Omaha daily bee., 1902-06-15

rejoicing" may not be as leaden as one
might suppose.
The idea seems to be to give everyone
in London a chance to have a good time on
Coronation day. and the various arrange
mCnts that are being made to that end
have nothing at all to do with the pro-
Cession through the streets. Every London
borough is collecting a fund toward or
E%anizing some sort of fete within its pre-
Cincts. Public squares without number will
be given up to entertainments for the chill
dron as well as for the older people, where
bands will play and comedians perform;
Punch and Judy shows innumcrahlc viii
be on view. There will be great dinners
for children and poor folk in other parts.
as we'll as sports Of all kinds. The hands
Of the clock are to be pushed back, too,
and the River Thames utilized for merry
making, just as it used to be in the time
of good Queen Bess. There will be great
water fetes at Chelsea and Battersca. with
long professions formed OF ornamental
barges. The picturesque old city OF Rich
mond, seldom missed by visiting Americans
in any event, will be especially worth "A
visit at coronation time, for there Is to be
a Venetian fotc on the water front which
at night will be Illuminated with fireworks
for IA couple of miles.
Another reminder of old times is the
plan to light up Great Britain from end
to end on Coronation night with immense
bonfires. There Is an official bonfire com
mittee which is planning to have IA fire of
really great size on every hilltop through
out the land. The funds for building these
fires are being raised in the different local
tiles and they are all to be lighted at ex-
actly 10 o'clock on the night of June 90,
Whan thara also will no HigplnNg Of pplprpI
fires and of rockets on "A grand scale,
Most of the fires are to be made of peat
and will burn brightly for over four hours.
so that to anyone on a vessel off the Eng
fish coast on that night, 1t will look as II
the fighting men of the country were being
warned against the coming of another Span
ish Armada.
Odd London Insurance Customs.
There is a custom that seems much more
common in England than it Is in America,
and which is playing a decidedly prominent
part in the arrangements for the corona
ton fostivities-that of insuring against
every possible chance of financial loss. OF
course. the spectators who are building
all the immense grandstands and who have
bought up most of the available windows,
the proprietors of coronation shows who
have arranged special programs and the
managers of hotels and restaurants who
have doubled and trebled their facilities
in the expectation of immense crowds, all
stand to lose disastrously in case of any
thing happening to prevent, or even post
pone the great Therefore most
Of them are ~insuring against such an event
just as they would against death, physical
injury or fire.
The kings life has been insured prob
ably some thousands of times during the
last two months, in cases for amounts as
high as 500, 900. The life of the German
emperor-whose death, of course, would
lead to the coronation being postponed
is being insured almost as extensively. The
lives of other continental rulers are being
insured by London tradesmen who make a
specially of catering to visitors from
their respective countries and who prob
ably would not Come in large numbers In
case of serious mishaps to their ruler.
Some entertainment purveyors have in
sured-at heavy premiums, OF course
against not making as big a profit as they
hope out of the ventures. risks" have
been taken even on the possibility OF the
rain spelling business. To decide on the
rates for this insurance the companies
drew up a funny little table Of rain sta
tistics and calculated their chances Of hav-
ing to pay by studying the June weather
for the last hundred years and averaging
up. MARSHALL LORD.