SCENES AT THE CENOTAPH

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 116, 13 November 1923, Page 7

SCENES AT THE CENOTAPH

UNKNOWN WARRIOR'S TOMB

CONTRASTS OF ARMISTICE DAY.

(UNITIB FRESH ASSOCIATION.—CertftMII.)

(AUSTRAUAN.HBTT ZEALAND CABLt ASSOCIATION.) LONDON, 12th November.

A hundred thousand people passed the Cenotaph after darkness on SundayJ Most of them were women, wearing the medals of fallen loved one 3. They dropped flowers, and then went to the Abbey to ccc the tomb of the Unknown Soldier. The Abbey was speci-' ally kept open, and provided a beautiful, speotacle, with tho choir flooded with light, and the music of the evening service, while mourners, in the dimlylighted nave, filed past the tomb. There were many moving scenes. One aged couple approached the Cenotaph, the man with bent shoulders vainly struggling to conceal his sorrow, while his wife, with head erect, and five medals on her breast, marched with glorious pride written on her features. At the plinth, however, she was overcome with grief,' dropped her flowers, and wept bitterly.

Almost hi painful contrast were the dinners and dances at the great West End hotels, where rejoicing lasted till 2 o'clock bn Monday morning; The crowds in Trafalgar Square, in comparison with those in Whitehall) were also bbnt on rejoicing in tho peace rather than in sorrow for the fallen.

Similar impressive gatherings in memory of the dead were held throughoift the provinces, including St. George's Hall plateau in Liverpool, and the Mercat Cross in Edinburgh, which served as. a shrine,; pending the building of awar memorial. Guns from Edinburgh Castle announced the beginning of tho two minutes' silence.