CURRENT TOPICS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CV, Issue 12534, 22 June 1901, Page 6

CURRENT TOPICS.

• There are, of course, the duke scores of character sketches of tobk. of the Royal Duke who will viriit; our city to-day, but most interesting to us) next to our own opinion, is that of an Australian. Mr W. H. Pitchetb has only good words for him. 1 “ What is the character behind that beard- : ed, sailor-like countenance, with' youth still in every line?” he asks. “It tells much in his favour that the Duka is a sailor, and a sailor, not of the ornamental, but of the active and practical type.” A critic of an older and. harder type, and a gentleman of standing and influence in London ones declared that the Duke was “old George 111. come to life again!” Ho is strong-willed, that is,-obstinate, with a natural bias to despotic ways, But a “ despot ” under the political conditions of modem England is unthinkable. “'Tin': Duke lives, ' so to speak, unde a... microscope,” continues Mr Fit ohett. “He walks in very slippery ways.’ Ho is appealed to by many -temptations. Yet- he has made no -blunders-. He is touched by no scandal. He plays a difficult part on a great stage, aid plays it with judgment. He may not have his Royal father’s tact, a tact which, in Edward VH., rises almost to' the level of genius. But who remembers a single ungracious. word the Duke'ha® spoken, or -a single, indiscreet act he has ■committed?’* The • Australian writer is not at all surprised at the patience with wliich multitudes will watch, in shower and sunshine, - far 'one glimpse of the Royal carriage and its outriders. For the Duke is indeed the “ son of a hundred kings.” A line of ancestry is behind him which run® back, on, the English side, to Egbert arid: to Alfred the Great, and, on the German side, past •Frederick the Wise of Saxony to the hard.' fighters of the forgotten past. He is the heir to a throne which might satisfy the imagination of an Alexander, a;ad content, the ambition of a Napoleon.

PBINCE OF WALES.

There is a good of speculation concerning the titles which the' Doha cl Cornwall and York will take or receive when he reaches the home* land again l . The- Welsh are naturally , anxious to have a Prince as well as a King, and they are petitioning to have the principality represented, presumably in , the British coat-of-arms. The “Times’*’ takes the most generally accepted! view, that the Duke of York will he treated! Prince of Wales'soon after his return, l to Great Britain, and society journals have already announced, with some show of authority, that the creation 1 will be made, public on the King’s birthday. .But there are rumours that no change will be made. in the titles of the Duke and! Duchess. The “Whitehall Review,” for instanjse, declares that Prince Edward of York will' in time be created Prince of Wales, and that the Duke’s second son will receive a title to commemorate his father’s visit to these portions of the Empihe. : It is hardly., probable that tradition would be broken through in such ai manner, and the public would assuredly be disappointed if the title Prince of Walek were to go to any but the King’s eldest surviving son. That has been the custom for centuries past, indeed, ever since 1343, when Edward 111. invested the Black Prince with the ‘ principality. Until the time of Charles 11, we are told, the Welsh-con-nection was actually and ratliier oddly maintained by the employment of a Welsh wet nurse for the young prince. The title is not inherited, and has usually btrem bestowed, by patent and investiture, though, in a few instances, the heir to the. throne has become Prince of Wales simply by being so declared. The eldest son of the Sovereign is by inheritance Duke of Cornwall, a title first conferred in 1357, on tie , Black Prinoe., The title of Earl ol»Chester goes with the principality. On the ihmth of a Prince of Wales, in, the fwther’i ;

■ lifetime, tie title has been conferred on ; the S overeign’s grandson, or on the next younger son, being heir apparent, though Charles I. had to trait four years., for-the ; lonour.

THE DUCHESS OF YORK.

“ Oh, and laughed the Duchess May,” "wrote Mrsßrowning, and really the "most ’ charming of ®H May’s characteristics is her smile. She is never go hap-

■ pyi it is said, as when taking part in soma great public function, and if that is so, Her great tour of the Empire should*surely bring her ample joy. She is not, as ia so. often claimed, an English Princess, unless we ignore the facts that her father was a , German, and that her great grandfather. King George 111. of Britain) was a l3O a German. But her mother was intensely British in manners and sentiment, if not in blood, and from the Duchess of Teolc, Prin- ; cess May has inherited many of the-quali-ties that go to make a queenly Queen- Her - full name is' Victoria Mary AugustarLouisa. Olga Pauline Claudine Agnes, and sherwould have been called Victoria if the .nameihad not been so popular with Royalty, and; if .she had not been born-in May* With Mary dor her 'second-name', and! MayHor her birth Month,' it was inevitable 'that she should be called May. She was bom at Kensington Palace in 1867. ; Reminiscences of early childhood. are 1 often embarrassing, ■ but we. have ■ her motherisauthority for it that she was “as sweet and engaging a child as you can /wish to ■ see;' full of life and fun,and as-playful as a kitten ; with the deepest blue eyes imatginable, quantities .of-fair hair and a> lovely pink and white ctjmplcsionj and a most perfect figure. In a. "word a model of a baby. It is largely to the untiring and splendid, devotion of her mother that the Duchess j vwea the “ sound ” education, the charm of manner, the industry and the tact which have “ conquered ” so many of -her future subjects. It is recorded that once she nearly contracted “housemaid’s knee” in the cause of charity, She married the-Duke of York on July 6, 1895, and is two years younger than her husband. •

OXJE OWN ■ WORK.

If our readers have time this morning between breakfast and the arrival of

Royalty, they should cer- • tainly pause and consider What is expected of them. Judging hy the comments ,of London journals on the Royal tony, , the visit ol the Duke and Duchess of York to these colonies “ has killed the laid; germ of separatism, if any still remained) alive. If we are to live up to all the kind .things y that have keen said of the previously “ blawsted colonies,” each and every one of us must loose for a moment the 'hitch , of the crimson- silk thread that ties ns, to the 'Mother Laud, and let the; Duke .puli v it a little tighter. ‘ The “Times” itella us that “ more gratifying than all official' receptions, however splendid, is the unbought enthusiasm of- the citizens at larger and . the spontaneous acclamations; of a people wholly ,unaccustomed, to the conventional ' demonstrations which in some ..older communities may,he the effect of habit and Sdition rather than of living sentiments,” e “Daily Chronicle” admits;that.there : was “no actual need cither for,-the,assur-ances of the .Ministers or for-the loyal demonstrations of the people,” because "the past few years have made us perfectly familiar' with the strength. and, sincerity; of the bond which unites our youngest British Dominion with its Mother Land.” ■ But it raises no, serious objection to the proceedings, and 'leaves one with the impression that it .rather likes to" hear of them, which is/exceedingly kind. The ■ “Standard” very 'nearly, strikes /the Bran alt. of fervid patriotism in its ‘ leader ! 'on the opening of- the Federal Parliament. In gathered in a multitude from every comer of 'the continent, and‘even from distant New, Zealand. “Long , journeys of "days, and ,r even weeks,” it'saya, “had been undertaken,by many of those who stood .patiently for hours in the sun to see the procession sweep by,”, Then it stamped the whole performance as “a striking manifestation of that ? impulse;, of loyalty and patriotism- which is pulsing

through the hearts of the; colonists, as they look forward -with’buoyant hope to the promise of the Twentieth Century.” There now! .-•/ '