A LETTER FROM HOME.

Otago Witness, Issue 3869, 8 May 1928, Page 67

A LETTER FROM HOME.

By Sheila Scobie Macdonald. (Special foe the Otago Witness.) „ March 19. Such a beflagged London greeted the King and Queen of Afghanistan on Tuesday last. A bitterly cold day it was, but there were gleams of sunshine to hearten the thousands—mostly . women—who lined the streets. I write lined, but really the word packed would be more descriptive, for the crowds were truly marvellous. I myself waited only an hour, but some people had taken up their stands quite early in the morning, and philosophically consumed the sandwiches they had brought with them for luncheon, talked to their neighbours, and put in time generally. The etiquette of street crowds and theatre crowds differs. In the latter once you have taken your place you are graciously permitted to leave it for as long as, say, 20 minutes on end, but if you leave your place in a street show for tpn seconds, woe betide you, for it just isn’t there any more. Well, I think London has made it pretty plain that it is Queen Souriya, and not her royal husband, who is the attraction, for never have I seen such eagerness to get a close view of a visiting Royalty as was shown by the thousands who stared open-mouthed as the carriage with the two Queens passed. The Kings weren’t in the limelight at all, comparatively, though for once in a way King Amanullah’s garments completely outshone those of his consort The Queen was wearing a sable coat and close-fitting brown hat, but the King looked as if he had stepped out of a Gilbert and Sullivan opera. I read somewhere that he himself designed his costume, and I must admit that it put our King’s quite in the shade. To begin with he wore a flowing cloak, ground length, of pale blue cloth, which blew out in the wind and disclosed underneath a pale blue tunic belted in gold, finished off by wide scarlet trousers and military boots. His headgear was just as original—a high kind of biretta arrangement in blue and gold, with a scarlet and black brush, very upright, in the centre of the front. He is swarthy, shortish and very rotund, typically Eastern in every way, and an excellent foil for his much more decorative Queen. Although not beautiful, she is really very attractive, with a clear creimy-white skin that is no darker than the average Frenchwoman’s. Her colouring is what constitutes her charm, that and her slim grace of body, for her features, apart from her eyes, which are beautiful, are rather pronounced—of a distinctly Jewish type, in fact. Anyway, she has been absolutely lionised in London, and we hear that when the King went to Birmingham without her, the mob, while applauding him dutifully, shouted : “ Where is the Queen —we want the Queen,” until the Eastern potentate grew more than a little annoyed. What takes the popular fancy is the fact that until a few months ago, that calm, perfectly poised, beautifully-dressed woman was a veiled inmate of a harem or whatever is the name given to the women’s quarters in Afghanistan, and had never met a man other than her own .immediate relatives in her life. It really is a great achievement. And yet these two Easterns, who have absorbed our ideas so rapidly, have their limitations. King Amanullah is even contemplating a submarine trip, his interest in aeroplanes is unbounded, a racing motor holds no fears for him. but neither he nor his Queen can tolerate a lift. Like my “ daily,” who, descanting on her abhorrence of the escalators now in common ■ use in most tube stations in London, informed me that “ in them unnatteral affairs there’s nothing you can take hold on, so to speak,” they prefer a staircase. Odd that a lift should be the only thing in all their travels that has daunted them One man—and men were in the minority—in the crowd seemed to view the spectacle through jaundiced eyes. As the glittering escort of Life Guards flashed past, and the band of the Grenadiers crashed out the Afghan National anthem, and the Royal carriages* with postillions and outriders complete passed between the serried ranks of cheering onlookers, he made loud and undiplomatic (though possibly very apt) statements about Eastern potentates generally and the visitors in particular, ending up with the general inquiry: “If anyone could tell me why these people are getting a reception like this. I’d be grateful.” (Incidentally he used a good many adjectives, which I have omitted). A big Canadian a few paces away, hearing him, remarked goodhumouredly : “ You trot home and have a squint at your kid's atlas, little Englander. If that don’t enlighten you, then nothing will.” So that was that, and I should think most of us got out an atlas that night, and did some steady thinking.

