ford, put off the entertainment to which they had invited General Grant, without his knowledge consent, a most unwar- ranted proceeding in the case of a person of his high rank, and, we believe, without any precedent.
2. Circulars announcing the postponement were issued before the General had been communicated with, but these circulars were not sent to all the subscribers, a number of the latter being left throughout entirely in the dark.
8. It would seem from the apologetic paragraph in the morning paper that s deputation from the Committee waited on General Grant on Saturday afternoon, The fact is, they did nothing of the kind, but one of their number addressed a letter to General Grant (direct, and not, as should have been done, through his private Secre tary), informing him that the Committes had put off the entertainment, and inviting him to come on Monday,
4. With respect to the possibility of rain, it was well known that considerable provi zion for this contingency, in the way of marquees, eto, had been made by Mr Ryrie and also that the Governor and Mrs Pope Hennessy had caused it to be given out that, in the event of rain, Government House would be thrown open, and all the visitors would be weloomed there.
6. As regards the statement that owing to the gusty weather the entertainment, it held at all, must have been held in the dark, we happen to know that the Manager of the Gas Co. gave it as his opinion that the arch might have been successfully lighted, each burner being surrounded by a glass shade, all of which were in their places by noon on Saturday. With this and the Brewers and the Band, neither ef
which would have suffered by gusts of wind, a successful evening might and ought to have been enjoyed, and those persons who, according to the morning paper, went to the Gardens on Saturday evening need not have been disappointed.
We further learn, but indirectly, that "the Garden Party in honour of General Grant, which was unavoidably postponed from Saturday, will take place this evening at 9.30, when invitations and tickets issued for Saturday will be available." We have heard of the great play of "Hamlet" being represented with the leading character left out; but in this case it appears that the entire cast left for Shanghai ten hours pre- vious to the performance. Who amongst the Committee is to personate our distin- guished visitor just departed for, in other words, who is to be the "General" and who the "party," or on the principle of "Alice in Wonder Land" is everybody going to be somebody else? Seriously, however, does the holding of this Party not lay us open to the charge of rejoicing over the departure of our distinguished visitor? Certainly, if the statements above made be correct, General Grant will have to credit the Hongkong community with an embryotic reception which, while it contained all the elements of heartiness and sincerity, was strangled in its birth by a lack of orga- nization, and a plethora of mismanage- ment, which unfortunately are the usual obaracteristics of semi-public efforts in this Colony.
The weather this afternoon has been fine, and we hope the entertainment will be en- joyable and successful; the arrangements, we presume, in the absence of information to the contrary, will be in substance what we described on Saturday.
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