THAMES CARNIVAL

Evening Post, Volume XCVIII, Issue 32, 7 August 1919, Page 7

THAMES CARNIVAL

TRIBUTE TO GALLANT

MARINES

PROCESSION HEADED BY ROYAL

BARGE

PLEASURE MARRED BY A STRIKE.

(UNITED PRESS ASSOCIATION.—COPYRIGHT.) (AUSTRALIAN-NEW ZEALAND CABLE ASSOCIATION.)! LONDON, 4th August. The Thames side was a centre of attraction for all holiday makers in London. Every bridge was gay with streamers, and thero were dense crowds between Tower Bridge and Chelsea. Their Majesties drove along Customhouse-quay, where a Royal salute was fired from the Tower. Their Majesties then boarded the Royal 'barge, and headed a great--procession of boats towards Chelsea. The last boat had left the Customhouse as the King reached Chelsea. The_ Lord Mayor, as Admiral of the Port of London, followed the King. Launches representing the Navy, the Ministry of Shipping, the National Lifeboat Institution, Trinity House, the training ship Worcester, and the Warspite and Arethusa followed. Coastguards, fishermen, and Sea Scouts were represented, and finally were seventy boats, representing the shipping companiesj manned by active service seamen. The war vessels present included several destroyers, a mystery ship capable of submerging to the deck, and the motor boats ■which destroyed the German vessels on Lake Tanganyika, The picturesque red and gold barge containing the King and Queen, Queen Alexandra, and Princess Mary, pulled by red-coated oarsmen, was everywhere greeted, with prolonged cheers. The proceedings were happily without incident. The whole pageant was a well-earned tribute to the mosquito craft and merchant seamen whose unquestioned gallantry saved the nation from starvation.

A lightning strike of 600 railway drivers and firemen held up tens of thousands of holiday makers at Waterloo. There were extraordinary scenesangry fathers and mothers denouncing the strikers, and children weeping when they found their day's pleasure spoilt. A prominent trades unionist describes the strike as " a dirty trick to play upon trippers."