions in families and alienations in friends.h.i.+ps--in parties as well as in persons--which timely inquiries would dissipate. Intelligent questioning elicits hidden facts--it increases knowledge without ostentation--it clears away obscurity, and renders information definite--it supersedes a.s.sumptions--it tests suspicions and throws light upon conjecture--it undermines error, without incensing those who hold it--it leads misconception to confute itself without the affront of direct refutation--it warns inquirers not to give absolute a.s.sent to anything uncorroborated, or which cannot be interrogated. Relevant questioning is the handmaid of accuracy, and makes straight the pathway of Truth.

The privations of Protection, which a quick and independent-minded people endured, was one of the wonders I saw. In Montreal, for a writing pad to use on my voyage home, I had to pay seven s.h.i.+llings and sixpence, which I could have bought in London for eighteen-pence. I took to America a n.o.ble, full-length portrait of John Bright, just as he stood when addressing the House of Commons, more than half life-size--the greatest of Mayall's triumphs. Though it was not for sale, but a present to my friend, James Charlton, of Chicago, the well-known railway agent, the Custom House demanded a payment of 30 dols. (6) import duty. It was only after much negotiations in high quarters, and in consideration that it was a portrait of Mr. Bright, brought as a gift to an American citizen, that the import duty was reduced to 6 dollars.

The disadvantage of Protection is that no one can make a gift to America or to its citizens without being heavily taxed to discourage international generosity.

The Mayor of Brighton, Mr. Alderman Hallet, had entrusted to me some 200 volumes, of considerable value, on City Sanitation, greatly needed in America. They lay in the Custom House three months, before I discovered that the Smithsonian Inst.i.tute could claim them under its charter.

Otherwise I must have paid a return freight to Brighton, as America is protected from accepting offerings of civil or sanitary service. There often come to us, from that country, emissaries of Evangelism, to improve us in piety, but at home they levy 25 per cent, upon the importation of the Holy Scriptures--thus taxing the very means of Salvation.

For a time I sent presents of books to working-cla.s.s friends in America whom I wished to serve or to interest, who wrote to me to say that "they were unable to redeem them from the post-office, the import tax being more than they could pay," and they reminded me that "having been in America, I ought to know that working people could not afford to have imported presents made to them." Indeed, I had often noticed how dest.i.tute their homes were in matters of table service and all bright decoration, plentiful even in the houses of our miners and mechanics in England. American workmen would tell me that a present of cutlery or porcelain, if I could bring that about, would interest them greatly.

On leaving New York a friend of mine, a Custom House officer, told me he needed a coast coat, suitable to the service he was engaged in, and that he would be much obliged if I would have one made for him in England.

He would leave it to me to contrive how it could reach him. The coat he wanted, he said, would cost him 9 in New York. I had it made in London, entirely to his satisfaction, for 4 15s., but how to get it to him free of Custom duties was a problem. I had to wait until a friend of mine--a property owner in Montreal--was returning there. He went out in the vessel in which Princess Louise sailed. He wore it occasionally on deck to qualify it being regarded as a personal garment. So it arrived duty free at Montreal. After looking about for two or three months for a friend who would wear it across the frontier, it arrived, after six months' travelling diplomacy, at the house of my friend in New York.

I did not find in America or Canada anything more wonderful, beggarly and humiliating than the policy of Protection. But we are not without counterparts in folly of another kind.

Visitors to England no doubt wonder to find us, a commercial nation, fining the merchant of enterprise a s.h.i.+lling (the workman was so fined until late years) for every pound he expends on journeys of business--keeping a travelling tax to discourage trade. But John Bull does not profess to be over-bright, while Uncle Sam thinks himself the smartest man in creation. We retain in 1904 a tax Peel condemned in 1844. But then we live under a monarchy, from which Uncle Sam is free.

France used to be the one land which was hospitable to new ideas, and for that it is still pre-eminent in Europe. But America excels Europe now in this respect. Canada has not emerged from its Colonialism, and has no national aspiration. Voltaire found when he was in London, that England had fifty religions and only one sauce. America has no distinction in sauces, but it has more than 200 religions, and having no State Church there is no poison of Social Ascendency in piety, but equality in wors.h.i.+p and prophesying. I found that a man might be of any religion he pleased--though as a matter of civility he was expected to be of some--and if he said he was of none, he was thought to be phenomenally fastidious, if not one of theirs would suit him, since America provided a greater variety for the visitor to choose from than any other country in the world.

Though naturally disappointed at being unable to suit the stranger's taste, they were not intolerant. He was at liberty to import or invent a religion of his own. Let not the reader imagine that because people are free to believe as they please, there is no religion in America.