"THE KING OF THE SPECIALS.

Manawatu Times, Volume VIII, Issue 200, 2 March 1883, Page 2

"THE KING OF THE SPECIALS.

' . Mr Archibald Forbes will arrive ia Palmerston by the train to-morrow, and iv tl>o evening will lecture m the' Por- : esters' Hall on "The experiences of a war correspondent." There is probably' not a man living who is .80 well able as : : Mr Forbes' to do justice to the subject. In his profession a.s a war correspondent he s : au<2s at the very topmost height, and bis skill has been demons treated by the brilliant records of many harclfought battles ia various European and African campaigns. - We have little doubt that the Hall will be crowded with an audience eager, to hear the story of battle vividly related by an eyc-wit-noss who possesses marvellous descriptive powe.. A contemporary, m reporting iv lecture by Mr Forbes, says : — "To the close tUc attention of the audience wa.s ra[.t» the -silence only' occasionally broken by the' spontaneous applause which fo'iowed tho more striking parts of the narrative. Nothing could well be finer m their way thau the vivid word pictures illustrative o£ incidents, with the outlines of which the reading world is familiar, but of which so little of the details are known. Amongst these may be classed the grapbic descriptions of the firnt battle m the Franco-Pmssian War, at Saarbruck, interwoven with the pretty, pathefic incident of the soldier's wvdding and deatii ; horrible spectacle presented by Paris m tbe last days of the Commune, invested by the Versailliet's'without, and reeking m the blood ruthlessly spilled by an infuriated and maddened mob ; the costly and fruitless attack on Plevna, and the decisive battle of tflundi which finally dispersed tbe army of Cetewayo, and closed the campaign m Zululand. The lecturer described the horrible spectacle presented at Isandula* which he visited shortly after the dreadful fight, with its hosts of dead lying unburied bleaching m the sun, and id sympathetic language told his hearers the mournful story of the death o> the young Prince Imperial, and the finding of the body by the party of which, he formed one. Taking a retospective.glanee he spoke of his intimacy with the ill-star-red si nOl tie J^apo'e >as ; pf'the,"bai ifcUm, of fire 1 ' at Saarbruck, of she humiliation, death and burial of the last Emperor#and reflected on 'strange; turn of fortune which had brought him to the spot where the Prince lay. dead. "Whilst the lecture was thus full of stirring pasajgea telliog of "xriovitig incidents by flood and nVld"and of hair-breadth 'scapes," it had its humorous side and this was the mdr§ api parent when he instanced some of' tjiie disagreeables which beset a correponde'nt m a strange country; On the subject of the duties of the war correspondent m these days of telegraph and keen corapetition among newspapers, a3 aomnared with what was required of rhe same class of persons m former (lays, Mr Forbes was very explicit, and gave his audience admirable itfsight into the' work behiud the scenes, of which the spectators knew so little. The lecture -was pictorialiy illustrated by excellent portraits of most of the great men to whom allusion was made. • • "