Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 8.djvu/84

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NOTES AND QUERIES, rio s. VIIL JULY 27, iw.

Academy of Sciences at St. Louis. In 1865 he became Professor of the Natural Sciences in the Western Military Institute of Kentucky (afterward changed to the University of Nashville), and held the position until the autumn of 1879. Prof. Owen Also devoted himself in later years to meteorology.

" Prof. Owen's 'Key to the Geology of the Globe,' of 1857, exhibits the man in his science, which, while practical, tended strongly towards the specu- lative, and also in his relations to young students, who, from his deep interest in them, drew out some pages of advice on temperance and other virtues."

The following extract from a post card written by Prof. Richard Owen to my father, Mr. T. Mellard Reade, and dated from New Harmony, Indiana, 10 March, 1887, is of some interest. The post card, which is very closely and neatly written, forms a postscript to " the letter I had the honor of writing you this morning " :

" Permit me to add a word regarding the agree- able reminiscences I have of Liverpool, when in 1827 my father, Robert Owen (The Philanthropist), as we passed thro' from my native G. Britain to great America, introduced me, then a boy of 17, to your most estimable Poet, Rogers : & to a charming family, the Rathbones, & others : all of whom have doubtless passed away. I did not again revisit Europe until 1869, when I had the pleasure of calling on Sir R. Murchison, Sir Chs. Lyell, Prof, (now) Sir Rich d Owen, & Prof. Huxley. On my return from the Crimea, Const., Athens, the Holy Land & Egypt, I ascended Etna ; and at Naples enjoyed Pompeii, &c. In England, while at Stratford on Avon, I enjoyed the hospitality of Mr. Ed. Flower, father of Prof. W. H. Flower. A letter of introduction, although the Prof, was not in London, has enabled me since to have a very pleasant correspondence with him as Dir r of the British Museum."

Sir Leslie Stephen's article which con- tains his delightful description of Robert Owen as " one of those intolerable bores who are the salt of the earth " distinctly states that the philanthropist " left three sons Robert Dale, Daniel Dale, and David Dale Owen the first of whom is separately noticed ; the other two became professors in American colleges." How Richard came to be ignored altogether it is difficult to imagine, especially as this note shows him to have lived a long and useful life.

ALEYN LYELL READE.

Park Corner, Blundellsands, near Liverpool.

BABBELS FOB CHUBCH OBGANS. To those interested in such matters it will be serviceable to record that barrels are still to be seen in the last pew in the north-east corner of the nave of St. Martin's Church near Ruabon, perhaps the dirtiest and most dilapidated church in the country. The barrels, lying in a box, and not now used, are about five feet in length by eight inches in diameter. The operating portions consist

of the bars of staples projecting beyond the periphery of the barrels. The barrels were turned by a handle screwed on to the end of the shaft the screwed shaft penetrating into the cranked handle slotted to receive it. A reversal of the handle unscrewed it from the shaft.

There is also a three-decker pulpit in the church, almost falling into decay.

ABTHUH, MAYALL.

Southport.

" POLITICIAN " v. " STATESMAN." (See 8 S. x. 333, 444, 517 ; xi. 76, 333 ; xii. 237, 433 ; 9 S. v. 499 ; viii. 427). A striking addition to the list of quotations indicating disparagement of " politicians " was fur- nished by M. Paul Cambon, the French Ambassador, when presiding on 11 May at the annual dinner in London of the News- paper Press Fund. The statesman (homme d'Etat), said M. Cambon, prepares himself to take the rough with the smooth, confident that a sound cause will ultimately have the balance inclined in its favour. On the other hand, the time-server keeps what he con- siders a shrewd eye upon the currents of public feeling, seeking his inspiration " dans les caprices de 1' opinion," and invariably ends in having his own emptiness brought home to popular conviction : " II n'est pas un homme d'Fjtat, ce n'est qu'un politicien."

And yet those ordinary observers of affairs who are content to be known by the name I have chosen as my signature may comfort themselves, amid these many disparaging reflections, with the comment of Lord Hervey :

" There is not a deceased ploughman who leaves a wife and a dozen brats behind him that is not lamented with greater sincerity, as well as a loss to more individuals than any statesman that ever wore a sword or deserved to lose it."

POLITICIAN.

THE QTJADBANT COLONNADE. For some months there has been considerable agita- tion against the reconstruction of the Quadrant on the designs of Mr. Norman Shaw, the objection of the shop keepers being to the insufficient width and light of the shop frontages. This is exactly what the earliest occupiers might have complained of after its erection in 1820-25 ; but they were mostly proprietors of gambling resorts and similar industries that preferred the semi-darkness imposed by the Colonnade.

Punch, 23 Dec., 1848, humorously de- scribes the " Fall of the Quadrant ' :

"The decadence of the family of the Colonna may be compared to that of the Colonnade of