The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1888-03-24 00:00:00

THE PROCESSION THROUGH THE CITY.

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cathedral it was saluted by all the troops who were
massed around. The scene at the moment was most
impressive. The long, wide Unter den Linden pre-
sented one mass of black save for the waving banners
of the societies who kept the way, the gay dresses of
the student corps, and the plumes and helmets of the
troops stationed in front of the Schloss. Pitch fires
blazed on the gloomy columns, and all the banners
which floated in the wind from house and lamp-post
in every direction were draped with crape. What
struck the spectator most was the strange stillness of
the vast crowd, gazing at the eight black horses
which were yoked to the funeral car, and seemed to
know that they could not move till all had taken their
places.
The coffin, covered with purple velvet, on which
rested the plumed helmet of the great Emperor, which
erst had gleamed upon the fields of liOniggratz,
Sadowa, Gravelotte, and Sedan, was placed upcn a
plain uncovered black hearse, over which stretched a
black baldachin, or canopy. The procession was then
formed, headed by the Red Hussars of the Guard,
who rode into the narrow avenue at a foot pace,
while the band played the hymn movement, " Jesus,
my refuge," and the plaintive music, breaking the deep
silence, produced a most marvellous effect. Following
the Hussar squadron came in due order a squadron
from each of the cavalry regiments of the Guard, and
after these a battalion from each infantry regiment
of the Guard. As these brilliant troops, the flower
of the German army, passed slowly through the
dark masses, the cloaks which, owing to the intense
cold, they were obliged to wear robbed the military
display of much of its brilliancy. Nevertheless,
against the dark background of funeral drapery and
trappings striking effects were ;:roduced by the red

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and white plumes and the glittering helmets of the
Guards, the black and white pennons of the Lancers,
and the black, white, and red plumes of the Infantry,
while the quaint, mitre-like head-dress of the Ist Foot
Guards showed like a white ribbon against the dark
background. After the Guards marched a com-
bined battalion consisting of the Royal Grenadier
Regiment, the training battalions, and the Potsdam
School of Non-commissioned Officers. Next clung
12 guns of the two Field Artillery Regiments of
the Guard and the rear of the military pageant
closed with a grand display of standards and regi-
mental colours. The long line of magnificent troops
that headed the cortege moved slowly on. On both
sides of the narrow avenue in which they marched
were dense masses of spectators, all clad in the same
sombre hue, while the lofty houses, with their
draperies of black cloth on window and balcony, and
their drooping black flags, closed in the picture. The
eight squadrons that led the way filled the eye as a
superb body of cavalry, and the infantry battalion
which followed was no less effective and little less
picturesque to view. But amid the host of rich and
striking uniforms displayed in the long array of
soldiers, marshals, and officials of various degrees
that formed the first part of the procession, the eye
was bewildered, and slowly though the pageant
moved, the effect on the eye was soon that of a con-
fused stream of bright colour passing along a black
valley.
The line of troops extended far up the Unter den
Linden before the servants of the Imperial Household,
the functionaries of the Chamberlain and other
officers of the Court, the Amanuensis of the late
Emperor, the Pages, Body Physicians, and Gentlemen
of the Bedchamber took their places in the procession,
and these were followed by Count Otto Stolberg, who
bore the Imperial Crown, immediately after whom
walked the Prussian Ministers bearing the Imperial
Sceptre, Orb, Sword, and Great Seal, and the Elector's
Crown and sword. These were escorted by two staff
officers and 12 captains, and followed by Court
functionaries, who immediately preceded the funeral
car, drawn by eight horses, each of whom was led by
a staff officer, while the four corners of the pall were
supported by Generals Blumenthal, Treskow, Ober-
nitz, and Goltz, and the baldachin above was supported
by other general officers. The horses all stood still,
and there was absolute silence save for the tread of
those moving into their places.
Immediately after the coffin was led the favourite
chestnut charger of the late Emperor, and following it
came General Pape, bearing the Imperial Standard.
Next to the Imperial Standard walked the Crown
Prince of Germany, followed by the Kings of Rou-
mania, Saxony, and of the Belgians, after whom came
the Grand Dukes of Saxe-Meiningen and Baden, with
Prince Henry of Prussia, then the Prince of Wales, the
Czarewitch, the Prince Imperial of Austria and the
Crown Prince of Italy; next came Princes Frederick
and Leopold of Prussia, the Crown Princes of Greece,
Denmark, and Sweden, then Prince Albert of Prussia,
and the Grand Dukes Michael and Nicholas of Russia,
Prince Albert Victor of Wales, and the Duke of Cam-
bridge, followed by a long train of foreign representa-
tives and high personages of the German Empire.
As the coffin was being placed on the hearse, the
organ in the Dom played Chopin's beautiful "Marche
Funebre," and as the procession passed all the dense
crowds stood silent with heads uncovered before the car
which was conveying their great chief to the grave. It
was, indeed, a magnificent funeral, worthy of a great
soldier, who, besides his valour and skill, had shown
that lie could win the true affection of his people, for
it may truly be said that among the dense crowds
that thronged on either side of the magnificent avenue
through which the solemn procession slowly made its
way, there was not one heart which did not in truth
revere the memory of the dead Emperor. It was a
soldier's funeral such as has seldom been seen, one in
which a great nation showed by every outward token
their heartfelt honour and love for their great
Monarch. The cortege was of such length that it
took an hour to pass a fixed point.
In the broad space in the Pariser Matz before the
Brandenburg Gate, the crowd seemed to be of greater
density than at any other point in the Unter den
Linden. But it is hardly possible to draw such a
distinction. Wherever the spectator happened to be,
the crowd seemed most dense—the fact was that the
whole of the tinter den Linden, from the bridge to the
Brandenburg Gate, was as closely thronged with
human beings as the space could hold. Two great
stages, one on either side, were crowded, and in front
of them the people on foot were packed in a solid
mass. As the long procession passed through the
Brandenburg Gate, which bore the motto "Salve
Senex Imperator," many of those who followed the
body of their great chief to its last resting-place must
have thought of another pageant in which, on the
same road, they followed the same leader. It was
through that gate that the chief who had gone forth King
of Prussia led back his victorious legions as Emperor
of Germany after the greatest war of modern days.
Among the Generals who walked behied the funeral
car were several of those, and notably two, who
had done brilliant service in achieving that triumph,
; and among the veterans that lined the way
must have been not a few who had played their
part in the great struggle. The triumphal pro-
cession of 18 years ago came through the famous
gate into Berlin; but on Friday the heads of the
horses which drew the funeral car were turned in the
opposite direction, and bore the body of the conqueror
away from the city which he loved so well, and which
his heroic efforts had raised to greatness. But some
of the spectators may have thought of another Royal
funeral which passed along the same road in 18.61.
The coffin of Frederick William IV. was conveyed to
Charlottenburg in the dead of the night with an
escort of a regiment of infantry—a strange contrast
to the pemp and splendour that marked the funeral
of his greater brother, when the whole German people
—in spirit if not in actual presence—combined to pay
a last tribute of respect to the sovereign who repre-
sented the union of Germany.

