The Washington herald., 1911-06-23
By ALAN DALE.


London, June 22.-Just before London,
complacent, self-congratulatory and
cleaning with golden purple, hurled
the cold impassiveness of Westminster
Abbey this morning I passed along the
Thames embankment on my way to NY
coign Of vantage.
There on the benches by the sluggish
old river slept the frayed and tattered.
the weatherbeaten and the hopeless 'H-
ert masses of human misery. AS the
coronation crowds slowly drifted along,
these wretches, sodden with drink,
emaciated with poverty, offered the in
eyitable contrast.
What cared they whether it was Will
lam the Conqueror or George V who. on
this maddest. merriest day, bedecked
with trappings, gained the throne? What
matterd It? And so 1 passed them by.
AS the golden exhalations of the dawn
had no warmth, no light, and no color;
no what one is pleased to call the re-
fined complexity of civilized organiza-
tion, I soon forgot these emblems Of
squalor and failure. For leaping before
my eyes came a scene that drove those
misery-swamped Britishers into the limbo
Of the haze.
Police and Soldiers There.
It was scarcely o'clock, but the route
along Whitehall and Parliament streets
and Parliament square was vivid with
crowds and soldiers. Vast hordes Of
vermilion clad humans, with great fur
caps and solemn mien, paraded the
thoroughfares in a glory OF redness.
Taciturn squads of somber policemen
mingled with them.
Many of the people had been up all
night camping in the cold yet Juney
street. Nor were they their own mas
ters. Everything had been regulated and
super-regulated and hyper-regulated. No
hippodromic supernumeraries had been
drilled more acutely than this mob.
Everybody was in place by a certain
hour, or the vast, hideous. cruel, wooden
barTicades, with the vicious iron hinges
and the padlocks, erected for the peo-
pie In loving regard by Sir Edward
Henry, would be closed against them!
crushing, crashing, cringing doors that
meant sturdy, solid business.
1t was a good-humored but singularIy
Hnsmiling public that crowded the stands
outside of Westminster Abbey and along
Whitehall. Right under the leaden fin
gers Of Big Ben. outside the House or
Commons, took my expensive seat In
my usual deadhead fervor of first-night
expectancy. The ceaseless din Of prepa-
ration went sonorously on. The mob,
insatiate but grim, took up its posi-
ton
Cat May Look at King.
The popular saying that the cat may
look at the King was somewhat belied.
The feline spectatorship rate of ten
guineas per somewhat modified the sig, |
Of the aphorfsm.
It was the sixth big spectacle offered
at exorbitant rates to a patriotic pub
lie. But two royal jubiIees, one de-
ferred coronation, and two cordially
grief-laden funerals seemed to have
whetted the appetite for more.
At S o'clock by Big Ben the scene had
become positively magnificent The
splendor OF the uniforms, the
Euperbly vigorous men, the solemn move
ments Of phalanxes, above all, the
regularity OF maneuvers,
all showed the finest stage manage
ment in the world. Not a purveyor of
any big theatrical spectacle but could
have assimilated a lesson of giant ar
tistic value.
Whether it be the sweetest thing in
the world to wear q crown was a ques-
Is not for philosophers, but for the |
mob, and for mobs one must have |
scenes. At times the barbaric beauty |
Of the assembling throngs smote on /
one's nerves, but as the carriages bear
ing peers and peeresses and invited |
guests toiled to Whitehall, philosophy |
and psychology vanished
Peeresses Are Numerous.
The great day-gray in hue, but sap
phire In promise-had started Also un-
consciously ones humor fount was
tapped. Blocked in their way to West
Minister Abbey by a galaxy of motors
and carriages, dainty little peeresses
alighted frem their conveyances and
ripped It across the asphalt Parliament
street tDron were they in their satin
rains and wells Of chiffon in the garish
daylight. 1t was an eager and nipping