Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 June 1875 — The Duke of Wellington. [ARTICLE]

The Duke of Wellington.

I can remember well the time when Duke returned to England after his brilliant campaigns, crowned with the battle of Waterloo; at that time he was cheered by the people wherever he went, and lauded to the skies. Afterward, at the period of the Reform bill, the fickle people forgot all his services and constantly hooted him in the streets. On one day, coming from the Tower on horseback, the rascally mob attacked him with so much virulence and malice that he was exposed to considerable personal danger in the street. I was. in that year, at a ball given by him at Apsley House to"Hing William IV. and his Queen, when the ihob was very unruly and indecent in their conduct at the gates, and on the following days they proceeded to such excesses that they broke the windows of Apsley House and did much injury to his property. It was then that he caused to be put up those iron blinds to his windows, which remain to this day as a record of the people’s ingratitude. Some time afterward, when he had regained all his popularity and began to enjoy that great and high reputation which he now, ft is to be hoped, will carry to the grave, he was riding up Constitution Hill, in the Park, followed by an immense mob, who were cheering him in every direction; he heard it all with the most stoical indifference, never putting his horse out of a walk, or seeming to regard them, till he leisurely arrived at Apsley House, when he stopped at the gate, turned round to the rabble, and then, pointing with his finger to the iron blinds which still closed the windows, he made them a sarcastic bow, and entered the court without saying a ? word. Some years ago it was proposed to him to purchase a farm in the neighborhood of Strathfieldsaye, which lay contiguous to his estate, and was therefore a valuable acquisition, to which he assented. When the purchase was completed his steward congratulated him upon having had,such a bargain, as the seller was in difficulties and forced to part with it. “ What do you mean by a bargain?” said the Duke. The other replied: “It was valued at £l,lOO, and we have got it for £800.” “In that case,” said the Duke, “ you will please carry the extra £3OO to the late owner, and never talk to me of cheap land again.”— Bric-a-Brac Series. —The Coast Survey is now publishing an elaborate paper by Mr William H. Dali upon the tides and currents in the region of the Aleutian Islands and Behring Sett, which, it is thought, will add very much to the precision of our knowledge in regard to the current, temperatures and general physical conditions of the North Pacific, also furnishing important data for the general consideration of these questions. —George W. Curtis is seldom seen at Harper’s. He does not take kindly to an office but does most of his literary work at his delightful residence near New Brighton, on the north shore of Staten Island. One who has visited him there says his house stands in a beautifully cultivated garden, and its interior is replete with all the evidences of scholarly taste and literary culture. » - —The house of Francis Richardson, of Gardener, R. L, was visited by over 500 swallows the other afternoon. They formed in the shape of a tunnel, and the whole flock entered his chimney, so completely filling up the flue that the ga§ from a coal stove was forced back hito one of the rooms of the house. They left their retreat the following morning.