36 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
January 10,1895. 
a specialty of the Rose. Such amateurs who have no p;ardenerg, as, for 
instance, Mr, Pemberton or Mr. Page Roberts, Mr. Grace would, I 
suppose, have no objection to contend with ; but he would find them 
even more doughty opponents than what he calls “ professional ” 
gardeners. 
In fact, Mr. Grace’s letters, as I said last week, have given far clearer 
proof of the necessity of vigorous action being taken in the matter of 
regulation 13 than Mr. Lindsell’s resolution itself did, for they have 
shown, what was unknown to me, and surely to others also, that there 
really are some who set the laws at defiance, and others who wish to do 
so. I consider this the most important point in connection with the 
welfare of the Society that has come before it during the dozen 
years or more that I have been a member ; and I heartily hope that 
everyone who has the common sense to see that no society can afford to 
let its own regulations be thus set at naught, will unite to follow up 
the spirit of regulation 13 by bringing every such provable act under 
the notice of the Committee.—W. R. Raillem. 
The N.R.S. and Portsmouth. 
It is unpleasant to be drawn against one’s will into a public con¬ 
troversy, but the letters which have appeared in your columns seem to 
leave me no option ; and I hope the N.R.S. will understand that 1 meant 
nothing but good to the Society in the part I took. Mr. Jeans of 
Shorwell, the Secretary of the Isle of Wight Rose Society, has already 
pointed out the advantages which Portsmouth offers as a place for a 
great Rose show. It is a town of 170,000 inhabitants, with a large 
proportion of villa residents. It is convenient for almost all the 
southern Rose growers. The show might be held early in the season, so 
as not to come into competition with any other. There was no need 
for “strenuous exertion” to induce the authorities to entertain the 
scheme ; as a matter of fact, one day in last September I had a few 
minutes’ conversation with the Chairman of the Portsmouth Parks 
Committee, which has the charge of such exhibitions. He entered into 
the scheme heartily. 
The Parks Committee agreed to take the matter up, and were 
anxious to do everything to make the show the great success which it 
promised to be. They said there would be no difficulty as to a 
guarantee. They have the power to close the public parks for such 
shows, and they offered the park close to the town railway station, or, 
in case of bad weather, the great Drill Hall, which is well lighted with 
windows in the roof, and is supplied with tables and all things necessary. 
They made a point of the Isle of Wight Rose Society joining them, and 
bolding our annual exhibition as part of the Portsmouth Show. 
The Mayor was away from home in September, but in October the 
matter was brought before the Town Council, and the resolution to 
invite the N.R.S. for 1896 was passed. There was a mistake on the 
part of the minute clerk which delayed the forwarding of the formal 
notice of the invitation for some weeks. But on October 18th I sent 
Mr. Mawley a copy of the newspaper report of the resolution, with a 
letter explaining the circumstances and the advantages which Ports¬ 
mouth offered. I had a courteous letter from Mr. Mawley in return. 
We, in the island, thought that all was settled, and that not only the 
show would be conspicuously successful, but that the N.R.S. would gain 
many fresh members. 
Now, in your last issue (page 13), I read in a letter of Mr. J. T. 
Strange, Secretary of tbe Reading Horticultural Society, “Immediately 
after the November Committee meeting I had an intimation that if 
Reading renewed the invitation for 1896 it would probably be favourably 
considered. An invitation was sent accordingly.” 
Your readers will understand that the N.R.S. Secretaries had in their 
hands the printed report of the Portsmouth resolution, and were 
acquainted with all which the Town Council offered long before the 
November meeting, and long before they invited Reading to send in an 
application. They may say I had no position in the matter. I acted 
as a member of the Isle of Wight Committee. Our Society was deeply 
interested, and the show would have been our show as well as that of 
Portsmouth. If the Secretaries had not determined to reject the Ports¬ 
mouth invitation they would have communicated with the Chairman 
of the Parks Committee, whose name and address they had.— John 
Spittal, Havenstreet, Ryde, 
When a well-known bishop, at a public dinner, received the contents 
of a hot soup plate down his back from a clumsy waiter, be is said to have 
exclaimed, “Is there any layman here who will express my feelings? ” 
Portsmouth seems to have taken an opposite course, and a shrill voice 
of complaint proceeds rather from a clerical source. The Isle of Wight 
takes the adjacent island of Great Britain under its protection. 
Mr. Jeans appears, like myself, to be a very old acquaintance of 
Mr. D’Ombrain. I almost wonder that like myself he does not view 
with surprise and strong disapproval the strange tone of discourtesy now 
from time to time adopted and used towards both of our Honorary 
Secretaries. “ Disgust,” “ outrageous treatment,” “ it is difficult to find 
the right word,” evidently very difficult. These expressions, I submit, 
are not necessary to calm discussion, and hardly likely to conduce to it. 
Mr. D’Ombrain and Mr. Mawley bave slowly and surely built up the 
N.R.S. to its present commanding height, and common courtesy, to say 
nothing else, at least demands that they are given credit for justice and 
straightforward dealing. 
