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    « No. 410, January 30,1858.] THE LEADEB,...

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    THE CONSULAR SERVICE IN TURKEY. Tub with...

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    The Illuminations. It Is Not Possible To...

    of rejoicing , therefore a day of light . The sun—the great cause of all light—shone joyfully throughout the early hours , and when his powers waned , the rejoicers demanded other beams , and found them plentifully ready , shaped into stars , and crowns , and laurel branches , and scrolls , in glittering spangles of glass , in dancing gas-jets , and in rainbow-tinted globes .

    Whatever foreigners may say about our not being a joy-loving people , wo are never indifferent to an occasion of public festivity , and our shopkeepers possibly spend more inoney in illuminating their houses on such occasions than any of their class in any other country in the world . For it must be remembered that when we hear of Vienna or Paris being resplendently illuminated on ocht which is

    casions of public rejoicing , the lig supposed to manifest the public feeling is , for the most part , official light , and the joy of which it is the outward expression must be taken as at least semi-official . A striking example of the difference between England and the Continent in this respect was afforded on Monday night , in the absence of light from every one of the Government offices but the Admiralty .

    There is no doubt about it , the English love light , and never lose an opportunity of illuminating . It is , therefore , astonishing that so little progress has been made in the art of festival-illumination . The use of gas —which is the best of all lights for the purpose—has generally superseded that of oil ; but the superseded medium seems to have left behind it all sorts of trammels in the

    shapes of traditionary shade-glasses and other mechanical arrangements . Stars , and crowns , and initials , are well rendered by small jets of gas , but these designs should only be used as ornaments or parts of large designs , the object of which should be to produce light—the essential requisite of joy . On Monday night the designs exhibited an There

    almost total lack of invention . were some marked exceptions , particularly in the cases where coloured glass crystals were employed , great richness of hue being the result ; but even in these cases there was the oversight of a sacrificed light . The illuminations which come nearest to the right thing were those of the Carlton , Reform , and Junior United Service Clubs ; in front

    of each of those buildings gas-flambeaus and standards were ranged at intervals and threw far and wide a joyful flood of light . In Regent-Btreet , again , an admirable effect was produced by running lines of gas-burners along the buildings on either side of what was formerly the Quadrant . But the most remarkable arrangement of light was at Apsley House ; there the bold lines of the roof were marked out against the sky with bright flames of gas—the building being thrown into deep and grand shadow , affording the finest possible contrast of light and shade .

    But not only were the devices feeble and the means at command badly employed , there was a lack of heartiness in the artists who took upon themselves to represent the public feeling on this occasion of rejoicing . The marriage of Monday really ought to havo fetched out a number of good mottoes and emblematical devices ; but not one of the latter was worth a rush , while the former

    may-very ^ fairly-rbe-characterizQd-Uudecthejje , four heads—the heavy sentimental , the namby-pamby , the impertinent , and the downright insolent . As a specimen of the first kind , take from St . James ' s-street , " May their hearts as their hands be united ; " of the second , from a transparency in the City , " May their dream of happiness be realized ;" of the third , an inscription from the front of

    a shopkeeper ' s in Oxford-street , who put his house into a sort of illuminated mourning for the memory of Havelock , with inscriptions to the effect that the hero had not been properly appreciated by his countrymen , and ending with something of an " However , may they be happy . " Of the last description we will give three more than sufficing examples

    —the first , " May their attachment be as warm as our oven , and their hearts as light as our muffins ! " the second , another gross trading puff , from the front of the American Stores in Oxford-street , " THE AMERICAN , " and the fourth , from the same street , where a fishing-tackle maker ' s joy at the great event of the day could find vent only in the publication of his own name in letters of fire

    two feet high— " CHEEK . " To return to what was said at the outset of this article , great light is the first requisite of all festive illumination , as in harmony with and expressive of joyfulness . Nearlyall the devices at present used fall short of the intentions of their originators , and one great reason of this is they are small , isolated , and wrongly planned . Illuminations on occasions of great public rejoicing should not express merely individual joyfulness but the general feeling of the people . To

    worthily illuminate a great city individual efforts should be combined to carry out one large design , instead of being frittered away in the comparatively ineffective attempts as at present . Suppose , for example , the whole of the tradespeople of Regent-street , who on Monday night spent large sums of money in the production of their separate illuminative devices , had subscribed their money to ageneral

    fund for the purpose of grandly illuminating Regent-street , forming a committee of management among themselves for the carrying out of their design ; we do not hesitate to say that an effect of light might have been produced throughout the entire length of that fine street that would have eclipsed the whole of the rest of the London illuminations : an architecture of fire mierht have been built ,

