London, Oct, 26. it does seem as if republics missed a lot of fun by not having kings and queens. They pay just as much for their governments and they miss a great many good shows which monarchies throw in for nothing, so to speak.
Take to-day's state opening of Parliament by the King and Queen, for example. Bya series of accidents too long to detail now, it was the first state opening since 1933, so we enjoyed it all the more; and after a day of storm and rain that had flooded towns and blown off roofs all over the country, "Queen Victoria's weather" shone out for her great-grandson with mellow autumn sunlight. There were no tiresome stands as at the Coronation; we just herded about in thousands and enjoyed "ourselves easily.
First from the palace came a motor-car containing Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret Rose, which gave some of us the chance to look sentimental, and others cynically to Observe that the children: get far too much publicity and that it would be much better for them to be kept at their lessons out of sight somewhere in, the country.
Then came the Royal Horse Guards, then that preposterous State coach all scarlet and gold, the sort of thing that Cinderella's fairy godmother should ride in, with the King in field of municipalities is now shaking the country, and the papers are urging their readers on no account to miss voting. Perhaps 30 per cent. will vote, but hardly more.
The trouble is that, except the earnest few, no one understands local politics. In any borough it seems perfectly possible for either side to take exactly the same set of results as purely due to its own exclusive merits. So why trouble to vote for either?
As for women, some think they can do something with a vote, and others that they can do more with a husband and we are still a long way from any different conception of life.
8,615 Flying Miles in 138 Hours Alexander weeping for more worlds to conquer is a feeble figure compared with Miss Jean Batten. He at least walked upon solid ground and even in Bactrian deserts had attend-really no fish better, I heard the other day of some people dining at one of the really last word restaurants to whom the chef served up a dish of herrings under some unintelligible foreign name. They all declared they had never eaten such fish and cried out in wonder on learning what the humble reality was-
Yet sad to say, the herring industry is again in trouble. The fishermen complain that they cannot get enough to live on for their fish, and the public complain that they have to pay too much. On the quay at Yarmouth and Lowestoft you can buy herrings six a penny, but a couple of streets away the price has already risen to a sd. apiece, and of course the further the herring goes inland the more he costs.
Seeing that the British public consumes some 500 million pounds of herring a year, the question of a fair price both to consumer and catcher marshal's uniform, and the Queen in a golden gown and white cloak, and a glittering tiara. And equerries on horseback, and more Royal Horse Guards, and semi-State landaus full of Gold Sticks and Silver Sticks and Mistresses of Robes and Women of the Bedchamber, all of them looking stuffed but very gorgeous, And if you got a place near Parliament, you only had to wait about for half an hour—for the beauty of Royal shows is that they are as punctually timed as a B.B.C, talk—and you could see it all over again, with a lot of regally arrayed peeresses as well, also looking stuffed. And then you went off to scramble for lunch at Lyons or the A.B.C, and agree that Barnum couldn't have beaten it.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.