THE KING GOES BY.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20361, 19 March 1928, Page 10

THE KING GOES BY.

THE SYMBOL OF A GREAT EMPIRE. Written for the Otago Daily Timet.. By Nellie M. Scanlan. LONDON, February 7. To-day I saw the King go by in his golden coach. He was going to open Parliament. For the first time since he came to the Throne. the Queen did not accompany him. Kings and Queens are human like us all. The Queen wr.s at home with a bad cold, the sort of plcbian complaint that takes Queens and charwomen in its stride. So the Queen “eat in the parlour ” and the King, looking a little lonely in the big gold coach, rode alone. Ho did not wear a crown or royal robes, as little children sometimes imagine—that came later—but a great coat of dull blue. It was one of those'grey London days, a gentle day,- with rain, liko suppressed tears, hanging on the lashes of the sky.; The soft mist, the bare trees —London’s wonderful trees—and the crowd, the eager, orderly crowd that lined the route to see the King go by. There were no ropes or barriers. The Guards in their grey overcoats and tall, black busbees, stood at intervals from Buckingham Palace, down the Mall, through the Horse Guards’ Arch, into Whitehall, and on to Westminster. Friendly policemen reinforced the line, and mounted men patrolled it._ _ All along, thousands stood silently waiting.. They came, the Horse Guards in shining armour and tossing scarlet plumes, their gleaming horses prancing. They passed to the tramp of hoofs, the creak of leather, and the jingle of accoutrement. In the deep shadow of a great State coach, with scarlet and gold outriders, a smiling face, a hand at salute the Prince of Wales. . ■ Private cars from which came the soft radiauce.of ermine, the glitter of coronets,—Peeresses and tlieir Lords, Ambassadors, foreign faces, Chinese and Japanese, and swarthy faces from sunny climes, with cocked hats and feathers. The great ones of State; the two young pages, the Crown,, the sceptre. Last the golden coach, with its eight bay horses, its outriders in scarmt and gold and funny little wigs. “Here comes the King!” Dignified gracious but looking a little lonely amidst all that splendour wit lieu this Queen. •.The great symbol of the British Empire.