Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1886-03-31

scream of exuberant mirth, which was, OF
course, echoed by all the house, and for days
after seemed to ring through loyal London
II Blackstone had not been a popular come
dian. that royal exclamation would have made
him one.
An artist friend of mine tells little story
of how he heard the queens laugh in the first
part of her reign In his boyhood he visited
London, and ascertaining the time OF the
royal afternoon drive, went and stood for
hours before Buckingham palace to see her
little majesty come forth, his soul filled with
poetic reverence for the fair maiden sovereign
At last out dashed the guards: then came the
postilions. bobbing up and down on blooded
BAYS; then she came, seated in an open car
rage, with her mother A great shout, in
which our Swedish friend joined, went up,
but before the girl queen could acknowledge
it something in the crowd excited her quick
sense of humor, and she burst into a laugh,
clear and silvery, but by no means low-toned,
throwing back her head at the same moment
so suddenly that her bonnet fell off on her
shoulders Then everybody laughed, well
pleased to witness her undignified struggle
with her headgear-for bonnets were bonnets
in those days Pictures of Victoria's head
in one remind US of small saints
in very big halo Now, every slightest sign
of royal visibility is made much of. All &C
counts of the opening of parliament speak
of her majesty having ''smiled" at that most
ridiculous Sight-the rushing, pushing and
crowding-the grand and lofty tumbhng"
of her faithful commons into their made
quate pen in the chamber of peers to hear
the speech from the throne and see the show.
Yet on humanitarian, if not political grounds,
think it is well the queen does not oftener
open parliament or hold drawing rooms, as
those ceremonials must absolutely take place
in the most inclement season. and as her
majesty insists on the rigid observance Of the
cruel old court laws as to the costume of
ladies-feathers on the head, nothing warmer
than jewels on neck and arms, little on body
or feet. Much illness, and even death, fol-
lows every such state event. The gracious
lady is thinning out her aristocracy. She has
peculiar horror of caloric, believes in the
preventative properties of cold, and all those
who are with her are obliged to submit to the
heroic and zeroic treatment.
It is said that noble young ladies', aspiring
to the position of maids of honor, prepare
themselves by spending an hour or two day
in a refrigerator. The London correspondent
of enc of the Milan newspapers dwells
patheticaliv on the suferings of the ladies in
the house of lords on that fearfuliy inclement
Thursday, when they sat. stripped almost to
the waist, all through the ceremonial, and
the reading of an unusually long speech blue
with cold and shivering visibly. He speaks
also of the 'horrid museum of skin and bones"
furnished by the old and thin peeresses and
rendered all the more CHASTITY by fnmond
illumination, and adds that the aIi' Ks
on the sight compacently, as thoI 1
as intense an admiration for the - IL
der blades of Indies as for the max, So, Of
her bony Scots 1t is said that p.ncess
Beatrice was some time since compelled by
severe attacks of rheumatism to adopt that
plebeian modern innovation. a high-necked
evening dress but until this instance. the only
one in which the queen was known to relax
in favor of our noble American snger-An-
toinette Sterling. Nine. Sterling was com
manded" to Windsor, to sing before her
majesty, but respectfully represented that she
could only do so on hygienic and high-necked
conditions. These were granted, and the
gentle savage appeared before the most
august body of the world before the most
decorous and decoUetH court circle of
hristendom-appeared, calm and grave and
simple as usual, and clad in full dress" as
she understood the term-that is decentlv
draped from head to foot. and from shoulder
to wrist. There was a little scandal of course
but it was hushed up.
GRACE GREENWOOD