THE PRINCE'S KISS.

Waikato Times, Volume 97, Issue 15230, 5 May 1923, Page 12 (Supplement)

THE PRINCE'S KISS.

TOUCHING SCENE IN A HOSPITAL. A correspondent of the Dominion has sent in the following cutting relating to the Prince of Wales, and adding at the same time that in remembering at this date our fallen heroes, it is as well to remember that there are some poor fellows to whom death would.be a happy and welcome release.

i "Never has the true character of the Prince of Wales been revealed more strikingly than in a little story told to a friend by Lady Kinnalrd a few weeks before her death. It Is quoted in an issue of The Children's Newspaper. The Prince was asked one day if he would visit a private hospital where 'the patients were 36 men so seriously injured and disfigured in the war that they could never hope for release. He went, and having been shown round the beds was conducted to the doors. The story proceeds:—

He stopped suddenly and said

was told you had thirty-six patients. I have seen only twenty-nine." It was explained to him that the seven other patients were so tragically disfigured that the visit to their ward was purposely omitted. "For my sake .or theirs?" he asked. "For yours, sir," was the answer.

"At once he insisted on seeing those seven men. He was ushered into the ward where they lay, and at each bed he stopepd for some minutes, saying cheering words and thanking each man in the name of England for his sclf-sacriflcc.

■ " 'Then, once again, he paused at the door. "But there are only six men here," he persisted. "Where is the seventh?" He, was told that nobody could see the seventh man. Blind, deaf, maimed, and disfigured, this seventh man (they told him) lay in a bed in a room to himself, from which he would never stir.

" 'You must not see him, sir," said one of the officials. " 'I must see him,' said the Prince. " 'Better not, sir. You can do him no good. And the sight is- terrible.' " 'Still, I wish to see him.'

"'One member of the staff accompanied the Prince into that little darkened room of unutterable tragedy. He relates that the Prince walked firmly to the bedside, that he turned very white, but stood there with bowed head, looking at the man who .could neither see him nor hear him, looking at that awful wreck of manhood as though he would see the final anguish of murderous and monstrous war.

" 'Then, very slowly, the Prince stooped down and iissed the man's face.'"