The San Francisco call. [volume], June 20, 1897, Image 17

About The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913

Image provided by: University of California, Riverside; Riverside, CA

                
THE PERIL OF QUEEN VICTORIA IN THE DAY OF HER JUBILEE
Just ten years ago I was instrumental in I
— --rijigfor an American — a man whose |
.;.tiuence and celebrity may be described |
as national in character — a seat in West
minister Abbey for the celebration of the
g<.liien jubilee :-ervice of the Queen. It
was a creat favor, one wliich he na i been
) anicuiarly anxious to obtain, anti when |
it is borne in mind that the spuce within
the Abbey was so restricted that only LW ;
ilaces coulii be accorded to the 500 mem- j
bers of the House of Lords, and that j
fabulous prices were being offered for J
ticket?, his satisfaction, not uumingied
with pride, may be imacined when he
received cards, not only for himself, but
also for his wife. Yet at the very laat
moment he decided not to 20, on the
ground that he apprehended some un
toward event in the Abbey, or on the road i
thither, which miehi lend to a panic and i
culminate in a catastrophe. In fact, lie
did not heai'.aie to a<.ni:t that be dreaded
some outrage of the dynamite or nitro
g.ycerine order, and inasmuch as 1 was
aware that in this country he had
championed what is Known as the '"Cause !
of Ireland," and had accorded lucrative i
em ploy men i to some of the Clan-na-Gael, '
Invincible and Fenian leaders, I was
tempted to believe that bia fears were j
based on something more serious than |
mere imagination. Fortunately, however, |
nothing occurred to justify them. Yet I
l.aye never heard him express a word oH
recret or disappointment at having re
frained from making use of the cards,
which 1 had had so much difficulty to ob
tain for him, and which he w«s so anxious
to receive.
The apprehensions tha 1 were manifested
on thai occasion by this American citizen,
whose features ar« familiar to every man,
woman and child throughout the length
and breadth of the United States, are
shared to-day by most of the leading Gov
ernment officials in London, and by no
one more so than by the Queen herself,
who regards w.th no Jittle dread the pro
cessiou through the streets of Ljndon on
Tuesday next, and will be heartily glad
and relieved when it is all over. In 1887
the royal procession passed up Piccaiii.iy,
down St. James street, along Pan Mall
and down Parliament street to the Abbey,
and back through the Bird Cage walk.
That is to say the route was a short one
and was bordered by the mansions of the
wealthiest and grandest i» rsonages in the
United Kingdom, by the fashionable
clubs and by the Government office*, all
of which may be regarded as having bten
rigorously c.osed to suspicious strangers.
Bat on Tuesday next the Queen will dr.ve
over a rou.e at least three limes as long,
which from sue moment it leaves Trafal
gar square until it reaches the Westmiu-
Mer Bridge on its way back, extends
through btree'.a and thoroughfares ihat
are lined on either side by buildings so
d.veisely occupied and so densely popu
lated that it is idle to dream cf their be
ing subjected to any adequate surveillance
on the part of the po.ice.
In Russia ana in Oriental countries on
such an occasion as this every owner of a
house on the line of procession would be
held crmineliy responsible for the be-
Li people wi,o cross its thre^n
o!d v. I ir was over, and in many
instances ibt buildings would even be
cleared and Kept empty by the authori
ties. But this is out of the question in
England, which is relatively bpeaking a
free country, populated by citizens jealous
of their rights; and the long and short of
ihe matter L- that the Queen for the space
of some three hours, and durin^ a drive
at a foot pace over a route of m- re than
s.x miles, will be at the mercy of any
notorieiy-crazed crank, of any fanatic
anarchist, of any revengeful Indian, or
embittered "Invincible," who cares 10 win
everlastine celebrity — it would be more
right to call it undying infamy — by at
tempting the life of the aged sovereign,
who, being in her seventy-eighth year,
and having comple;ed the sixth decade of
her reign, may justly be considered as
having already one .oot in the grave.
