THE HARD-WORKED KING.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXIV, Issue 25, 23 September 1912, Page 6

THE HARD-WORKED KING.

(New York Herald.) King George from the moment he ascended the throne had on© central object—to win the support of all classes—and therefore bis days—and his nights too—have been crowded with painstaking, constant, and what must at all times be really distasteful work. Not only is he present at the Army and- Navy' reviews, keenly attentive to all details and interested in the latest developments of these services—but he attends cattle and dog shows, hospital dedications, polo matches, horse races, theatrical performances, church services, entertainments for charity, and hundreds of social functions given by the lords and ladies of the realm.

As. if th is were not - enough work, supplemented as it is by holding courts and presiding over levees; the King is supposed to have a fatherly eye on all the activities of his subjects. If Burgess swims across the Channel he must telegraph him; if an old lady or gentleman passes the hundred year mark off goes a dispatch wishing continued life; if a scientist adds something new to the world's sum of knowledge, if a peer becomes heroic or if a commoner does something out of the common, the King must be told about it, and distribute his reward—ranging from kind words to a baronetcy. No doubt millions have envied King George when they saw him riding in state, with the Queen by his side, and the Royal children—demure and silent —in front of him, but if one gave a little thought to the multifarious things that he must do, to the tiresome things he must listen to, and to the thoughts that must oppress him in these days of English industrial and Irish-Welsh political unrest, one would never envy him the distinction of wearing a Crown. He has given Up his natural preference for a book, a pipe, and a restful cruise, for an endless round of tiresome duties, with the camera fiend, yellower than America's yellowest, constantly snapshotting him, his royal consort, and their children wherever they go.