"JUST LIKE ONE OF US"

Maoriland Worker, Volume 13, Issue 31, 1 August 1923, Page 3

"JUST LIKE ONE OF US"

*2£—■ "*■ ■ •— '■ — A By QUIZZ _f1... _■.... « Royalty's "Publicity Agent" in its iesp.erate and valiant effort to keep *he Crowned Heads right in f_e limelight, is really "The Dizzy Limit.'* j To screw up the loyalty .of the people is its assured object, but It doesn't seem to have quite mad© up its mind && to th*> methods to ba employed. "The People" are so many headed, so many hearted, there are so many tastes to be oatered for. On the onic hand, a certain lamount of "the divinity that doth hedge ak%g," must be preserved for the sake off the members to whom "Royalty" is I a sort of cross between -an Angel and a Human Being.. But on the other hand ther,o is tne "Great Heart of the People"—just tho common every day crowd, land that's the crowd they _ are really after—-for them ar© all the "Kittle human touches" provided! So the poor "Royalties" (how one pities them) must be induced to play on the Democratic Note, literally, "for all they are worth." And the "Publicity Agent" turns it all into .a song, "Why they're just the same as Us"—And the cables ajre employed to run it out, a verse at a ■ Ume, for. our edification and amugeI nienl! Th© King, visiting a Baby 1 Hospital, "rocks a cradle'- (so 'tis 1 said) and is informed by a nurse that I "rocking 'isn't being done' in well--1 regulated families!" I But, if this had been a true story, 1 you may bet that Queen Mary would 1 Siave been at the King's elbow, and I betfng an up-to-date mother, wouldn't i have allowed His Majesty to make i such an awful mistake! I "Oh; but it is such a little 'human i touch' isn't it?" 1 The younger Royal Princes y-sijt i their sister at Chesterfield Home to I see their . little) nephew, Princess I Mary's Baby. And they actually 1 "nurse" Master Laseelles —and take I him out for a ride in his "pram"! I This is deemed quite "good stuff" by 1 the Publ-'city Agent; and well worth 1 a cable —another "delightfully hum&n 1 touch," you know. i| One New Zealand paper in it's wild jf desire to stir up a little Empire c n ~ I thusiasm, rather overdid things a H while ago. It was during S'r Alfred Pickford's visit, and the paper in I «*«<»«ti<>n oo'nAeived the brilliant, idea of killing three birds with one stone (it might be called "the great three-in-one stunt"). It devoted one column to boosting up the Scout rnoveiment, per se, another to telling us "all about the Prince of Wales," his tastes, his habits and (quit e by the way!) of His Royal H'ghness's "intense admiration for the Scout movement." Now this was all quite usual, and to be expected. The third column was the gem of the whole collection. It was a mixture of "Royal Wedding Preparations"—"Queen Mary"— and "The Bride-to-be." It appears that the pretty little Bride elect, paid a visit to Her Majesty just a short time before the wedding. The articl-q described in great detail the "very serious talk" the Queen had with her future daughter-in-law—how she impressed I upon hs-r little ladyship the great importance of religion, the daily reading of the Bible, etc. And it wound up (because IT WAS WOUND UP, I suppose) by stating that the Queen accompanied Lady Elizabeth to the door, or the gate, to give her what May be called a "Parting Word." Could there b,g anything more toading, more snobbish, more actually indecent than all this?

Supposing that -QniejefcL Mary, who Is noted as a "good moth-er/' -lid have a; talk with her ;daughter-*n-law, just as any ordinary middle class "good mother woman" might have done —would she be , likely to send all the Ue-nOer, * Intimate little detaiils of it for world-w*d© publication, to be "pawed", and mauled, over by •evierrybcay's sacrilegious; hand's? The poor unfortuefafce . .Royalties ARE, after all, just human beingswhy should their private family affairs be dragged into pubUcjity and made common-property? ~. If it were true, it ought not to havo foem published—it it were not irao » The Prince of Wales naturally,, provides much fine copy Cor thd "human touch" business. r -He spends h T *s days, hunting and rac _g (on and off!) Indeed, I.'ye heard that his intimates have dubr bed him "Prince OnanonV' but it may not ibe true, of course! In beiwq?<n whiles, he "designs,", and "wears, a new "blue bowler hat," and is "touched" (not m the usual way, "for a fiver") but by the factory girls In Yorkshire! In the . olden days, when man had the misfortune to suffer from Erysipelas and "touched" the King th £ < evil thing vanished. \So maybe it is contemplated that Prince Chiirmiing shall set up in business as r, '•Healer." Then the gay little Prince, "going home with the milk in tho" morning," finds that he has lost his latch key, and "just like one of Us," he shins up the wall, and put a leg in at a window. Heavens —it is the bedroom h a female domestic! Oh, where was "Auntie Hals i ey v then? Really, .the Publicity Agent is building better than he knows. ■ He is succeeding in "■ making these Royal People so very Democratic — •o "just like ourselves," that In a very little while, we shall not have even a shred of resp&ct left for thorn. It were wiser to ring down the curtain! Somebody, I think''it is Paine, m.ys: "Monarchy resembles some" th*;ng that is kept hidden by a curtain, about which a great dea -l of fuss is made —hut if by chanco th'-a :*urta „ is drawn aside,- and people see what it really is, then everybody beg'ns to laugh."