1 here is littie danger of any attack of
this kind being made by any one in the
streets. For in addition to tne latter be
ing lined on either side by troops stand
ing three deep and shoulder to shoulder
a.ong the entire route of the procession,
;he crowds will be so dense that the rege
cide would be seized, trampled down and
probably torn to pieces by the mob before
he would have any chance of accomplish
ing his fe.i purpose. Ths danger wili
come liom tne windows and the roofs of
the houses, and the recent terr. tying out
rage at the Aldergate-street stat on of the
underground railroad in London shows
how easy it is for any one to use with
deadly effect a so-called infernal machine
without much peril of detection. Accord
ing to the report of Sir Vivian Majendie,
the Government expert on explosives, and
recognized as the greatest authority on
the -atter in Europe, the explosion which
shattered a railroad carriage, killing one
man and injuring a number of others,
was caused by a small bomb or canister
filled with what is known in chemistry as
a "high explosive," and which had been
placed under the seat of a carriage and
left there by some foe of society, who
mingling with the crowd on emerging
from the carriage, had disappeared with
out leaving any trace or clow to his iden
tity. As the man who blew up the train
at Aldergate street was uninjured by the
explosion, and is still entirely unknown,
it v certain that he can make and carry
his explosives safely, and there is conse
quently nothing whatever to prevent him
or any absociate with the same malignity
and nerve from repeating the outrage
whenever he sees fti — s»y on the day of
the jubilee celebration.
He can then either escape, as he has
done previously — tne ciiances being
; gainst his capture — or else if he be pos
sessed of that craze for notoriety, which
appears to be the weak point in the char
acter of so many regicides, he will allow
himself to be taken, and glory in the fact
that his name wili live forever in nistory —
just as long, in fact, as that of good Queen
Victoria herself.
London, it must be reme mbered, is the
city of refuge of all the Continental anar
chists, nihiluts and socialists — in fact the
foes of society of every country under t c
sun, since even Chinese highbindeis and
Turkish revolutionists Lave established
branches and lodges there. Elsewhere in
Europe the police are too aiert, and being
possessed of mean* that are beyonj the
reach of their English comrades — methods
whiefa are not >ancioned by Uruish law —
are able to hound their quarry out of their
lespeciive countries, or else 10 keep them \
under proper supervision. But the latter
is difficult — nay, almost impossible — in
London, with us enormous area, iis popu
lation of nearly 5,000,000 and its immense
water Iron t, which renders departure ior
FIRST PUBLIC APPEARANCE OF THIS SARGENT PORTRAIT
The mere mention of the word "por
trait" in the most desultory conversation
pives ri-c just at present to the questions:
Have you been to the AcadeiuvV Have
you seen the portraits oi Mr. Sargent? Oi
Mr. Shannon? Of Sir (ieorps Bald?
The artist, if he is present, bursts into
an almost profanely emphatic tribute of
admiration for Mr. Sargent. The phllU
tine agrees feebly and is inwardly almost
equally i.rofane, because he cannot speak
with moie genuine enthusiasm. Private y
be does not, cannot, will not like them ; he
prefers from his soul the portraits of Mr.
Herkomer.
In this year's Academy Mr. Sargent
has only two piciurei, but they have
given the papers a cli:tnce for the use of
all the superlatives at their command,
with reiterations thereof to the point of
weariness. It is, liow< v. r, impossible not
to feel, after writing about work with
which we may not aiwavs be la sym
phthy bu; wliich i« always powerfully in
dividual, that criticism of oilier ikiugs
■ . sa *r**TW' ■ r *~ri*'~fr 3 - -"^ ;**»- "-^
SAX FRANCISCO, SUNDAY MORNING, JUNE 20, ISO 7.
becomes slightly perfunctory.
'Ihe portraits at present exhibited are
of tin. Carl Meyer, the wife of Roths
child's financial manager, and her two
children, and mat ol the little four-year
old daughter of Lord Kibblesdale.
The latter is frankly old-fashioned. The
child is at i red in a black satin troct, like
a li.tle Spanish Infanta, with her light
hair escapiu.- from the daintiest of little
caps. She stands near a low pedestal
almost as tall as ber.-elf, on which rests a
tig, green jar iilled with hard, bright green
leaves; one iittie hand flutters out to the
pillar for support, with a somewhat timid
and v^iy chiMlike movement. In paint
ing children Mr. barge nt forgets his rather
ironic attitude — one of indulgent but vtry
keen observations of the vanities ani triv
olitie* of the fashionable world he has
foee'i cailed 10 paint— and he seems only
to care 10 express the exq'iisi'e freshness,
the naive graciousness and bloom, which
uistincuish, apparently, litt:e children
alone, i iiave never seen in any Sarcent
! portrat of children of a larger growth the
; same qualities of tenderness and sym
i pathy. Everything seems to have been
! selected with the view of expressing the
j delicacy of the little figure; its uncon-
I scious pride of bearing, the shyness which
battles with delight at uer new impor
tance.
