THE CORONATION DURBAR.

Greymouth Evening Star, 7 December 1911, Page 6

THE CORONATION DURBAR.

GREAT ENTHUSIASM. [PM* PBE3S ASSOCIATION- COPTBIGHT.] BOMBAY, Dec. 6.—Their Majesties privately visited the Elephanta Ca/es and started from Delhi amid continuous cheering. The marquee destnyed was not the Shamiani, which is the centre of the investiture. The fire followed the rehearsal and is attributed to a spark from a passing train which accidentally fired a shed a mile off i ontaining fireworks. The fire killed two men. Their comrades, noticing the outbreak escaped.

THE ARRANGEMENTS. The Coronation Durbar will take place next Tuesday, and the intervening days will be devoted to a series of stately receptions and gorgeous pageants. The camp of the King-Em-peror has been set in the midst of a great city of palatial tents occupied by the Viceroy, the Governors, the Lieutenant-Governors, the native rulers and representatives of every branch of civil and military authority. About one hundred and fifty ruling chiefs are to attend with their retinues, and for a week or ten days the Durbar camp, which is served by about forty-two miles of temporary railway, will contain not fewer than 200,000 persons. Provision has been made for about 100,000 people to witness the actual ceremony of homage and the proclamation of the Emperor. The whole affair will be on a stupendous scale, and the men who know India best say that its influence upon he native population will be correspondingly great. King George will be hailed not as a constitutional monarch but as the personal ruler of his Indian subjects. Millions of people who regard the Government as a mere abstraction connected with policemen and taxes will be moved to fervours of loyalty by the wtndrous display of pomp and power on the historic plain at Delhi, and the native chiefs, who in many instances are the buttresses of British rule, will return to their own districts invested with new dignity and authority,