The times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1897-1901, 1901-01-23

Oxford and Cambridge are abolished;
education bills are passed in 1870 and 1872;
Stanley returns from Africa and is award
ed the Royal Geographical Society's
| medal; London University admits women
to degrees; Disraeli becomes Earl Of
Beaconsfield; Gladstone works zealously
for the welfare of p rsecuted Bulgarians;
and the Afghan and Zulu wars occupy the
army abroad. During all these years tie
Queen becomes less and less inclined to
take active part in public life. Though.
upon occasion, she exerts an influence
which is perhaps the stronger for the Fact
that it is used but seldom.
This long period of comparative tram
guilty ended with the Diamond Jubilee.
an event of unsurpassed significance and
splendor. As the coronation of Victoria
rallied to her support the warning forces
Of her realm, and began the work of unit
ing them in the common task of making
England great the Diamond Jubilee
showed the results of that work. The
tendency OF the age was toward unity;
and the long-continued rule of one soyer
eign, and that sovereign a woman of great
tendency in England and has resulted in
the present size and strength Of the Brit
ish Empire. There have been few events
in the history of the world which afforded
SO magnificent an object lesson of the pos
sibilities of united action among men OF
different blood, traditions. and tendencies.
The pageant which wound its glittering
length through the streets of London on
June %. 1897, was an epitome of the Brit
ish Empire. There were troops from the
Orient, from Australia, from Canada. from
South Africa; men black. brown, yellow,
and white; turbaned Mohammedans and
regiments of Cockneys and Highland
Scots; men of every faith and every caste.
civilized and savage. gentle and fierce.
proud and cringing; Hindus, Sfkhs, Sou
danese, Afghans, Kaffirs, Chinese, Bur-
mese. Jamaican negroes negroes from ST.
ezra Leone. Egyptians. Irish. Scotch, Zea-
landers, South Africans. Canadians. vet
Grams of India, and spruce regiments who
had never gone across the British Chan
mel, all marching under one flag and one
name. Men who were hereditary enemies
were in that pageant and did not cut each
others throats; the aristocrat and the
commoner met; languages of every nation
under the sun mingled in Babel-like con-
fusion when the troops were off duty. 1t
was like the old prophecy of the reign of
peace when the lion and the lamb should
lie down together. and though this vast
army was an army of fighting men, and
its bond only the bond of interest. not Of
affection, there was, to the optimist,
faint foreshadowing OF some future era of
peace and good will. For the fact re-
mains that but for the fact that the Brit
ish colonial system is in the main wise
and just. it would have been no more pos
sible to bring together such representa-
tive assembly of all nations than to col
lect, after the manner of Noah, all varie-
ties of animals in eageless ark. The
mere possibility of a procession such as
that of the Diamond Jubilee would have
been doubted by the statesmen of the be-
ginning of victoria's reign-and that was.
by the way. a time in which the mass of
the people devoutly believed that Noah
did actually collect two of every kind of
beast bird, animal, and insect which can
be found on the earth, and put them into
one ark, and keep them there for forty
days