Attended the British
Consul this morning, closing a commission to take testimony for the Court of
Sessions.12 Talked with him about the proposed visit of the Prince
of Wales. Archibald seems to have been called on by his government to advise
whether the Prince, if he come here, shall accept the invitation of the city
government or decline it and travel through the country incognito. He wanted to
know what I thought about it, and I decidedly recommended that this royal imp
should visit us as an English gentleman or nobleman, and accept no public
hospitalities, for the tender mercies of the Common Council are cruel. But Mr.
Archibald thinks otherwise, and he may be right. A frank acceptance by the
Prince of any civility paid him by our public functionaries, such as they are,
would flatter the public vanity and bring us closer to England. . . . Crowd at
the Metropolitan Hotel all day, except at intervals when dispersed by a shower.
People stand and stare at the windows for a vision of some ugly Mongol mug
protruded for a moment and then withdrawn.
_______________
12 E. M. Archibald had been the able British
consul since 1857.
SOURCE: Allan Nevins
and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong,
Vol. 3, p. 34
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