HOW THE ROYAL HOUSEHOLD IT MANAGED.

Dunstan Times, Issue 2481, 17 May 1909, Page 3

HOW THE ROYAL HOUSEHOLD IT MANAGED.

At a moment when public attention ii fixed upon the Sovereign, her fails and he? gestes, it will be interesting, the St. Stephens Review says, to take a glance at her mnei life and at the Court generally. Despite the fact that her Majesty has passed the threescore years and ten of the Psalmist, she is one of the busiest women in the kingdom, the statements of ignorant writers to the contrary notwithstanding. One of the most important, as it is assuredly one of the most irksome and worrying, of her occupations is the government of the household, which is composed of about 1,000 people, from the Lord Chamberlain and the Mistress of the Robes down to the Ratcatcher, a useful functionary, whose salary does not exceed /15, while the Keeper of the Swans, for a much more agreeable and poetical, yet less indispensable occupation, receivesjust double that amount. As to the Grand Falconer, whose|hereditary charge represents the comfortable little income of £965, R* s cheering to know that that official will no longer burden the Civil List, as he has consented to 'a commutation of his allowance. 7 ,, 1S army of retainers, which might be partially disbanded without causing the slightest inconvenience to anyone, is paid out of the Civil List.