The Monitor. [volume] (Woodstown, N.J.) 1884-1892, 1884-05-09
A QUEENS BUSY LIFE.

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little alertness, but when the Queen travels
from London to Balmoral-a distance OF
about 500 miles, which takes nineteen hours
to perform hundreds of men, railway en-
ployees, policemen and other officials have to
be told off for special duty; and scores of
trains carrying passengers or freight are de-
layed in their progress. The lines of rail on
which the Gear journeys bristle with soldiers;
and, during the King of Spain's last voyage
to Estramadura one heard of whole regiments
being modified to form cordons along the
passage of the royal train; even M. Grevy,
when he goes from Paris to his seat at Mont
sous Vaudrey, is reminded of his greatness
and its dangers by attachments of mounted
gendarmes, and by sentries with fixed bayo-
nets in every station. In England there is
nothing of all this, the Queen has no military
guard or escort, and yet all the measures for
her protection are admirably complete A
pilot engine precedes the royal train by twelve
miles, and for half an hour before it passes
all traffic on both tracks along its route Is
suspended There is no resumption of the
traffic at different stations until quarter of
an hour after the Queens own train has gone
by them, and, during this time danger sig
nails are exhibited at all these stations. More
over, every grade crossing has its gate locked
and guarded the switches have all been safely
locked, and men are posted along the lines to
see that by no chance any human being or
animal strays on to them.
In the royal train itself there are two look
out" men besides the ordinary guard. One
of them stands on the engine and faces the
rear of the train to watch for signals from any
of the windows the other is stationed in the
guards van, and keeps his eye on the track
behind the train. An electric apparatus con-
meets all the carriages with the engine and
guards van, and three telegraph operators
travel in one of the compartments with ap
planes for repairing the wires on the road
if in the event of an accident, these wires
should be found damaged. Finally, direc-
tor of the Northwestern company goes with
the train, and is supposed to have charge of
it-a necessary precaution, for if anything
went wrong it would be desirable that an Of
fetal should be on the spot with powers to
issue orders to all railway servants in the
name of the company. No capricious, unso-
cial feeling on the Queens part dictates the
arrangement made to secure full privacy dur
ing her travels.
When she is in good health it is necessary
that she should travel in such way that no
inroads be made on the time which she de-
votes to business. There is not lady in
her dominion so occupied as she; and she
can only transact public and private affairs to
her satisfaction by never allowing yesterdays
business to overlap to-day's. Every morning
while Parliament sits, and twice a week at
other times, she receives report of the gen
eral state of affairs from the prime minister,
who writes in the third person" Mr. Glad
stone presents his duty to your Majesty, ETC.,
and these reports are always answered. Dis
patch boxes are brought into the Queens
train at all the stopping stations while she
travels and she dictates letters to one of her
ladies as the train hurries her along-these
missives being afterwards handed for regis
try and copying to the private secretary.
Copies of all dispatches sent out from the
foreign, Colonial and India offices are for
warded to her, and she reads through the
most important of them; she has also to af-
fix her signature to great many papers every
day. Formerly she signed with her own
hand using quill pen, but about five years
ago she adopted a stamping machine with a
fac smile of her signature. The only docu-
ments which she signs now in writing are
patents of creation of peers and knights of
the different orders. The heaviest part of
the Queens correspondence, however, con-
sists in sending letters to the members of her
widely-scattered family in England and abroad.
Most of the princes of Germany are in some
way her cousins or nephews, and no mar
riage takes place between members of the
Protestant houses without her being consulted
as to the preliminaries. What is more,
Queen Victoria is often appealed to as peace
maker in princely quarrels, and the assistance
which she gives to her ministers in this way,
as regards their foreign policy, is perhaps
hardly realized. The Queen writes letters
which her ministers, having the fear of Par
lament before their eyes, could not always
dare to write. They must use circumlocu-
tory forms, whereas the Queen can go straight