Tho portrait of Mrs. Carl Meyer plays
upon an .entirely different set of emotions.
It is frankly modern, as moderns can bo
who are inevitably, at this day and date,
imitations. To what secret springs of
emulative decoration are we indebted for
the wealth of artistic dHorescence which
gives the drawing-rooms of the "high
world" all the glitter of gilt and brocade,
of glass, of highly cultivated blossoms, of
polished Moors and paneled walls and
ceiiin 8 that tiurclier alone might appro
priately have decorated. Here we are in
troduced into such an interior, as mod
ern as the revival of interest in the an
tique can meke'it. The portrait gains an
added distinction in th 3 fact that it is not
painted in a studio light, but in the ie*s
direct, less concentrated one of an ordi
nary room. The lady, who is in full even
ing dress — and what a marvel of >till in
another direct ion is the gown! — is the very
9ower of such surroundings. The spirit
of the design is purely French, the execu
tion is of no country and for all time.
Tiie two children behind the sofa — the
g rl in white muslin, the boy in gray vel
vet—have just the amount of relief neces
sary to make them share, without dis
turbing tne importance cl the mother,
who is a spreading glory of shimmering
pink satin of duil finish and white chiffon.
The whole picture is a harmony of pink
and gold of gray and white, in whicti the
only dark notes are furnished by the rich
black of the hair of the children, the black
velvet at the waist and elbows of the gown
of the mother, and the smooth, dark
polish of the floor. The dark children,
with their characteristic look of race,
stand behind the sofa, leaning over it and
iisaiust each other. The mother, who is
quite younL:, shows the piquant contrast
of abundant, prematurely gray hair, with
a coPiplexioii of maivelous f:e-tines~, in
which the sha.iows are as lipht as the
shadows on water. Everything lives,
breathes, is instinct with actiou. The
book rest> as it has been flung down, witn
flattering pages; the ed^es of the gold
sola glisten; the shepherdess dances in
the brocade that covers it, and which
hardly differs in color from the hand that
is stretched out carelessly, lightly, but
which the younger child has caught and
held w.th a little intimate gesture which
firings the three together. It is the full
and consummate expression of fashion
able lite of the present day, with all its
-■ayety, its carele-snes?, it-* extravagance
expressed with a technique that is in iiseli
another tribute — for i£ it has all the
energy, the vitality of older masters, it
na« a restless, breathless, high-sirung
brilliancy entirely of the period, not with
out its irritaline oualitiss.
Londoa. May 21. Yxa Dyok Brows.
a foreign clime a relatively easy matter to
those who know how to go about the
ft£f*o«.
Moreover, the English people in the
past Dave not sufficiently expressed their
abhorrence or even disapproval of crimes
of v o'ence committed what may be de
scribed as under a clcak of politics. For
the London Times, that newspaper which
may be regarded as the very Dersonin
cation of British respectability and pro
priety, did not hesitate to include among
the most valued and honored members of
its staff a man who under the literary
pseudonym of "Siepniak" disguised, but
did not attempt to conceal, his real
name of Kazcheffsky, which figures in the
criminal annals of Russia as 'hat of the
murderer of the chief of the St. Petersburg
police. General . Mezenizsff. The latter
was killed in the most cowardly manner
by a couple of »tabs in the back on the
part of "Siepniak," who was afterward
Included by Edmund Yates among his
"Celebrities at Home" in the London
Wurld, and linally came to a violent and
on the whole well-merited end through
being ground to pieces by a locomotive
while walking alons: the tracks ot a rail
road in the outskirts of London.
Another equally celebrated member of
the staff of ihe limes, and who was for
many years the special correspondent of
that journal in the United States, was the
late Anthony Gallenga, who. according to
his own admission, traveled all the way
from Parma to Turin as a young man for
the express purpose oi assassinating King
Charles Albert of Sardinia, a crime for
which he was sentenced to death, only
escaping that fate by flight to Boston.
