“The wiseacres who shook their heads the other day and pitied while they condemned him are now among the foremost in his praise, and help to make his name a household word. Bells are rung and guns are fired and buildings are illuminated in his honor throughout the length and breadth of his land; and prominent among all devices and first on every tongue and uppermost in every heart is his name. Had he not, like the great Bruce, persevered in the face of repeated failures until his efforts were at length crowned with success, he would have been held up to the growing generation as an illustration of the danger of allowing our minds to be absorbed by an impracticable idea, and his history would have been served up in play and romance, and used
“ ‘To point a moral or adorn a tale.’
“As it is, the nation is proud of him, the world knows him, and all mankind is his debtor.”
The ship Niagara left Trinity Bay for St. John’s, where she was obliged to stop for coal, on August 8th. Immediately upon her arrival the Executive Council of Newfoundland and the Chamber of Commerce of St. John’s presented congratulatory addresses to Mr. Field, and the governor entertained him, together with his friends, at dinner, and a ball was given at the Colonial Building. On the 11th of August the Niagara sailed for New York.
The country was impatient; twelve days had passed and not a message had been received. No one seemed to understand that a wilderness had to be opened and instruments adjusted before it was possible to use the cable as a means of communication between the two continents.
It had been decided to have a great celebration on the receipt of the Queen’s message; on the 16th that was reported as coming over the submarine wire, and early on the 17th the firing commenced and the excitement continued until the 18th, when the City Hall caught fire.
Churches rang their bells, factories blew their whistles, and in the evening the river front blazed with bonfires and fireworks flashed across the sky; the buildings were illuminated; one thousand lights were said to have shone from the windows of the Everett House, and the transparencies were striking. That on the front of the International Hotel, on the corner of Broadway and Franklin Street, was eighteen feet by thirty-one; the centre was white, with fancy letters, and the border blue, with white letters, and the words were:
These placards were in the windows of Bowen & McNamee’s, corner of Broadway and Pearl Street:
Queen Victoria
“Your despatch received;
Let us hear from you again.”