Page 175 - Reading Mercury

Clerk to the Trustees of the said Turnpike Road’
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Wokingham, 13 August, 1839

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Sat 21 September
PENNY POSTAGE
Testimonial to Rowland Hill, Esq.—On Saturday, the piece of plate subscribed for
in Wolverhampton, as a testimonial to Rowland Hill, Esq., for his exertions in
establishing a general penny postage, was presented to that gentleman in the
Assembly-room. The testimonial consists of an elegant candelabrum, weighing 174
ounces, convertible into an epergne, and which, when placed upon a plateau, produces
an excellent effect. The base is divided into four compartments, one of which bears
the arms of Mr. Hill, and another bears the inscription testifying the object of the
donors. Mr. Hill was present, and thanked the company in an able speech for this
mark of their approbation.

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Sat 19 Oct
FIELD OF WATERLOO AT NOON AFTER THE DAY OF THE BATTLE
On the surface of two square miles it was ascertained that 50,000 man and horses
were lying. The luxuriant crop of ripe grain which had covered the field of battle was
reduced to litter, and beaten into the earth; and the surface, trodden down by the
cavalry, and furrowed deeply by the cannon-wheels, strewn with many a relic of the
fight—helmets and cuirasses; shattered firearms and broken swords; all the variety of
military ornaments; lancer caps and
highland bonnets; uniforms of every colour; plume and pennon; musical instruments,
the apparatus of artillery, drums, bugles. But why dwell on the harrowing picture of a
foughten field? Each and every ruinous display bore mute testimony to the misery of
such a battle.
Could the melancholy appearance of this scene of death be heightened, it would be
by witnessing the researches of the living, amidst its desolation, for the subjects of
their love. Mothers, wives and children were occupied for days in that mournful duty;
and the confusion of the corpses, friend and foe intermingled as they were, often
rendered the attempt at recognising individuals difficult, and, in some cases,
impossible.
In many places the dead lay four deep upon each other, marking the spot some
British square had occupied, when exposed for hours to the murderous fire of a
French battery. Outside, lancer and cuirassier were scattered thickly on the earth.
Madly attempting to force the serried bayonets of the British, they had fallen, in the
bootless essay, by the musketry of the inner files. Further on, you traced the spot
where the cavalry of France and England had encountered. Chasseur and hussar were
intermingled; and the heavy Norman horse of the Imperial Guard were interspersed
with the grey chargers which had carried Albyn’s chivalry. Here the highlander and
tirailleur lay side by side, together; and the heavy dragoon with green Erin’s badge
upon his helmet, was grappling in death with the Polish lancer
On the summit of the ridge, where the ground was cumbered with dead, and trodden
fetlock deep in mud and gore with the frequent rush of rival cavalry, the thick-strewn
corpses of the Imperial Guard pointed out the spot where Napoleon had been
defeated. Here, in column, that favoured corps, on whom his last chance rested, had
been annihilated, and the advance and repulse of the Guard was traceable by a mass of
fallen Frenchmen. In the hollow below, the last struggle of France had been vainly
made; for there the Old Guard, where the middle battalion had been forced back,

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