Service at St. George's Chapel will not soon be forgotten by our party. The stalls of the Knights of the Garter, over the canopies of which hang their swords and mantles surmounted by their crests and armorial bearings, carry one far back into the days of chivalry. One stall arrested and held my attention—that of the Earl of Beaconsfield. When I was not gazing at Gladstone's face, I was moralizing upon the last Knight of the Garter, whose flag still floats above the stall. Disraeli won the blue ribbon about as worthily as most men, and by much the same means—he flattered the monarch. But there is this to be said of him: he had brains and made himself.
What a commentary upon pride of birth, the flag of the poor literary adventurer floating beside that of my lord duke's! It pleased me much to see it. How that man must have chuckled as he bowed his way among his dupes, from Her Majesty to Salisbury, and passed the radical extension of the suffrage that doomed hereditary privilege to speedy extinction. But where will imperialism get such another leader, after all? It has not found him yet.
"What is that up there?" asked one of our party. "The royal box, miss." Were we really at the opera, then? A royal box in a church for the worship of God! Did you ever hear anything like that! There is a royal staircase, too. Why not? You would not have royalty on an equality with us, would you, even if we are all alike miserable sinners and engaged in the worship of that God who is no respecter of persons.
"Well, I think this is awful," said one of the party. "I don't believe the good Queen would go to church in this way, if she only thought of it. Our President and family have their pew just like the rest of us." Our English members were equally surprised that the American should see anything shocking in the practice, and the ladies fought out the matter between themselves; the Americans insisting that the Queen should attend worship as other poor sinners do, since all are equal in God's eyes; and the English saying little, but evidently harboring the idea that even in heaven special accommodations would probably be found reserved for royalty, with maybe a special staircase to ascend by. Early education and inherited tendencies account for much.
Royal Etiquette.
The staircase question led to the story that the Marquis of Lorne was not allowed to enter some performance by the same stair with his wife. The American was up at this. "If I had a husband, and he couldn't come with me, I wouldn't go." This made an end of the discussion, for the English young lady's eyes told plainly of her secret vow that wherever she went —— must go too. All were agreed on this point; but on the general question it was a drawn battle, the one side declaring that if they were men they would not have a princess for a wife under any circumstances, and the other insisting that, if they were princesses, they would not have anybody but a prince for a husband.
We were honored while here by the presence of Mr. Sidney G. Thomas and his sister, who came down from London and spent the day with us. Mr. Thomas is the young chemist, who, in conjunction with his cousin Mr. Gilchrist, would not accept the dictum of the authorities that phosphorus, that fiend of steel manufacturers, cannot be expelled from iron ores at a high temperature. They set to work over a small toy pot, which deserves to rank with Watt's tea-kettle, to see whether the scientific world had not blundered. Let me premise that the presence of phosphorus in pig iron to the extent of more than about one tenth of one per cent. is fatal to the production of good steel by the Bessemer or open hearth processes. Do what you will, this troublesome substance persists in remaining with the iron. If there be phosphorus in the iron-stone you smelt, every atom of it will be found in the resulting iron; and if there be any in the limestone, or the coke or coal used, every atom of it also will find its way into the iron.
It is essential, therefore, that iron-stone should be found practically free from phosphorus; but unfortunately such ore is scarce, and therefore expensive. The great iron-stone deposits of England are full of the enemy; so are those of America; hence, both countries depend largely upon ores which have to be transported from Spain and other countries. One authority estimates that if all the high phosphorus ores in Britain could be made as valuable as those free from the objectionable ingredient, the saving per annum would go far to pay the interest upon the national debt. Many have been the attempts to devise some tempting bait to coax this fiend to forego his strange affinity for iron, and unite with some other element; but no, his satanic majesty would cling to the metal.
Messrs. Thomas and Gilchrist, in studying some highly creditable experiments made by my friend Lothian Bell, Esq. (for he was upon the right track), discovered an oversight which seemed to qualify the results which he reached, and to render his experiments inconclusive. It was possible, they thought, that his failure might have resulted from the fiend not being kept out when he was out. So they went quietly to work with their toy pot, and Eureka! Their charm had not only exorcised the fiend, but they had discovered how to lead him away from the molten metal into the refuse and shut the door on him there. Here was a triumph indeed! I fancy they neither ate nor slept till repeated experiments proved that the true charm had been found at last.
Iron and Phosphorus.