I have been reading Fronde lately, not solidly and straight ahead, but bits here and bits there, just as the fancy took me. And because of Froude, and because my train divided in half and the portion I was in landed me unexpectedly at London Bridge station instead of Victoria, and because walking over the bridge to Mono-' ment station I paused, as I always do, to look over the parapet at the sliding, shining Thames rippling down past the buildings, now warehouses, where nobles used to dwell, to the grim walls of the

ancient fortress and prison, I spent a whole morning dreaming in the Tower, or rather in its precincts. I have been there before, but never alone, always with someone whose idea in going was to see the Crown jewels, or whose thirsty soul longed for a cheering cup of tea. I avoided all the usual sights—the Bloody Tower, for instance, the staircase where the young princes were buried, etc., and hung a long time round Traitor’s Gate, that, grim portcullis opening on to the. river, up which the barges came with their tragic load. In the walls of Traitor’s Gate there are still loopholes through which the lieutenant of the Tower used to watch for the arrival of an illustrious prisoner after his trial at the House of Lords. As the prisoner stepped from the boat, the axe of office, carried before him, was reversed in the case of a death sentence, thus giving the watching official time to arrange suitably for his reception 1 Another spot for the dreamer is Tower Green, a private execution spot reserved for special offenders, in contrast to the public one on Gre.at Tower HilL Anne Boleyn was beheaded here. Froude tells the tale of that deed as follows: “ A little before noon, on the 19th of May, Anne Boleyn, Queen of England, was led down to the green, where the young grass and the white daisies of summer were freshly bursting in the sunshine. A little cannon stood loaded on the battlements, the motionless cannoneer was ready with smoking linstock at his side, and when the crawling hand upon the dial of great Tower clock touched the mid-day hour, that cannon would tell to London that all was over.”

Quite close to that tragic square is the little chapel, ironically dedicated to St. Peter-in-the-Chains, where the headless bodies of the great were buried, and whose names can be read on a plate just inside the door.

The Beauchamp Tower, too, is ,a chamber of memories—a horrible spot, narrow, cold, and gloomy. How did those poor, tortured souls, kept there often in suspense year after tragic year, endure, let alone endure patiently. And yet they did, for carved into the walls are words of extraordinary philosophy. “ The most unhappie man in the world is he that is not pacient in adversitie ” is one of them: How could that unknown prisoner write it—how could he? On leaving the Tower precincts I walked up to Great Tower Hill. It is a busy, rumbling place of motor lorries and narrow streets, but a policeman directed me to Trinity square, where a stone marked the spot, which, shared by Tyburn, was for centuries the place of public execution. It was from here, too, I think, that prisoners sentenced to be whipped at the cart’s tail Parted off on their ghastly journey to Tyburn. What a world it must have been, and yet even then I suppose there were thousands of humdrum people leading uneventful lives, who jostled and crowded to gape at the public agonies of sinners in less safe walks of life than their own. Not so long ago either, as we would like to believe.

Only the other day the Evening Standard published an extract of just -100 years back which appealed to me. The scenes described, which I quote below, actually took place after my grandmother had reached womanhood. Unbelievable — but true.

Executions in Town. —The awful sentence of death was carried out before the entrance of Newgate, on five men, at 20 minutes past 8 to-dav. The names of the executed men were W. Melford (21). C. Melford (17), and Jeremiah Sullivan (28), convicted of breaking into a house; and Thomas Chapman (28) and William Johnson (28), for horse-stealing. . At 6 o’clock the prisoners received their spiritual consolation with thankfulness. William Melford particularly bewailed the fact that he had been a Sabbath-breaker. On our admission, we observed the prisoner Sullivan at one corner of the room engaged in devotional exercises. He appeared contrite and sighed heavily. William Melford wept bitterly. While they bound Charles Melford he kept making allusions to his mother, and he was obliged to be held while the officers were performing their duty. During the time the ropes were being placed around the necks of the other four men, Johnson was carried in the arms of two men to the fatal scaffold, and was supported by them while the executioner did his duty. While on the scaffold Charles Melford called to the sheriff: “ Pray let me get off. Pray, sir, take me off.” The crowd of spectators was immense. Poor young Charlie Melford —and only 100 years ago too ’.