    and the whole population of the city might have walked under an arcade of joyful light such as has never been witnessed by mortal eyes . This we hold to be the only true mode of illuminating a great city in honour of such an event as that of Monday . How beautiful a city appears when even partially illuminated , as with the ordinary street-lamps , any one in London may satisfy himself by standing upon the ton of Primrose-hill upon a clear , dark

    night ; those who know Paris , will instantly call up the beautiful picture upon which they have looked from any of the triumphal arches after nightfall . Multiply this beauty by twenty aud the result will still fall short of what we are convinced would be the effect of festival illumination on the plan we have suggested . But a time is coming when London will offer even finer fields for illuminative effects .

    When the long-dreamed-of improvements upon the banks of the Thames have been realized , and the proposed miles of terraces give a new * lung' to London , there will bo the place for the good citizens of the first city of the world to illuminate , and there a magnificent effect of light reflected and re-reflected may be produced , quenching even the recollection of past failures .

    « No. 410, January 30,1858.] The Leadeb,...

    « No . 410 , January 30 , 1858 . ] THE LEADEB , 109

    The Consular Service In Turkey. Tub With...

    THE CONSULAR SERVICE IN TURKEY . Tub withdrawal of Lord Stbaxjtobd » i Risdol . ipfjs from Constantinople , and the establishment of more settled relations with Turkey , suggest the necessity of reorganizing our consular staff' in that empire . We have been accustomed for several years to

    complaints on this subject , which appear to have been well founded , and we believe that the question is one to which the Government itself is not indifferent . The peculiar institutions , the political position , the social characteristics of the Ottoman Empire , place it apart from the rest of Europe , and necessitate a consular service upon a special and systematic principle . This is on all sides admitted ; but it remains to ascertain the means by which a working staff of able , experienced , and zealous men may be secured . The first

    essential is that no consul should , under any conceivable circumstances , be permitted to engage in trade . It is well known to what a serious extent the interests of the British mercantile community have suffered from the absence of this restriction upon the consular body , which in its turn lost in character and consideration . But , while we debar them from making use of those private facilities by which their incomes might be increased , it is impossible to insist that the present rate of salaries shall continue . The object must

    be in future to establish a service into which men of high education and special capacity shall be desirous to enter , and this purpose will not be effected unless , while raising the scale of emolument , we . regulate as well as accelerate the course of promotion . As it is , advancement is not only slow , but uncertain ; rewards are capriciously distributed , and the general result is that consular employment in the Levant is held in inconsiderable esteem . It generally leads to nothing ; no positive or conspicuous

    distinction is promised to merit of any kind ; the ways of patronage , throughout the department , are devious and perplexing . For example , there are a few appointments to eonsulates-general and political agencies . Are these conferred upon subordinates who have risen through the several ranks ? Seldom or never . The ' system ' absords them , they count among the prizes of West-end patronage ; and are generally obtained by political or family influence . Now this is precisely a case in which service in one grade naturally

    qualifies a man for promotion in another . The requisites are : experience , a solid judgment , and local knowledge ; and these are exactly the qualifications likely to be attained during a certaiu term of active occupation in consular duties . As to official integrity , that is as indispensable to a clerk at Bagdad as to an interpreter to the Embassy at Constantinople . A system of regular gradation might remove some of the most important abuses in the service . Tims , fixing the minimum of the candidate ' s age at twenty , and the

    maximum at twenty-five , he might be compelled to pass an examination before being attached to a consulate as clerk or secretary , and after remaining for five years in that position , he might be promoted to the rank of viceconsul , under a consul-general , arriving at the post of consul after another term of years . Thus his judgment would have been matured , and he would have been perfected in a knowledge of his duties . Ifc would be advantageous , we think , only to retain viceto

    consuls when they are attached a consulate-general ; every consulate , the duties of which require one or more vice-consuls , might bo raised to the dignity of a consulategeneral , whose staff might consist of a clerk or secretary . Of course , to allow for inequalities , there mi g ht bo a first and second clnss-of- 'consulsj-with- 'a-differencq r pf _ pn }! :, five years ' employment in either entitling the em ploy 6 to a certain measure of advancement . This , of course , would not preclude particular rewards for particular services . Above the consuls would rank the consulsgeneral ; above these the consuls-general who should exercise the functions of poll-

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Jan. 30, 1858, page 13, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_30011858/page/13/