OUR NEW KING.

Evening Star, Issue 11456, 25 January 1901, Page 4

OUR NEW KING.

ARRIVES IN LONDON. PROCLAIMED 2 O'CLOCK WEDNESDAY. Pr«sa Aasosiation—By Tolegraph—Copyright. . LONDON, January 24. The Prince of Wales, the Dukes of York and Connaught, and Prince Christian reached London at one o'clock. The crowd quietly saluted, tho King gravely bowing. The King drove to Marlborough House, and later met the Privy Council at St. James's Palace. The Lord Mayor and aldermen were in attendance. The Duke of Devonshire communicated to the Council the news of the death of tho Queen and the succession of her son. . SYDNEY, January 24. The Admiral received a cable that the King had been proclaimed to-day. All flags were hoisted till sunset on the fleet. The Permanent Artillery tired Royal salutes. The flags will bo half-mast to-morow, and remain so till the evening of the interment of the Queen. No information has yet been received from the Imperial authorities with reference to-the designation of the King. The 'Commonwealth Gazette' announces that tho King was proclaimed at St. James's Palace at two o'clock to-day. MELBOURNE, January 24. The proclamation of the new King was saluted with twenty-ono guns. The Lieu-tenant-Governor has cabled his congratulations.

A ROYAL SALUTE. SYDNEY, January 25. (Received January 25, at 9 a.m.) While the royal salute was being fired by the fleet the admiral and. all the officers assembled on their respective vessels in full dress uniform. THE NEW KING'S HOME LIFE. It is one of the drawbacks of a position like that of the Prince of Wales that his life belongs less to himself than to his nation, and that its private aspirations must be, to a great extent, merged in its public claims. Yet, in spite of all Ms varied existence before the public eye, the Prince was by no means unfamiliar with those home pleasures which are the blessed lot of the private individual; and it has come to be known that his family life has been of an exceptionally happy character—streaked, like all lives, with a copious mixture of the joys and sorrows which are the common lot of humanity, and also blown upon, like moyt exalted lives, by the breath of that reckless, malevolent gossip which gathers up its baseless calumnies from the gutter. Marlborough House was the Prince's official residence in London, where he and the Princess spent the. season; but his private house, his " Englishman's Castle," was Sandringham, where he generally passed the winter, apart from many a week-end snatched from the fatigues* of London—to which Mr Gladstone once alluded as a place "where the Prince could exercise hospitality, where he could follow rural pursuits, and where he might acquire and cherish a love of home, and conform to that truly British standard to which we all like to- see our Sovereigns and royal personages conform." AN IDEAL HOME.

All those ' who have gone as guests to H.R.H.'s Norfolk home came away perfectly charmed with the aspects of "family life as there presented. Not by any meanls so grand a place as some of the "stately homes of England," Sandringham has nevertheless a snugness and cosiness which are lucking to some more magnificent mansions; and its domestic life is of the utmost, simplicity, or at least naturalness well befltting the country home of the '•first gentleman in England." \fter Siindringham, Abergeldie, with its splendid Highland scenery and bracing air, has ' perhaps, the most attractions for their Royal Highnesses, unless, indeed, their love of Deeside is divided by their liking for the woods and lawns of Fredenborg and Bernstorff in Denmark, which have witnessed so many autumn gatherings of all who are connected with the family of the Princess of Wales, who, with all her attachment to the country of her adoption, still cherishes a warm affection for the homes of her childhood.

A PRINCE OF WORKERS His working role ias been a working-role of tii» noblest kind. Doutbless, Ekf Z> German Crown Prince, he has been W aloof from the political conncil s of to £& mother and her Cabinet. He was nrtlntrusted with those confidential services asprivate adviser to and practical co-worker with iier Majesty, which, .had been fulfilled by the Prince Consort. But in most other respects he had to step into the shoes of his deceased father as the perfdrmer of pnblic functions, the more so as his grief-stricken mother practically withdrew into-private life after the deaih of her deeply-adored husband. As Mr Gladstone one said ia Parliament, " circumstances have tended to throw upon the Prince of Wales an unusual amount of public duty, and every call has been honorably and devotedly met." The mere enumeration of the functions at which the Prince Iras thus figured at this call of public duty would nil volumesreviews attended, exhibitions opened, foundation stones laid, meetings presided over journeys undertaken, statues unveiled dinners eaten and speeches made, buildings and pubhc works inaugurated, factories inspected receptions held, "and a thousand and one other functions performed. But with all his.puhhc labor the Prince, perhaps, has been most conspicuous as a patron, organiser, and opener of exhibitions, w hi ca ,&- be said to have been the creation of his father. As a boy of ten, at the side* of his royal parents, he had witnessed the inauguration of the first " world fair " in Hyde Park, and his imagination was fired with the ambition of continuing the wjrk which ■his father had begun. Soon afte? his marriage we find him connected with minor enterprises of a similar the South London Industrial Exhibition, which-he opened in 1865, and later on with great shows at .Leeds, Nottingham, Liverpool, - Edinburgh, Glasgow, Newcastle, and a score of other towns.

A CHAMPION OF THE DISTRESSED. ' It may also be said of the Prince of VVaies that he has been a King before his time—a roi des gueux, or King of the Beggars, seeing that he has ever done so much to champion the cause of the distressed. As he once declared, " the time has come when class can no longer stand aloof from class, and that man does his duty best who works most earnestly in bridging over the gulf between different classes, which it is the tendency of increased wealth and increased civilisation to widen." As his maiden speech in the House of Loids had been about the condition of the poor, so, perhaps, the public office to which he devoted most pains was his membership of the Royal Commission on the Housing of the Working Classes. At-the sittings of this Commission he was a diligent attender, and for the purpose of the - inquiry he visited slums in St. Pancrasfand Hoiborn, the condition of some of dwellings in which he described as perfectly disgraceful. His patronage and the prestige of his name have been sought for, nor sought in vain, for almost all the great benevolent movements of the time; and perhaps the crowning effort of his noble-hearted philanthropy was his initiation of the London Hospital Fund to commemorate the Diamond Jubilee of his mother—a fund which, in less than a year, swelled to considerably over a quarter of a million sterling. AS A LANDLORD.

| The life of Albert Edward is well reflected j in that of the tenants of the estate of San- | dringham, as to whom, as Lord Randolph j Churchill once informed the Rouse of Com- ! mons, the Prince himself " has desired that 1 the lob of every man, woman, and child i dwelling on the Sandringham Estate should Bbe, in every sense of the word, a happy Int." To promote this result every farm building j has been restored or rebuilt; one hundred ] new cottages have been erected; 200 acres j hare been planted; fifteen miles of new i road have been made; and churches, t schools, and clubs have been set on foot \ and supported. i And as the Prince has thus become a 1 pattern landlord, so ho lias also been a, | devoted husband and a model parent. As i Mr Stead has written: "The popular idea of the the Prince as a man of pleasure has obscured the less generally known side of j his character, which is revealed when ho j is in the family circle His worst enemies 1 will admit that the Prince's greatest fail- | ings arise from too great kindness of heart. ) However far short of an ideal standard he j may fall in some respects, he is in other mat--1 ters quite a devoted family man. His j brothel's and sisters arc most affectionately | attached to him. His tenderness to his ! wife during her illness, his constant attenj tion to her wants, the pains which he takes J to keep her informed of all that is likely | to amuse her, and the interest which he ! always takes in the welfare of the children—j these are all strangely at variance with the \ popular conception which has gone abroad." I —By the Rev. E. W. Lowe, M.A.