The Daily Dispatch: November 12, 1860., [Electronic resource]

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The Prince in Richmond.
a British view — our Vulgarity — brutal Crowds, &c.

The London Times' correspondent, who visited this city with the Prince of Wales, and received a variety of friendly attentions from members of the press and others, has written the following cheerful views of our city:

Richmond, Virginia, Oct. 8. --The Prince has paid a flying visit of some forty hours to this legislative capital of the Old Dominion as it is called, for Virginia was the first English colony in North America. Here the first slaves were imported in 1620, and at this hour Virginia remains one of the most uncompromising supporters of pro-slavery in all the Union. The Royal party left the White House on the morning of the 6th. The leave-taking between the Prince and the President and his niece, Miss Harriet Lane, was marked by the most warm expressions of regret on both sides that the visit had been of so short duration.--The carriage of the Prince, followed by those of the chief members of the Cabinet, left the mansion at 10 o'clock. There was a large crowd collected in the avenue leading up to the house, who cheered the Prince most heartily as he drove off. At the Arsenal a salute of 21 guns was fired as the cortage entered, and a similar compliment was paid from the Navy Yard when his Royal Highness went on board the little steam cutter Harriet Lane. The instant the Royal party were on board the hawsers were cast off, and the quick little steamer sped down the broad quiet waters of the Potomac like a bird. Passing Mount Vernon the speed was slackened, and the bell tolled — an empty honor paid to the poor, ruinous, neglected house of Washington by every steamer or vessel of any kind that passes up or down the stream.

At 2 o'clock the boat reached the little landing place at Acquia Creek, where the special train was in waiting to convey the party to Richmond. The first part of the journey was over what is termed a "strap road," one of the most unsafe varieties of railway ever used, even in this country of bad tramways of all kinds. The scenery through which the route lay was not attractive. The land in Virginia has been exhausted by constant reckless farming. Very little is grown here now but tobacco, and, the climate being unusually favorable to the cultivation of the black, slave-breeding forms almost the whole business of the State. A few plantations were, however, passed, and a few negro huts, the best worse than the worst Irish cabins. The train crossed the Rappahannock river, and stopped for a few minutes at Fredericksburg. At this latter city Washington was born, and here his mother is buried. But the house in which the Father of his Country first saw the light has, of course, been pulled down, and the monument over the grave of his mother, the first stone of which was laid by President Jackson in great state nearly thirty years ago, has been left unfinished since that time. Truly, the Americans, as a people, lack veneration or gratitude, perhaps both.

The train reached the fair grounds, some two miles distant from Richmond, at 6 in the evening. The Mayor and a committee of citizens were in waiting to welcome his Royal Highness to the capital of old Virginia.--There was an immense concourse of people who blocked up all the avenues leading to the Ballard Hotel, so that the carriages could scarcely force a passage. The cheering, or rather howling, was villains. There was to have been a ball in the evening, but that greatest of all difficulties — financial difficulties — stood in the way of its being carried out on a proper scale, so the idea was abandoned.

Richmond is not a little altered from the time when Madame Esmond reared her young Virginians here. Seen from a distance, it looks a very handsome town, both for grandeur and far larger than it really is. Its population is only about 40,000, of which nearly one-half are blacks and slaves. The Capitol is a bizarre Græco-American building, which runs much to windows, as is generally the case with all the public buildings of this continent. In the hall of this building is the noble statue of Washington, the first erected to that great patriot, with a simple, dignified inscription, worthy of the hero it commemorates. The sculptor's legend in the corner reads, ‘"Fait par Houdon, Citoyen Francais, 1788."’ Like all other slave State capitals, there are slave pens for the public auction of these miserable beings in this city.

During all the night of the arrival, every room and stairway in the Ballard Hotel was crammed with a low, wretched mob, each striving and hustling to get some look into the apartments where his Royal Highness was staying. There were cat-calls, shouts and whoopings, with cries for him to show himself — invitations with which, I need scarcely say, his Royal Highness did not comply, for the rough, howling, brutal mob that had swarmed round his carriage on arriving at the hotel, had given him a pretty good insight into the general tendencies of a Richmond crowd.

Next day (Sunday) he attended divine service at St. Paul's Church, nearly the whole congregation rising to gape and stare at him when he entered. After service, contrary to the practice which the whole party have rigidly adhered to of resting on Sunday, the Prince, with the Duke and a few members of his suite, walked out to see the Capitol. While here a rough, dirty crowd collected, who crowded in upon the party most unceremoniously, making all sorts of coarse, vulgar remarks upon the personal appearance of its members in a loud conversational tone, audible to every one.--While the Prince stood looking at the statue of Washington, to which I have already alluded, some called out, ‘"Guess he whipped you Britishers;"’ ‘"Oh, you like him, don't you? Sartain;"’ with other insulting observations of a still coarser nature. The Prince took not the least notice of this ruffianly ill taste, but, after a while, went to the Senate Chamber, and then quitted the building. In the street, of course, they were all followed by a still larger crowd, which at last grew so great that to avoid it the whole party turned into the house of Governor Letcher, where they remained for some time, escaping at last by a private door to their carriages, in which they drove out to Hollywood Cemetery, returning to their hotel in the evening.