GIFTS TO ROYALTY.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LVI, Issue LVI, 29 January 1909, Page 3

GIFTS TO ROYALTY.

Gifts, to Royalty are numerous, extremely varied, often very expensive, and sometimes embarrasing. All sorts of things, from cakes to elephants, find ..their-.., way to the palaces of monarchs from devoted subjects or foreign admirers. A writer in "Chambers" tells us that when the King, while Prince of Wales, was staying at Marienbad some year^ ago, he received, besides 1300 begging letters, 320 requests for his autograph, and 260 for a lock of his hair or some other personal memento — besides these 300 presents of various kinds — studs, watches, cigars and cigarettes, gloves, ties , walking-sticks, sweets, and scented soap. Some of the senders desired to popularise a new article, others wanted to be able to say the King possessed something sent by " them, others were actuated by pure loyalty. Gifts of this kind are always returned. The King once received a gigantic prize potato, weighing five pounds, from a Vermont farmer. But this was nothing to the gift of a hundred marks to the Kaiser, accompanied by an anonymous note begging him to use ,the I money to purchase some warm underclothing, "for I saw your Majesty at the review yesterday, and it seemed to me you 1 were not so warmly clad as you should be." Of course there are gifts and, gifts. On the King's writing table at Sandringhani is the mummified hand of an Egyptian princess of three thousand years ago, presented to his Majesty by a celebrated Egyptologist, and now used as a paper-weight. When Prince Arthur of Connaught returned from his visit to the Mikado in 1905 for the purpose of conferring on the ruler of Japan the Order of the Garter, he brought back with him 250 | packages containing a magnificant assortment of Japanese antiquities and works of art, for presentation to the j King. It is estimated that these gifts would realise at least £250,000 if put on the market. Few givers behave as badly as certain citizens of Rome, who presented a golden cradle to the first child of the present King and Queen of Italy. The King forbade the offering of gifts, but these citizens pleaded so hard that he made an exception in their case. Some time afterwards the effect of the fine gift was considerably marred by a public complaint by the maker of the cradle that he had not been fully paid for it! It is said that the King had to foot the greater part of the bill for Rome's "spontaneous and enthusiastic" gift to his little girl.