With regard to the question in point, I think it lies in a nutshell. 
The whole of Mr. Jeans’ contention falls to the ground if Portsmouth 
fails to show “priority of application.” What are the facts of the 
case ? Mr. Strange shows, on page 13, that Reading invited in 
1893, Windsor also invited and gained the day, the Reading invitation 
standing over. Mr. Strange repeated it on the first opportunity, and it 
has been virtually accepted. Portsmouth invited in 1891 ; if it has to 
wait a year also, what is there to complain of? It was, no doubt, a 
great misfortune, from his own point of view, that Mr. Grahame “ was 
unable to be at the meeting of the 13th,” but I hardly see, if he had 
been, how he could have altered these facts.— Alan Cheales. 
Messrs. Jeans and Grahame have poured out their wrath on 
the executive of the N.R.S. for what they have done, or have not done, 
in the above connection, but there are just three facts to which I should 
like to call their attention and that of any of your readers (if there are 
any) who may be led to suppose that the aforesaid executive have been 
very remiss in their proceedings. 
The first is, that although we have heard and read a great deal in 
the past two years or so as to what Smith has said to Rohinson, and 
what Jones has written to Brown on the subject, yet, up to the 
present hour, no official communication whatever from the Portsmouth 
authorities has reached the N.R.S. Committee. 
The second is, that Portsmouth is a three-days show, while one of 
the regulations of the N.R.S. is to the effect that no show held in 
connection with it shall extend beyond one day. Here again we have 
had many ex parte statements as to what the Portsmouth authorities 
would do, but again nothing official has ever come before the 
Committee. 
The third is, that Reading (so far from being invited to apply, as 
your correspondents suggest), applied for the show to he held there 
in 1891, renewed their application for 1895, and repeated it for 1896. 
To sum up the position, then, we have on the one hand Reading so 
much alive and earnest in the matter that they make definite official 
application three times over; and on the other hand, we have Ports¬ 
mouth so careless and indifferent, that while they appear to have 
talked about it for two years, they have never yet put themselves in 
official communication with tbe N.R.S. Under these circumstances is 
it in any degree surprising or reprehensible that the Committee 
should have chosen the former? Nay, more, could they possibly have 
accepted an invitation which has never been given ? 
Both your correspondents labour under the disadvantage of not 
having been present at the annual meeting, and they are, therefore, 
betrayed into tbe error of writing dogmatically on matters of which 
they know nothing except from hearsay evidence. But Mr. Grahame 
excels himself in this respect, for he devotes nearly half his letter to an 
elaborate attack on what he imagines (his own words are “I suppose”) 
Mr. D’Ombrain to have said about the railway communication with 
Portsmouth. He will perhaps be surprised to hear that neither Mr. 
D’Ombrain nor anyone else at tbe annual meeting said a word on this 
subject one way or the other 1 All that was done was to report that the 
Committee had received invitations to hold the Southern show at 
Reading and the Northern at Dlverston in 1896, and had provisionally 
accepted them ; and then it was proposed and seconded that these 
arrangements be confirmed, and this was carried without discussion. 
The terms “ imprudent assertion,” “ untrue statement,” and "fiasco," 
which Mr. Grahame bestows on what Mr. D’Ombrain did not say at 
the annual meeting, therefore apply absolutely and only to his own 
epistle.—J. B. 
[We think it will soon be time that this discussion ended, and if 
the Secretaries of the N.R.S. state that no official application has been 
made by the Portsmouth authorities for the show in question to be held 
in the busy seaport town that will end it. Obviously the above letter 
cannot be regarded as official. We have many times intimated that 
needlessly strong language or taunting allusions, by whomsoever used 
or employed, do not strengthen a case, but weaken it in public 
estimation.] 
Gleanings. 
Mr. Foster-Melliar has done exactly what I wished. I invited 
corrections where they might be needed ; at the same time I do not see 
why the “old coat” had to be taken off. No mention was made of Mr. 
Raillem, and now I note for the first time that “Raillem” is just 
“Melliar” the other way about. Was the famous rosarian looking for 
an opportunity of declaring himself ? The time is opportune. I have 
just bought Mr. Foster-Melliar’s beautiful and useful “Book of the 
Rose,” and it will not be prized the lees now that I see it was written 
by “ W. R. Raillem.” 
But to the correction (page 14). It is accepted with thanks. I was 
informed that “ everybody appeared to be talking at once, and it was not 
easy to catch exact words.” Perhaps someone else may have said, in the 
way of pleasantry, “ just what he wanted ” to raise the laugh which I am 
to d everyone might be expected to hear. Mr. Foster Melliar has taken 
seriously what was not so intended. But is it not a fact that many a 
man has often said in the way of banter the very opposite of his desire, 
his hearers well knowing this at the time ? ” “ W. R. Raillem ” is not 
always as dry as dust, and it seems evident he said something, which he 
describes as “ no doubt poorly and insufficiently expressed,” or the 
words “sorry I spoke ” would be meaningless. However, my blundering 
jocularity is withdrawn, and there ends the matter, no one being a penny 
the worse. 
