Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1901-02-09
This is What the British Expect of
New King.
an "ALL ROUND GOOD FELLOW"
TradespeopIe Despondent Over
Long Period of Mourning.
THEATERS HARD HIT, TOO
Special Correspondence of The Evening Star

LONDON, January 30, 1901.
People have hardly begun to think of the
future yet. All is the dead queen, the
great queen. Papers are full of Victoria's
life and times, stories of incidents and events
In her history or during her reign. Hun
dreds of anecdotes fill columns of newspa-
pers and other columns are filled with
the arrangements for the funeral or proc
iamations of the new king, Edward VII
But despite the preoccupaton of the pub
Tic there Is every prospect of a lively If
snort reign before this country in the one
which opened last Tuesday.
Edward VII has waited long for his king
dom, and now that he has come into
his own he is likely to enjoy it to the ut
termost. AS a constitutional monarch he
will have little responsibility and little
power except influence. as Lord Salisbury
SAID In the house of lords about the queen
victoria was real power. because she
was known to be an upright, right minded
deeply renglous woman of good common
sense.
AS the prime minister said, she really
ruled. although a constitutional monarch
through her immense influence for good
The new king is not an unknown guam
tity, and the public opportunity during
THESE many years of his heirship for judg-
ing his character. and he is pretty well
known.
While he is estimated generally as an "all
round good fellow and honorable man his
riliuehcG Tor good mas not been his strong
point He is now in his siXty-nrst wear
an age when most men are suDposed
to have settled down to the serious work
or the last decade so of life but there
Is no reason to believe that the king of
these realms won't have his full fling in
his new role. "
The period of mourning over, the proba-
pllltles are that the reign will be one of the
inr,f II, l..
as far as social life is concerned
buckingham Palace AIieht.
could not help feeling this as I passed
buckingham Palace last night and saw e1,-
cry window blazing with electric light and
a general air of hustle peryadine The on
IRE precincts. The royal stables were all
iisnted up also, and everything wore n
titeiy ar. Blinds were, of course, drawn
at all the palace windows, but brilliant
lights cleaned behind them Usually the
palace and its surrounding buildings are
the dullest of the dull, the only excentions
pelng the rare visits of the late queen
DUH, forbidding and dark with n few SEN
tlnels doing weary guard duty outside and
Struggling policeman or two inside the
gates That was the normal condition of
LONDON chief royal palace. But now all
is life and hustle OF course preparations
are going forward for receiving and hous-
ing the various guests who are coming to
the funeral. and the stables are alive be-
cause lne horses are needed, but the evil
dence OF 1t gave a sort of presage of the
future.
The solid fat old servants one has seen
about the palace for the past dozen years
or so, will neither stir their stumps nor give
place TO younger and livelier successors
L find general feeling about that Ed
ward the seventh is not destined for a long
life. and that his reign will therefore be a
snort one If these forbodings are realized
the Duke of Cornwall and York as he is
now called. will follow his father to the
throne and the present generation will see
another change.
Already. the question of large civil list
Is mooted. The late queen received, all
told, S1,N0,000, which seems an ample sum-
but 1t Is not nearly as much as many other
sovereigns receive.
To Raise Kings Allowance.
1t is proposed to raise the kings allow
ance to at least s2,5OO,OOO. His nephew,
the tsar. has civil list Of over 100000
with vast estate, embracing more than a
million square miles of cultivated land and
forest, which yield at least S15000,O00 a
year. The king Is not even as rich as the
sultan whose income is 100000 a year
The Emperor William has a civil list Of
So 100000. the King of Italy s2900OO0. the
Emperor Of Austria 100000, the Shah of
Persia 81, 400, coo.
This country is rich enough to allow
the sovereign 100000 or 100000 year.
and 1t is urged on the part of royalty that
The question Of the kings civil list will
give rise to much discussion when it comes
before parliament. There is a strong feel
ing that whatever is given to the king
should be sufficient to enable him to pro-
vide for all the members Of his family,
and so render all future appeals to parlia-
ment unnecessary. This, of course. would
mean that the king would have to make
allowances to the heir apparent and the
other members of his family, and in that
event the civil list would have to be con-
sderably increased. 1 hear that the SOW
ereign would probably be quite willing to
take the hereditary revenues in lieu of
civil list. They are already higher than
the sum allowed to the queen, and in the
course of two or three years they will be
largely increased owing to the falling in
parliament will assent to any such arrange
ment. 1t is the policy of the state to keep
the royal house dependent on parliament
There will doubtless be many changes in
the royal household, and it is possible that
several useless offices that cost much to
keep filled may be abolished. such the
master of the buckhounds'' and others of
like character.
Trades People DespOndent.
Trades people are very respondent and
some fear that they will be ruined by the
long period of mourning They have pre-
sented a petition to the king setting forth
that their trade has been seriously affected
by the war in South Africa, which placed
so many families IN mourning. and that
the present cessation of festivities Is likely
to result in material damage If not in ruin
to many of them, and praying the king to
further shorten the time. Some Of these
merchants have stocks of colored goods in
hand anywhere from one hundred thousand
to half million dollars in value, which
will have to be carried for nearly If not
quite year. The public Is not expected to
wear black after April II, but the upper
and middle classes in this country SO fol-
low customs that most pVprVhn0v
will continue mourning or half mourning
as long as the court does. Some of the
West End tradesmen look at the matter
in another light. Although the London
season is practically killed this year, their
opinion is that the death Of the queen
would have been much more disastrous to
trade had 1t occurred two months later,
when a large amount of capital would
have been invested to provide for the sea-
son then commencing. As matters now
stand, tradesmen have been able to coun-
termand or revise their orders, and as q
heavy influx Of foreigners is expected dur
ing the summer, there will be some COM
pensation for the loss Of business involved
in the cessation Of the more prominent gay
etes of the London season. Such enter
tainments as evening parties and dances
will be abandoned, but dinner parties may
continue. To set OF against the losses OF
this season, there is every anticipation OF