Yet the fact of his having been implicated
in this conspiracy ana of haying plotted
a murder, the execution of which was
only prevented by the vigilance of the
Sardinian police, did not prevent Mr. Gal
lenga from becoming one of the so-called
"erabassadora" of the London Times, nor
from even attaining subsequently high
political honors in his native country.
Such things as these are calculated to
warp the minds and the principles of
those who, educated beyond the station
in life which they can reasonably expect
to attain, are already disposed to regard
their surroundings with a' mind that can
oniy be described as distorted. It is ex
ceedingly difficult for people of this char
acter, who are frequently styled the "step
children of socieiy," to define the exact
line that separates a crime iroru a politi
cal offense.
They cannot but appreciate the fact the
felons of to-day are often the martyrs and
the Heroes of to-morrow, and when they
«cc the treatment accorded by posterity to
Orsini, who in an attempt to assassinate
Napoleon 111 with a bomb killed a.l
wounded twenty-two people at Paris, and
Oberdank. who sought to murder the Em
peror of Austria, both of whom are now
extolled throughout Italy as patriots who
sacrificed their lives for their country's
pood, it is difficult to prevent their run
ning away with the tirm conviction that
in the event of their kil line some sovereign
of the present time they will, notwith
standing the execration which such an
act would at first call forth, oe eventu
ally raised by their fellow-countrymen
and by society to just as high a pinnacle
of popularity and regard as any of the
men above mentioned. It must not be
forgotten that every political revolution
of the past has been precede t by acts of
conspiracy and often of violence on tha
part of individuals who occupied towarl
the Governments of their day much tha
same position as that in which the an
archists, the socialists, the Irish Invinci
bles, the Russian nihilists, etc., now stand,
and regicides are to a certain extent war
ranted and encouraged by the past to
believe that the legalization and justifi
cation of their crime is almost always
but a question of time. Indeed, the very
condition of international intercourse
tends to blunt the moral sense of the
regicide and of the political assassin with
regard to the infamy of his crime. For,
as we have seen above, England sheltered
the murderer Ktepniak irora the Czar and
declined to surrender to France the fellow
conspirators of Orsini on the ground That
their crimes had been of a political char
acter and dictated by patriotism rather
than by wickedness. In the same way,
France, in spite of her anxiety to please
Kusaia, turned a deaf ear to the demand
of the Czar for the arrest and surrender of
Hartman and tnose other nihilists who
«vere concerned in the attempt to blow to
pieces the imperial train near Moscow,
the conspirators destroying the wro:ig
train, killing the majority of its occu
-1 ants. Irishmen indicied by the English,
courts for dynamite outrages may aiwaya
rely noon protection from the English
police provided only they can reach
France; and although Austria and Italy
are bound together in a close union by
the terms of the triple alliance, Oberdank
would never have been obliged to expiate
his offense on the scaffold h&d he man
aged to attain the Italian frontier.
Pari3 harbored until the day of his
death the late Prince Karageorgivitch,
who stood convicted by the tribunals of
Hungary, in which country he was a resi
dent at the time of the shocking assassin
ation of the late Prince Michael of Servia,
of having been the principal instigator of
tbat crime, and a warrant being actually
issued for his arrest. Yet owing to the
fact of the murder having been of the
regicide order no attempt was ever made
to interfere with Prince Karageorgivitch
in France. It is almost certain that were
any one to murder the Sultan, Prince
Ferdinand of Bulgaria, Kiug Alexander
of Servia, or let us even bay King Hum
bert or Emperor William, and then es
cape to euher France or England, it is ex
ceedingly doubtiul whether the Govern
ments of either of these two countries
would be willing to surrender the assas
sin; and in the event any liish invinci
ble or Indian fanatic, maddened by the
sense of the wrongs indicted upon his
people by their English oppressors,
made tomf attempt upon the life of the
venerable Queen Victoria, his extradition
by any foreign country to wnich he might
flee would be contrary to usage in the
past, and entirely a tribute to the uni
versal respect and admiration which her
I>riiannic Majesty commands, not only at
home but also abroad.
The above will convey an idsa of the
dangers to which the Queen will De ex
posed on Tuesday next, and there
are many both in her own do
minions and abroad who will breathe
more freely and feel relieved when
they learn that she has reached
home in safely after tlie royal procession
ihrout'h the streets of the metropolis
without having succumbed to fatigue, ex
citement or to the ai tact of some homi
cidal or regicuia; crank. Ex- Attache.