BLACK SUNDAY” IK LONDON

Evening Star, Issue 14413, 8 July 1910, Page 7

BLACK SUNDAY” IK LONDON

The aspect of the streets of London on May 15 was extraordinary. It was the liv.st day on which the poor of London had cone generally into mourning. With limited means at their disposal, the question of mourning is an important one, and it is a convention that new clothing of any kind should not bo worn until a Sunday. It would seem that throughout the week tho poor women of London had been working with bury fingers to prepare for a day of mourning which may live in history as “Black Sunday.” Since King Edward's death there had been evidence enough of the nation’s sorrow. Amongst tho middle and upper classes mourning attire bad been general, but tho bulk of pedestrians that hurry through a busy city’s streets, who throng omnibuses and fill railway carriages, are of the poorer class, and, save for a blade tie or a black bow, gave no material sign of sorrow ; and the greys and the browns of the poor lent some relief to 1 ho crowded streets. On Sunday all was black-— the black of crape, the black of coat and of blouse and of hat

and bonnet. Faded black, some of it—re His of dead sorrows brought tenderly to light fo servo for national respect—aged and rusty black of old women, newly-made black of young girl, black of ancient cut on the back of the old artisan, black of new creation for the younger worker. In the bright spring sunlight these sombre figures moved. The parks were filled with them. They gravitated towards Buckingham Palace that they might be near the Queen Mother in her sorrow; that they might be near the mighty dead that lay liehind white blinds in some room in tho palace.