MILESTONES TO THE SILVER JUBILEE

Northern Advocate, 27 March 1937, Page 14

MILESTONES TO THE SILVER JUBILEE

Father' handsomely "printed I; volume of 400 pages, was produced as a commemoration and reminder of what had transpired during the twenty-five years which* led up to the Silver Jubilee. It gives a sketch of some of the more prominent happenings of the Veign Of George ' V, happenings of every kind and class, so that the variety is endless. Indeed if anything

its weakness lies in some little tendency to disjointedness v ;' This may have been to -some extent expected,

and perhaps the intention was to serve as a reminder •or stimulus, to memory rather than as an actual means of information. Certain it is that paragraph after paragraph does bring back / the thoughts and emotions of years past. Thus it is likely it will appeal more to those of us who are older and remember than to those whose years ensure that much which they read is of hearsay rather than of recollection. : A Remarkable Assemblage. Quite expectedly the first page is occupied with the proclamationof King George V —May 7 1910,' Then we pass back twenty-four hours, to the announcement of the death of Eldward Vll—a previous age, as we see it now, the last leaf turned of the great Victorian and Edwardian age of-. peace, progress' and imperial development. 'This is the quotation givehvfrom ‘‘The Times” bf May 23; ' “No king ever started on his last . v 'journey with .such an escort. By the side ,^!li^g’^^or^ev‘rode' ; hia cousin, & the German Emperor,' the almost absolute ruler of the most powerful Military nation that Europe has ever kho'wri. He was followed by the Kings •of the Hellenes and of Denmark, King .Edward’s brother-in-law; by the King

of Norway, the late king’s son-in-law; ~-£'y the King of Spain, his nephew by marriage; by the young King of Portu-

gal, a near kinsman and the son of one ; b? his most intimate friends; by the * new King of the Belgians, grandson ' ‘ r of Queen Victoria’s uncle, and-trusted adviser; and by the King of Bulgaria# the newest of European kingdoms, and by birth himself also a Coburg. ' } ■ With therh came- the heir to the

Austro-Hungarian Empire, the brother > of , the Russian Emperor; the heir to .thrpne of Turkey; the heirs of Bavaria, Roumania, and other

■S House of Japan; another prince from China; and several princes of that

House of Orleans whose names are " up alike with !the history of France and with the personal history of; our own Royal Family.”

inhere is. something in this mere list of names which cannot but make us pause and think of what was to happen to most of them ere the next de,f cade had passed, N Suffragette’s Amok. •.■.h. . ■ . • • • It seems a Jofig way back to the days Of the suffragettes, but still they are well within our period. See, else, what the' “Daily Mail” had to record of th'em'oh March 2,1912 r;: ■ “At six o’clock , yesterday .evening a _ brigade of militant Suffragettes scat- ’ toted along the Strand, Haymarket, Piccadilly, Bond Street, Oxford Street, Regeiit Street, .made simultaheo'us* attacks pn the shop windows nearest 1 v to ' each of them. Some drew hammers from their muffs, many had handbags filled with heavy weights, which they swung against the glass. ~ The few moments which followed saw an ex- - - traordinary -scene. - - From every part of the crowded and brilliantly lighted streets came the crash of splintered glass. People started as a window shattered at their side; suddenly there was another crash in front of them; on the other side of the street; behind Scared shop assistants ' came rushing out on to the pavements, traffic stopped, policemen sprang this way and that. Five minutes later the streets' were a procession of excited groups, each surrounding a woman

(Edited by H. C. Dent.)

wrecker being led in custody to the nearest police station. The arrests numbered 148.

“But the destruction was wrought. Bond Street, on the east side especially, was a ruin. Piccadilly shop-fronts were starred on every side. The Strand, Haymarket and Regent Street might have been bombarded. Many hundreds of pounds worth of plateglass had been utterly destroyed.” A Fateful Day. Another step or two and we reach the day when the Foreign Office published this statement, on August 5 at 12,15 in the morning: “Owing to the summary rejection by the German Government of the request made by His Majesty’s Govern-

“ The Bookman’s ” Review

ment that assurances that the neutral

ity of Belgium will be respected, His Majesty’s Ambassador at Berlin has received his passports, and His Majesty’s Government have declared to the German Government that a state of war exists between Great Britain and Germany as from 11 p.m. on August 4.”

Here are ome of the lines of a piece of poetry written at the end of that August by a railway porter at Bath, and beyond doubt these reflected the then feeling resulting from the Army prder issued by the Kaiser on August 19.

“It is my Royal and Imperial Command that you concentrate your energies for the immediate present upon one single purpose, and that is that you address all your skill and all the valour of my soldiers to exterminate first the treacherous English and walk pver General French’s contemptible .little Army.” And here are two of the verses:— You boasted the Day, and you toasted the Day, And now the Day has come. Blasphemer, braggart, and coward all, Little you reck of . the numbing ball, The blasting shell, or the “white arm’s” fall, As they speed poor humans home. You-have . wronged for the Day, you have longed for the Day, That lit the awful flame. ’Tis nothing to you that hill and plain Yield sheaves of, dead men amid' the , grain; That widows mourn for their loved ones slain, *And mothers curse thy name. By contrast here is an incident related in the “Nursing Mirror” for October 10 of the same year 1914. “Two soldiers badly wounded lay beside a dying German, Earlier in the day one'Tommy would have “gone” but now they lay there, hot, tired, thirsty, and in pain. “ ‘ Wot wouldn’t I give for a drink!’ remarked one man to the other. The German understood the word ‘drink’ —Singularly like his own. “The soldier who lived to tell the tale said, ‘E kep’ saying “ere,” pointing to ’is side. We thought as ’ow ’e wanted liftin’ up, and couldn’t rest easy, so after a bit I managed to hoist myself up and give him a pull, and then I found ’e was lyin’ on ’is water-bottle. It was full of wine and water, and I ’eld it to ’is lips. “Pore chap! ‘e was nigh done then, but ’e ses, ‘No, not me I die —you drink! Pore bloke, he died too, ’e did, and later some of us buried ’im proper, wiv a kind of a headstone, and on it I wrote on a bit of paper, ‘Al.’ Paper was rare, you know, but we wanted to put somefink.” “A Message For Your Majesty.” In April 1924 the King opened the British Empire Exhibition at Wembly, and this little incident, less surprising today of course, but a startling event

then, brought graphically to popular notice the shrinking girdle of the earth. The' quotation is from the “Daily Chronicle” of April 24. “The thunder of applause from the masses of people on the stands of the Stadium after the King had concluded his speech had scarcely died away when a telegraph boy became the centre of attention. “From the entrance to the Stadium to the Royal dais he smartly walked with a large sheet of paper. At the foot of the Royal stand he sprang smartly to attention and saluted, and then marched up the steps to the King. “A message for Your Majesty,” he said.

“Thank'you very much,” replied the King.

. “Then, with a further salute, the boy parched back, amid the cheers of the multitude.

“As soon as His Majesty had finished his speech, the following message was handed in at the Stadium post office by one of the King’s equerries, and was cabled round the Empire.

“I have this moment opened the British Empire Exhibition —George, R. I.”

The message was handed in at 11 49.35 sec., and at 11 50.55 sec. it was received back, the circle of the globe having been completed.” As will be seen the book lacks nothing of variety of interest.