"WE ARE NOT AMUSED!"

Evening Post, Volume CXVII, Issue 76, 31 March 1934, Page 6

"WE ARE NOT AMUSED!"

QUEEN VICTORIA'S LAUGH

Queen Victoria's famous snub to. a guest who told a story that she considered "risky" is recalled by another tale of how; she was made to laugh. A -writer in an exchange, says: To make Queen Victoria laugh heartily must have been no easy task. But General Sir Bindon Blood, the niiioty-qne-year-;old representative colonel commandant of the Boyal Engineers, describes an incident in his "Four Score Years and Ten" that would have made- even :i Trappist monk smile. Once, ■when, the Queen drove over front Windsor to Aldershot for a parade, "there was a pool of water two or; three inches deep just in front of- the point where her Majesty took the salute, and, when the leading staff officer of the • division lifted his hand to salute, . his horse slipped up in the pool and sa,t down, and the- staff officer, who was an excellent fellow but a poor; horseman, slid off behind and found himself sitting in,the'water! , The effect was so[ridiculous that her Majesty leant,back ;w her carriage, quite overcome with laughter!" ■ ■■' • .Nor was that the only-ludicrous happening of the day. Later, says Sir Bindon Blood, the Queen drove past his mess on her way home, "and just as> the carriage was opposite to" us the window next us was lowered and the officer in command, of the cavalry escort, who was riding near the- window, closed up and stooped thinking there was somo order for him—whereupon he received a plateful of chicken bones which- was thrown out of the carriage by- some over-hasty; -lady-in-waiting-!"?'