TO CHARLOT rENBURG.

Through the historic gate the cortege moved slowly
on into the beautiful wood of the Thiergarten,
thronged on either side of the way with men, women,
and children, until it reached the Sieges Allee, which
was chosen as the spot where the first halt should be
made. The place was well selected as the scene of
the last adieu of the people of Berlin to their great
Monarch. On the right, through a vista hi the trees,
could be seen the towering Column of Triumph,
crowned with its resplendent figure--a token setup to
mark the greatest achievement of the Emperor Wil-
liam's life. Here the procession was stayed, and the
chief mourners who had followed the bier entered the
carriages which were in waiting for them to proceed
by side routes to the Mausoleum. The Insignia of
the Empire, which had been borne before the funeral
car, were handed over to the officers of the Regalia to
be conveyed back to the Schloss in Berlin, under an
escort of Life Guards.
The crowd at the Sieges Allee was enormous, but
was peaceable, and gave little trouble to the police.
The trees in the Thiergarten were occupied by boys.
Men and women had been standing from ten o'clock
in the morning, and some from an earlier hour, in the
deep snow, with nothing but the occasional passage
of some troops to vary their monotonous watch for
the approach of the procession, and after they had
seen it come up to the Sieges Allee, they watched the
halt of the bier till the Generals and other function-
aries had turned down the Allee to the left, and the
crowd at once turned towards Berlin, mingling as they
advanced with the compact moving mass which was
already proceeding in the same direction. There was
something strangely touching in this apparent
desertion of the dead chief by his follewers.
His people, as it were, bade him farewell; the bulk of
his troops could go no farther with him ; the
mourners of his kindred had departed ; the
insignia of his Empire had been taken from
him; his pall-bearers and the captains who had
led the nurses that drew his Learse had
resigned their places to others, and with
only a slender retinue of his Body Guards
the funeral car of the Great Emperor was allowed
to proceed on its way. Yet to some eyes this part
of the mournful ceremony must have seemed the
most impressive. Crowds of silent people still
lined the way, the dark mass of black contrasting
vividly with the white of the snow-clad woods,
as the now slender • procession, bereft of its former
display of numbers and colour, passed on
along the straight road that leads for a couple of
miles through the Thiergarten and under the railway,
its farther boundary, which was profusely draped in
black. A little further, at the Canal-bridge, where
there is a large open space, a great crowd was
gathered, and thence all the way down the long tree-
bordered Berliner Strasse, which runs into the
straggling suburban town of Charlottenburg, every
window was filled; the stages erected in front
of many of the houses bore their loads of •spectators,
and, thoti.,:i the crowd was, of course, less dense,
than that which had thronged the Unter den
Linden, there was no convenient spot of ground
unoccupied. Thence on past the Wilhelm Plats
—the market place and municipal centre of the
little town—until a halt was called in the Luisen
Platz, which fronts the cold and bare-looking Palace
of Charlottenburg. Here the suite dismounted from
their h n.ses, and the cortege passed by the Guard-
house and through the gates into the grounds behind
the palace. The mausoleum Where the bones of the
Emperor William were laid, between the tombs of hie
father and mother, is a small and yet not unimposing
chamber of death. Two massive bronze and marble
candelabra light it, and show the effigies of
the tw,i Sovereigns, to which in due time
will be added the figure of the Warrior Emperor.
When the coffin was laid in its place, and the last
benediction was pronounced, the thunder of the
artillery announced to the multitude that thronged
the way from Berlin that the body of the Kaiser
Wilhelm had been laid at rest, and this great pageant,
which none who saw it can ever forget, was at an
end. Crowds thronged the streets for hours. The
Kaiser Frederick was not permitted to appear, and he
watched the procession from the window as the body
was conveyed to the Mausoleum.

q'ttE directions given in fashion journals for'crochet-
ing tidies and things are very lively reading, but lack
plot. If our memory is not at fault they run some-
how this way: Work nine stitches, turn back, two
stitches in third bar, two single in thirds, three chain,
13 to Q 4th ch.,K takes B, then make eight chain and
fasten to centre of 44 .13 7tii loop and turn back,
white to play and mat in alive stit,cnes. It seems
eay eLuugh..