DON ALPHONSO.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume IX, Issue 17, 23 April 1892, Page 437

DON ALPHONSO.

The little King of Spain is very frank and unrestrained in his expression of opinions, and sometimes makes personal remarks about his subjects of a sort seldom indulged in by older and more diplomatic kings. He is very mischievous, but his attendants, in keeping him out of scrapes, have to take great care not to ‘ impair the dignity of his Most Catholic Majesty.' The paper, from which this sketch is taken, says that a footman who put out his arms and caught the King one day when the little fellow tripped and was about to fall headlong downstairs, was dismissed from his post for having dared to touch, with his plebeian hands, the royal person. True, the Q' leen rewarded the man with a large sum of money, and give him another situation, but even she could not retain him in the household. On Good Friday, according to a custom which has prevailed in Spain since the sixteenth century, seven criminals received pardon. As soon as vespers were over in the chanel of the royal palace, the Cardinal Archbishop of Toledo stepped down from the high altar, and approached a table on which were laid seven rolls of parchment. Each roll contained the full pardon of a prisoner lying under sentence of death, and had, a few hours previously, received the regent’s signature. Placing his ham! on these rolls, according to custom, the chaplain asked the Queen : ‘ Senoia, does your Majesty grant pardon to these criminals ’’

With a tender glance at the little boy, whose hand she held, she replied : ‘ In the name of the King, mv son, I pardon these persons, as I look to God to grant His pardon and mercy to us. Amen.’

The rolls were then placed on the high altar, and after a prayer and benediction, delivered to the Minister of Justice.

Edna was looking at the sunset one evening. It was very lieautiful ; above the golden glow hung a heavy, purplish cloud. The little gill’s brown eyes shone with wondering delight. * 0 auntie,’ she whispered, ‘ hasn’t God got pretty curtains !’ Mrs Mumble : * I wonder how people got the idea that porous plasters would be beneficial ?’ Mr Mumble : * From the fact that they are hole some.’