There will be a picturesque scene on the Thames in July when the Queen travels by water to the Tower for a garden party in the Tower grounds. At least one hopes it will be pictures que. When the King and Queen went down the Thames last year for some ereiony which I have forgotten, they travelled in a high-speed motor-Tauneh which with a little adaptation might have done for a torpedo-boat. The King's bargeman were very dignant that they had not been allow-fed to bring out the old William-and-Mary royal barge and escort their Majesties themselves; and T think justly, although they would have re= retted it before they had rowed that iassive oaken vessel as far as London Bridge, Still, Royalty and the river seems toneed some dressing-up, or it becomes rather like Hamlet in tweeds and a trilby.
At one time a visit to the Tower by a Queen was apt to end unpleasantly. I don't know anything creepier than to be told, in the church inside the Tower precincts, the number of Queens, other royalties and noblemen, all headless, who are buried under its floor. Queen Eliza beth, the first one, set a diferent fashion, though even she had had a narrow escape in her first sojourn at the Tower as a young girl of 22. Since her days there have been very few visits to the Tower by any Queen of England, so itis the more to be hoped that the coming one will be properly stave-managed. The Lord Chamberlain is already at work on the details, engaging the band and superintending the ice cream recipe: But he really must include the William-and-Mary barge.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.