Java Joins in Honouring Queen

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 83, Issue 2, 4 January 1939, Page 3

Java Joins in Honouring Queen

SURABAYA. Netherlands East Indies gave a remarkable demonstration of loyalty to Queen Wilhelmina when they celebrated in September 40 years of her reign over the Netherlands and its colonies. Surabaya in particular had put on its gala dress for this occasion. All Government and private buildings were decorated with thousands of small electric bulbs, flooding the city with light. In the trees on boulevards hundreds of orange-coloured bulbs shed a soft orange glow. Schools were closed lor three days and the children, both white and coloured, mingled in enormous throngs on the roads singing national songs. There were fireworks, masquerades, parades, a flower procession, a costume show in which all races joined. The roads were packed with natives iir motor-cars, on bicycles, in little onehorse carriages, in demmos (vehicles un three wheels, with seating capacity for three persons). In one of these demmos a whole kampong (native village) seemed to be packed together; 16 heads were counted. Javanese, Chinese, Japanese, Arabs and othes- Oriental and Occidental races joined the happy throngs on foot. In the flower procession a Japanese was seen carrying a little house on his shoulders. It was made of orange paper and the size of a yard square. In its loof was written, in letters of red, white and blue, “The House of Orange. ’ ’ At a naval review 25 warships paraded in the Surabaya Bay. Large crowds thronged the wharves watching the display. At night the ships were illuminated. On the Quiet A certain elderly woman is such a rabid teetotaler that she will not buy anything from a licensed grocer. She was out walking the other day when a display of fruit in a grocer’s window caught her eye. Intending to purchase some, she absent-mindedly entered the shop. Just as she reached the counter she recollected her principles, and asked the grocer: “Have you a licence?” “No, madam,” replied the grocer, “but”—leaning forward confidentially' —“I can get in anything you like for you! ” Smart Work Robinson was just going towards the foreman’s office on a new housing 1 estate when he met Green coming away. “Going to try for a job?” asked Green. I “You’ll be unlucky,” Green told ’him, “I’ve just had a try myself, and I the foreman won't take any more men i on. ” j But Robinson knew a trick or two, so he sought out the foreman. “Give you a job?” said that worthy; I “why, I’ve just turned one man I away. ’ ’ ’ “I know,” said Robinson, “I met J • him and he told me he thought you ’hadn’t the authority to sign men on.” i The foreman glared. “Oh, he did, ’did he?” he snorted. “’Well, I’ll show I him I have. You get started right ’ away. ’ * [Father: “A big boy of five and afraid to go to bed alone?” Tommy: “You needn’t shout, daddy; j you always sleep with mummy.”