Lord Beaconsfield’s prompt demand that a halt should be called to hostilities, for the adjustment of differences between the belligerents, led to the Berlin Congress, and gave us an excellent opportunity of adding an imposing group of the European statesmen who framed the Berlin Treaty.
Yet, so mercurial is the public taste, and so pronounced is the love of the British race for anything that is amusingly abnormal, that I doubt whether ten people did not come to see the “Turnerelli wreath” for one who came to scan the features of these great peace-makers.
“What was the ‘Turnerelli wreath’?” the present generation may ask. It was the pivot of a political comedy that set the whole nation laughing.
EDWARD TRACY TURNERELLI
Promoter of “The People’s Tribute” refused by Lord Beaconsfield.
Edward Tracy Turnerelli, a sculptor’s son, and himself a sculptor, instituted a penny subscription to present Lord Beaconsfield with a gold laurel wreath, which he called “The People’s Tribute,” in appreciation of his many services to the State and in commemoration of his great part in the deliberations of the Berlin Congress.
Fifty-two thousand workmen subscribed their pennies in vain, for Lord Beaconsfield courteously, but firmly, declined the gift, and it was left on Turnerelli’s hands; while he, of course, could hardly be expected to refund the copper contributions.
I am indebted to Mr. J. H. Bottomley, Conservative agent for Clapham, for a copy of the following interesting autograph letter from Lord Beaconsfield, expressing his satisfaction that the course he had adopted in declining to accept the wreath had met with the approval of many who had been induced to sanction the proposed gift:
10 Downing Street, Whitehall, August 11th, 1879.