The official birthday of His Majesty, which was celebrated last Friday, was shorn of much of its glory owing to a most unofficial downpour of rain, which certainly was not ordered in advance, but contrariwise (as they say in "Alice in Wonderland") had the effect of putting a stop to the two principal birthday functions which should have been the central attractions of the day—the trooping of the colour by the Irish guards on the Horse Guards Parade Ground, and the birthday review at Aldershot, both "of which events were at the last moment cancelled by order of the King. Shortly before eleven, the hour fixed for the trooping, the rain ceased for a short time, and hundreds of enthusiasts hurried off to the Parade, Ground, never dreaming that so time-honoured a function would be postponed on account of the weather; to their grievous disappointment, they found nothing more exciting to look at than a fow extra policemen, and had to make the best of their way homo again in a fresh downpour of rain and with considerably damped ardour. Asa matter of fact, I believe the abandonment of the cero-monial was due to the expressed desire on the part' of His Majesty's medical advisers that he should in no way expose himself to damp, and probably, with his usual consideration, he thought that standing for hours in such heavy rain would be extremely likely to entail suffering on some of his soldiers, but in any case there will be no colours trooped this yest. The honours list has been pronounced dull, mainly, I imagine, b cause no new peers have been. created. Of the nine new baronets, I think the name best known is that of Mr, J.C.
Wernher, a partner of the millionaire firm of Wernher, Belt and Ca. Twenty new knighthoods have been conferred, and "the Order of Merit," in my timation the best worth having of all the honours, hasbeen bestowed upon six of our most "distinguished men—Sir George White, Admiral Sir John Arbuthnot Fisher, Sir Richard Clareshouse Jobb, Sir Laurence Alma-Tadema, Mr, George Meredith, and- Mr. Holman Hunt—the Army, the Navy, Arts, and Literature being thus equally recognised, though as a matter of fact it is tindoubtedly the men and not their professions who have received the well-deserved recognition.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.