Morning journal and courier., 1883-01-12
The Queen in Pageant.

On the Way Through London Streets to
 Open the New Law Courts.
 [M D. Conway's Letter in Cincinnati oOmmerciall
 When the pageant began to appear in the
 distance the people grew very still There
 was good deal of beauty in the scene as it
 approached, The trumpeters in their gold
 broidery, the cavalry in silvery uniform on
 coal black horses, the soldiers and the car
 riages. they f1oated up from the distance and
 passed noiselessly along, and many said
 not cheer much because it was so much
 impressed; perhaps each was too eager to
 see to remember to make joyful noise j;
 however this may be, there certainly was
 very little display of enthusiasm. On the
 balcony where sat the company was Eng
 lish, and they said to each other: ''1f 1t
 was only the prince and princess now the
 crowd would have cheered tremendously" :"
 No doubt that is true, but I could not
 help erediting the rest of the crowd with a
 sense of the mere serious aspect of the oc-
 casion, such as I felt myself.
 The Queen sat in au open carriage and
 bowed with grave dignity to the people on
 each side. She was a more striking figure
 than she ever seemed te me before. The
 heaviness has largely disappeared from her
 face, and the redness entirely. Her face
 has the whiteness of age, and under her snowy hair it is not without certain
 beauty. But she is in black-that terrible S-@ court for so many years. There never WAS day more likely to foster the popular
 superstition about ''the Queens weather" "
 but in the sparkling sunshine amid merry crowds, the white haired Queen still moved, pale and sad, in weeds! The people did not like it. There seems to them something un- canny in 1t. Without, perhaps, knowing ex- actly the reason, they feel that in this per- sistent indifference to all the gaieties and lus- ters that wait beside the throne, the sover- eign is somehow omineus, dark star riding through the national sky that portends some- what If Lord Beaconsfeld were premier,
 can imagine his saying to the Queen, "For the sake of your empire, on which the sun never sets, your imperial majesty had better wear red ribbon to day" The skies shone and the streets blossomed in vain for that highest and richest lady in land second to none in power and prosperity.
 When she ascended the throne Carlyle said to some friends: Poor Queen! she is much to be pitied. She is at an age when she would hardly be trusted to choose new bonnet. and she is called to a task from which an archangel might have shrunk." " Carlyle was probably thinking of the task of one of his heroic-fortunately fossil-kings. The task to which the Queen was called was that of ending personal monarchy, of with drawing the throne from the highway of the people, of reducing royal prerogative to 8 relic of the past. The Queen has been the most strictly constitutional sovereign that ever reigned in England, and the forty-fve years of her reign-unexampled in history for the growth of wealth, science, literature, art-have built stronghold for the throne such as all her predecessors had not built.
 Perhaps most of those who gazed upon the Queen wondered that she should be sad, and find no compensation for widowhood in all this state. Many may have envied her position, but the poorest could hardly have envied her plain weariness of it all The English people are hardly yet conscious of what is implied in strictly constitutional monarchy, or of what tlimited monarchy means for the monarch. They do not req lize that all this means the transfer of sover- eighty from the monarch to the subject; and that in all things that most concern personal happiness-marriage, household arrange ments, personal movements-the sovereign is less free than the humblest of her subjects The lowliest voter may cast his ballot for his 1 opinion, but the monarch must sign and sanction measures, however personally disa-
 greeable. The splendor surrounding the throne may seem 8 sufficient compensation for this loss of personal freedom to masses suffering in the struggle for existence; but they need only look into the face of theil Queen to read the truth that to persons re moved far from physical needs there may be wants as painful as a poor mans want oi daily bread. ::s