LETTERS OF REGRET - cont'd.
Sir Edward Rees writes: -
75, Harrington-gardens, S.W., 15th Oct., 1886.
My dear Mr Lewis Williams, — I cannot say hew much I regret the necessity of remaining at home tomorrow when, there is to be carried out at Cardiff a gathering and a ceremony to which I am forcibly drawn by a thousand inducements ; unhappily, however an attack of rheumatism, from which I have been suffering for the last fortnight, has increased in severity this week to such an extent that I have been driven to my bed, and there at present am obliged to remain.
Having some time ago travelled to Cardiff to attend the funeral of our friend, Mr John Batchelor, I need hardly say that it is a sore disappointment to me to be debarred from attending the unveiling tomorrow of the memorial statue which his townsmen have erected to that most excellent man, and from giving my humble but most cordial support to Mr Lewis Davis and other esteemed friends on that occasion.
I knew Mr Batchelor but for a few brief years, but it required even much less time than that to establish his character in my mind and memory as that of one of the very purest and highest types of men and citizens. Pray be so kind to me as to make known to all friends that my absence is wholly unavoidable, and that I shall be heart and soul with all those who do honour tomorrow to our well-beloved and well-remembered friend.
Anxiously awaiting an opportunity of visiting and addressing my friends in Cardiff, I remain, dear Mr Lewis Williams, Yours very truly, E. J. Reed.
THE STATURE UNVEILED.
The statue was here formally unveiled, Mr Lewis Davis touching a string which caused the covering to fall off, amid the ringing cheers of the audience.
MR LEWIS DAVIS.
Mr Lewis Davis then spoke as follows :
My many friends—Mr Rees Jones has so called you who are present, and I feel that I also have a right to do so. (Applause.) I feel that I am called upon to perform a duty which it is very difficult to carry out adequately, because we are met to do honour to a man who deserves so much that it is difficult for anybody to perform the duty satisfactorily. I wish it had fallen to the lot of a worthier person than myself, and an abler person than myself, to go through the ceremony of the unveiling on this occasion.
I knew Mr Batchelor for 30 years some of you here have known him for as long as I ; some have not known him but for a very little, possibly some not at all. i knew him 30 years ago as a rich, prosperous Cardiff merchant. I used to look up to him as one of the leading men in the town, for his energy and ability did a great deal to promote the interests of the town and port. He established a large business in the timber trade, which developed afterwards into shipbuilding, employing a large number of people, and for many years he was a prosperous man, universally respected, a man who studied in every way the interests of the town he had selected as the place of his abode.
After a long period of prosperity he became of great service in the town council of Cardiff, and did a great work in establishing the sanitary improvements which were carried out from that period, at a time when they were so much needed. There was hardly any public work which Mr Batchelor did not put his shoulder to and did not complete in a most perfect way. He was a man of marked ability, but, above all, his great characteristic, as you have board from Mr Jones, was his love of righteousness, truth, and justice, and his manly, and courageous, and bold advocacy of truth and justice at all times.
Wherever be saw oppression, be was the foe of the oppressor. Wherever he saw suffering through unjust pressure, he was the first to endeavour to do away with it. Those who say, as some have said, that be tried to let class against class, did not understand or know him. He was a man far above class altogether. (Loud applause.)
He knew nothing of class, and if a peer of the realm had been a sufferer from tyranny, Mr Batchelor would have gone into the breath and defended him just as be would any poor man. (Applause.) Well, what characterised him in his public sphere at Cardiff as much as anything was this — he had a particular interest in the working people surrounding him. He had himself worked as an apprentice with artisans in the North of England, in acquiring the trade of a shipbuilder, and he there learned to understand them he learned to respect them and he learned to love them, and be was their champion at all times.
