The Brisbane Courier (Qld. : 1864 - 1933)(about) |
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Tuesday 16 March 1886
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AN APPARITION IN WARDOUR-STREET.
{St. James's Gazette.)
A ïkw days ago chanco took me into Wardour-street. It was snowing fast, and the pavement, which in that district is never remarkably clean, was covered with melting slush. Therefore I did not loiter in the interesting thoroughfare. Anxious to find myself once again in the immediate neigh- bourhood of a cheerful fire, I should pro- bably have walked with bowed head and heedless eyes from one end to the other of the street, had I not been suddenly startled by a gentleman who, walking backwards out of a shop-door, nearly'threw me into the roadway. As soon as I had recovered my balance, I looked at my involuntary assailant, and was rather surprised to find myself in the presence of a full-blown China- man, who was already bowing to me with the utmost politeness. The unexpected nature of the apparition brought me to a halt, whereupon the Chinaman several times repeated the word " Pardon" with a French accent. He was plainly much an- noyed with himself for having incon- venienced me, so, in order to set his mind at rest, I muttered in French a few words to the effect that I was chiefly to blame for the collision, I was passing on, when, with an exclamation that I did not under-
stand, he gently took me by the Bleeve and said, "Ah, sir: you speak French! what good fortune ! I turned, and asked him whether I could serve him in any way. " Oh ! if you would have the goodness, you could indeed do me an immense favour. Will you be so kind as to accompany me to the shop I have just quitted ? I do not speak Eng- lish ; the gentleman there speaks neither French nor Chinese, and I have not been able to make him understand mo. T wish only to arrange about a small purchase. If you would have the politeness to interpret for a foreigner just for ten minutes, I should never forget your condescension." The Chinaman's almond eyes glistened so ap pealingly through his spectacles that I could not resist. I replied that I would help him to the beat of my ability ; and a minuto later wo had exchanged the falling snow for the musty atmosphere of a crowded bric-à-brac shop, the proprietor of which, slippered and oily, was at the moment dusting a wooden idol. Looking round, he recognised my Celestial companion. "This gentleman tells me that he cannot make you understand lum," I explained, "and ho wishes me lo act as his interpreter." " Why, you don't moan to speak his lingo !" said the dealer. " Well ; what does he want ?" 1 consulted with the Chinaman, who ex- pressed ¡i wish to examine some porcelain which stood, with »lany curiosities of all kinds, among the dust of a high shelf.
While the shopkeeper was busy on his little ladder I asked the Chinese gentleman whether ho thought of buying anything. " I am myself a dealer," he said, keeping his eyes fixed meauwhilo upon tho dusty shelf, " and I have como to Europe to see what I can pick up. Europeans take every- thing that is good out of my country ; and there is so much demand at home that we are obliged to come hore to buy good pieces. They travel backwards and forwards many times, somo of them. But when rich Eng- lishmen and Frenchmen think they can only get good specimens at Peking, what are we to do? Yesterday I came from Paris, where I bought much. Here I had hoped to meet an old friend who speaks Eng- lish ; but I lind that he has gone to Berlin." The little gentleman discontinued his ex- planations in order to seize upon some jars that had now been placed for his inspection upon a convenient table. Ile examined them one after another with great speed and evident knowledge, putting a few carefully aside. "Are there any more ?" ho asked at last. The shopkeeper had nothing more of the kind. Then the Chinaman took up one jar, and began, through me, to bargain with its possessor. Knowing nothing about Oriental porcelain I was astonished at the prices mentioned in connection with what [to me looked simply like a better-class giuger-pot. If the dealer was astute, the Chinaman was no less so. He beat down the Englishman by about one-third of his original demand, and then, with a grunt of satisfaction, went on to the next specimen. The bargaining lasted, I suppose, for more than half-an-hour. The Celestial was uniformly polite, the dealer not altogether complimentary in his comments on the " nearness" of his customer. When all was arranged, the Chinaman begged me to choose some small curiosity and accept it as a memento. I declined the oller ; not, I fear, without causing him slight offence. But, being very curious, I had no objection to showing him the way to a cup of coffee.
