The Horticultural Gardens at South Kensington had seen many vicissitudes, and been turned to many uses, before it ceased to be the head-quarters of the science and art of gardening. But the ground was never turned to better use than when it was lent for the Annual Review of the thousands of boys belonging to the Training Ships and the Pauper Schools of the Metropolitan District Unions. Two of these annual reviews had been held, under the auspices of the Society of Arts, when in 1872, on the 25th of July, the Prince of Wales was asked, as President of that Society, to take the leading part in the proceedings of the day. About 4000 boys in all mustered, each little regiment marching on the ground with its own band playing and banner flying. The Greenwich Royal Naval School, of 700 boys, were conspicuous in their nest sailor uniforms. The lads of the _Warspite_, _Goliath_, and _Chichester_ training ships also made a good appearance. The Greenwich boys, having the advantage of more thorough training and instruction, were excluded from the competition in the drill exercises for which other schools entered. Prince Edward of Saxe-Weimar watched each school at drill under its own inspector, and adjudged the prizes to be afterwards distributed by the Prince of Wales. A Serjeant-major of the Guards was in charge of the parade, and of the march past the saluting point. The arrangements of the day had been chiefly organized by Major Donelly, R.E., to whom great praise was due. The boys had been at work for some hours, when at 4 P.M., the Prince and Princess of Wales arrived on the ground, accompanied by their two eldest boys in sailors' costume. The prizes were distributed in the Royal Albert Hall. The Princess went to the Royal box, but the Royal princes went with their father to the daïs, where they were welcomed with great clapping of hands, by the thousands of boys, and the thousand adult spectators of the scene. Prince Edward of Saxe-Weimar had adjudged the first prize to the boys of the _Goliath_; the second to the boys of the Shoreditch School at Brentford; and the third to the Lambeth School at Lower Norwood. After a short address by General Sir Eardley Wilmot, speaking in the name of the Council of the Society of Arts,-- The Prince of Wales rose, and in an excellent impromptu speech "assured the members of the Council and the boys (addressing the latter in kindly way as 'you, my young friends'), of the pleasure it gave the Princess, his two sons, and himself to be present. Congratulating the schools on their excellent marching, and on the favourable report just read, His Royal Highness added that he hoped the boys had been up to the mark in their studies as well as their drill."