London police this week found a well dressed, be-monocled Englishman sleeping in an ash can, having started to sit up all night to get a view of King George’s Silver Jubilee and imperceptibly slumped in, dozed off. Scotland Yard decided that to control the vast crowds which filled London’s sidewalks and streets all night was both impossible and unnecessary. On the vast marble base of the Victoria Monument directly in front of Buckingham Palace a working class family camped elaborately, the husband shaving himself with brush dips into the fountain, then lighting an alcohol stove almost beneath Queen Victoria’s marble nose and cooking the family breakfast.
Up betimes at 7 a. m.. Their Majesties had time before the State Processions began at 10 a. m. to get through only a fraction of the mountains of congratulations which poured in on the 25th anniversary of their accession. Only one of these messages made world news, that from Adolf Hitler: “Cordial wishes . . . warm sympathy . . . benediction for the entire world.” This Herr Hitler signed modestly not with his present title Realmleader—more grandiose than Emperor— but merely with his subsidiary title Chancellor.*
As the bright May day warmed up. United Press reported the fainting in pack-jammed London crowds of 7,000 women, quickly resuscitated by mobile Red Cross units. The first of the seven State Processions converging on St. Paul’s Cathedral for the Silver Jubilee Service was that of Speaker of the House of Commons, Captain Edward FitzRoy. the ancient Speaker’s Coach being pulled by brewery horses driven by a brewery teamster arrayed for this one day in blue plush breeches, buff coat, full-bottomed wig, tricorn.
Silver-haired Prime Minister James Ramsay MacDonald led off the second procession—six carriages, each with a British Premier—Canada’s Bennett riding cheek by jowl with South Africa’s Hertzog.
Third was the two-coach procession of learned Sankey, the Lord High Chancellor, who outranks the Prime Minister. Fourth was the procession of the tiniest London Lord Mayor in history, Sir Stephen Killik perched froglike on a seat in the Lord Mayor’s Coach especially heightened so that he could be seen.
After the Lord Mayor came the Royal Family’s processions, the Duke of York’s two carriages, with “Baby Betty” and the newlywed Duchess of Kent rival attractions. As heir to the Throne, Edward of Wales drove out smartly with a cavalcade of Life Guards, his grave aunt, Queen Maud of Norway, at his side and opposite the Duke of Gloucester. As the grand procession climax, came an open landau with King George as a Field Marshal looking as the late great French President Raymond Poincare once described him: “Le Roi est radieux!” Definitely radiant at his side was Queen Mary in a gown of hydrangea pink silk net, embroidered with lace, and worn over a slip of dazzling silver cloth, the whole enhanced by a necklace, bracelets and earrings of diamonds and pearls. Roared a huckster from Victoria Monument, “God bless you, Sir! God save you!”
On the drive to St. Paul’s amid pandemonium and transports of devotion, the King and Queen performed no mean feat by appearing to remain totally unaware that as they approached a Fleet Street banner reading Long May They Reign, it suddenly unfolded into Workers Of All Lands, Unite! with the Bolshevik hammer & sickle and in sardonic capitals THE GLORIOUS REIGN — UNEMPLOYMENT, HUNGER AND WAR!Amid an angry roar, while Their Majesties continued serenely gracious, furious subjects tore down the trick Communist banner. rent it into shreds but saved enough to be burned that night on top of the monster Jubilee Bonfire in Hyde Park.
In the peace of St. Paul’s the 69-year-old King knelt and heard the Archbishop of Canterbury truly intone, “He has come to be not only King, but Father of his People. . . . Real personal emotion today fills the heart of his Realm and his Empire. In that common heart a special place of honor and affection has been won by our gracious Queen. . . . The Prince of Wales has brought to all classes and all parts of the World that personal touch which has moved the whole Empire to adopt the King’s family as its own.”
Edward of Wales’s personal touch last week was to arrive at Buckingham Palace, before the State Processions, puffing a comfortable brier which he waved with a cheerful jerk at the cheering crowds. After the service at St. Paul’s, the King was informally serenaded home by crowds which seemed to brim with joy as they sang, “For he’s a jolly good fellow!”
* In Germany the Tageblatt recalled with almost boastful satisfaction that George V’s grandfather was a German and his father spoke English with a German accent. Like Adolf Hitler, according to the Frankfurter Zeitong, King George is ” unpretentious . . . the highest symbol of the British State.”
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