Page:Notes by the Way.djvu/244

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174

��NOTES BY THE WAY.

��The Globe.

��The limet.

��The Morning Pott.

��Press passes

first issued by

the Police.

��Henry Vizetelly.

��The Observer :

Vincent Dowling and the Duke of Wellington.

��papers in the whole of the United Kingdom did not number twenty, the price being, for the most part, fivepence. There were no illustrated papers.

The Globe was the first of the important papers to publish an account of the Coronation, and, in mentioning the presence of the poet Campbell, stated that in his written application to the Earl Marshal he had remarked that there was a place in the Abbey called Poets' Corner, and suggested that room could, perhaps, be found there for a poor living poet. The Globe mentions that one noble lord had been detected in selling by public advertisement the order for admission which had been presented to him. The ticket was stopped, and the twenty-five guineas obtained for it had to be refunded. The Times devoted thirty-three columns to the Corona- tion. Referring to the conduct of the Westminster boys, who hailed the Queen with noisy shouts of " Regina Victoria ! " it said, " It might have been as well had they been banished entirely from the Abbey, for a more murderous scream of recognition than that which they gave Her Majesty Queen Victoria was never before heard by civilized ears."

The Morning Post described the scene in the Abbey as being quite theatrical, asserting " that it would be difficult to arrange, with the greatest resources of the finest theatre in the world, any- thing capable of the same result."

The Coronation was the first public ceremony at which Press passes were issued by the police. Henry Vizetelly was provided with one in order that he might make sketches for the double number of The Observer. Vizetelly, in his ' Glances Back through Seventy Years,' mentions that special sketches had to be made of the State coach and the various uniforms of the Beefeaters, Gentlemen-at-arms, &c. Near the Abbey he

" encountered many ladies and gentlemen in Court and full dress the ladies with nodding plumes on their heads and dainty white satin shoes on their feet, and with their embarrassing long trains gathered up in their arms who, foreseeing a possible difficulty of reaching the Abbey in their carriages, were calmly proceeding there on foot, laughing among themselves at the curiosity they excited in the crowd."

Mr. Vincent Dowling, the editor of The Observer, wished to include a view of the procession from the roof of Apsley House, and wrote to the Duke of Wellington to grant his permission. The Duke replied :

" F.M. the Duke of Wellington has received a letter signed Vincent Dowling. The Duke has no knowledge of the writer of the letter, neither is he interested in any way in The Observer newspaper. Apsley House is not a public building, but the Duke's private residence, and he declines to allow any stranger to go upon the roof.

" Apsley House, June 21, 1838,"

�� �