Across a marble-topped table in Oxford street the excellent Chinaman partially satisfied my curiosity. He was the agent, he said, and to some extent the partner, of a very well-known Pekinese who deals in porcelain and enamels, and who has a very large business. Most of his stock is pro- cured from the interior of the empire, where his agents collect it, just as the agents of English "dealers collect old Chelsea and Derby in the country districts of England ; but a large part of the really valuable Chinese porcelain is now only to be met with in foreign lands. Much has been purchased by European travellers, more has been looted in time of war by European officers and men. Curiosities to the value of a quarter of a million pounds were, so my friend declared, taken from the Summer Palace alone. Many of these have now found their way hack to Peking ; "but still," continued the little gentle- man, " hundreds of our best treasures are yet in Europe. Our native amateurs buy almost as many good things here as in China. Some of our large cities have been emptied of their really good porcelain." " And what prices," I asked, " are brought by pieces which you consider extremely rare !" The Chinaman closed his eyes as if busied with pleasant thoughts. " There is no price," he said at last, " which may not be rightly paid for what is of the best." Nor could I get from him anything more explicit. He was to return to Paris on the following day ; and I had, therefore, no further opportunity of improving his ac- quaintance. Ile had been provided by some compatriot with the written address of
a house m which he would find suitable lodgings ; and the only other services I was able to render him were to put him into a hansom and carefully hand up to bim his basket of jars. As he was beiug driveu away through the still falling snow his eyes glistened gratefully at me, and once moie he inclined his head like a porcelain man-
darin.
A bill has boen introduced in ,the French Chamber of Deputies to tax foreign workmen, and another to exclude thom from employment
under State contracts.
G. E. BUCKMASTER writes :—"I was both sur- prised and pained the other day on reading of the murder by Mrs. Stevens of Plum—having known both of them—near Wangaratta (Vic), but not more so than on seeing that Sergeant Steele, who so cleverly arrested, and so ably brought home the guilt (so far) to the assumed offending person, still a paltry sergeant after thirty-three years of good, faithful, and active service. The name of Arthur Thomas Loftus Maule Steele, first-class sergeant of the Vic- torian Mounted Police, was well known in Queensland during the career of the Kelly gang of bushrangers in Victoria and New South Wales, as I made it my special business to point out from time to time in the columns of the Brisbane Press that either he or Constable Ernest Flood would capture or shoot Ned Kelly and his gang. With regard to Steele my predictions were verified, for he both shot and captured Ned Kelly—shooting him with the very weapon and the very same projectiles said he would use—the sure shot-gun, charged with death-dealing buckshot. Flood was far away at the time, or the rest of the Kelly gang would not have been roasted, although they threatened to roast and eat Flood if ever they caught him, for Flood was a man of infinite resources, and would very soon have devised a plan of capturing the gang besides burning down the house wherein they were. Now, it may be asked, 'Why is this thus?'—why an active, intelligent, educated, well-conducted, and respectable man like Steele (for in early life he was a cornet in the British cavalry) is only still a sergeant, while a lot of useless muddle-headed fellows with far less service are inspectors and sub-inspectors? The answer is simple enough, Steele obeyed the orders of his superior officer—the careless, incapable, and dead Inspector A. B. Smith, when the Kelly gang was reported to have passed near Wan- garatta. Had Steele disobeyed that order of Smith's, and had been unsuccessful, he knew full well the consequence of his disobedience, for the Victorian Police Force was under a stern, though very stupid, military discipline. The Royal Commission on police made a great blunder when dealing with Steele's case, but it
is not too late for the Victorian Government to make an amendment, for Steele not only deserves it, but his friends claim it as a right his promotion. P.S.—The Royal Commission on Police recommended that Sergeant Steele
should be reduced to the ranks, but, fortunately, for the country the Government did not act on this very unjust suggestion. However, it was the only blunder made by the Royal Com- mission.' "
The latest returns of the British army show that the regular forces number about 201,000 effectives of all ranks, for an Empire, which, in the four quarters of the globe, comprises very nearly 9,000,000 square miles of territory and about 300,000,000 souls.