QUEEN VICTORIA'S LATTER DAYS.

Press, Volume LIX, Issue 11377, 13 September 1902, Page 7

QUEEN VICTORIA'S LATTER DAYS.

When diaries and letters now in manuscript leap to light (writes Mr Lucy in the "Strand Magazine"), a dramatic story will be told of profound anxiety in high quarters at a period preoecKng by- three months the death of Queen Victoria. The actual condition of her Majesty was carefully hidden from the public eye. It was only too well known by the Royal family and its entourage. In October, 1900, when it was thought that the war was over, Lord Salisbury and his colleagues decided to rush a general election. Even while it was taking place the Queen visibly sank. No one could say in the morning that collapse would not come before sundown. Day by day the general election* went forward. The difficulty was that should the Queen die before it was completed the several elections taken up to date would become void. Others arranged for would not take place. The oid Parliament, diiwolved on September 26th, would have sudden resurrection, meeting at Westminster to take the oath to the new Sovereign. Dissolution must be repeated, and the general election taken again. When all the boroughs and counties on the main, land had polled there still remained Shetland and Orkney. This interval of a few days was the climax of anxiety. Had the demise of the Crown occurred while Orkney and Shetland were preparing for the poll all the work would have been undone. The general election, as we know, ended without a hitch, at least in this respect. But the elector throughout the kingdom little knew how closely has race with Death was watched from Windsor and Downing street.