THE Southland Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. Luceo Non Uro. WEDNESDAY, 23rd JANUARY, 1901. THE QUEEN’S HEALTH.

Southland Times, Issue 14852, 23 January 1901, Page 2

THE Southland Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. Luceo Non Uro. WEDNESDAY, 23rd JANUARY, 1901. THE QUEEN’S HEALTH.

The latest news from Osborne, which is published this morning, is far from reassuring and encouraging. Since the intelligence of her Majesty’s sickness fell like a bolt from the blue on Monday only one ending has been regarded as possible, and it was expected that each hour since then would bring the message of death. There has been but little in the cablegrams in which a crumb of comfort could be found. True, we were told yesterday that the Queen’s condition had greatly improved, that she had passed, some hours in sleep that brought refreshment and had taken some food, and for a brief space there was some ground for hoping that these great restorers would enable her to rally. Public anxiety was eased a little by the good news, and an element of thankfulness was mingled with the nation’s prayers. But all these hopes are dashed by the brief portentous messages with which the day’s record closes. The fuller information which has been received makes it clear that her Majesty did not suffer a sudden collapse. For months the strain of national events and the sorrow of family afflictions has been telling upon her, and she has gradually grown weaker. Those members of the Court who lives near the Queen and her personal attendants have observed in her declining strength the effects of sleeplessness and loss of appetite. The weakening process continued till her Majesty fell into a state of coma and at length it became necessary to tell the nation that the Queen’s life was in great danger. How the mournful announcement was received is known to all. Throughout the Empire and beyond it the mind of the people has been occupied with the Queen’s illness to the exclusion of everything else. In London business is at a standstill, and in „ other parts of the United Kingdom and here in the colonies the attention of the people is only half given to their daily pursuits. The one absorbing topic is the condition of the Queen, and while possessed by fear and anxiety the people are but little fit to throw their usual energy into their business. The picture, as it is presented by the imagination, of that room at Osborne where the Queen lies prostrate and where the Royal Family waits in* silent grief is never absent from the mind of the nation—it pre-oceupies attention and excludes all other subjects. Unhappily, to this community, which shrinks from believing the worst but hardly dares to hope for the best, there comes no ray of comfort this morning.