The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-12-15
FUTURE KING GAN
 KNIT AND CROCHET  English Royal Children Fol-
 low Feminine Pursuits DUKE KNITS IN BED Grand Duke of HesSe Is an EXDert
DUKE KNITS IN BED
Grand Duke of Hesse Is an Expert With the Needle-Male Hospital Patients Often Take
 Up Needle Work

London, December 14.-(Specal)-Dont be surprised, the next time you come to London, if you find the haunts of masculnity over here filled with men busily engaged in knitting, crocheting or doing other forms of needlework. The male knitter is surely coming in Eng land for royalty has shown the way. and whither royalty leads the rest Of the population Of these islands follows as unquestoningly as the lamb followed Mary.
 Il has just become known that the five sons of the King and Queen. the eldest of whon, the Prince of Wales, is now IS and the youngest, Prince John, is [. all are experts at knitting and crocheting This week, the London needle work guild an aristocratic organization which provides clothing for the poor. and Of which the Queen is one of the prime movers, held an exhibition, and among the other articles on view were three knitted scarves which those who viewed them learned with awe had been fabri- eated by the royal hands of no less a per- son than Prince George, the fourth son Of thelr maiesties, who has HOW at- taincd the ripe age of 1o.
 Knitting of a Prince
 These three scarves were done in sage green, or exactly the same colof as the surface of billiard table, and were olliamented, at the ends, with bright red iassels, precisely us were the ones that you wore around your neck When you sailie1 forth as youngster to engage in a snovball fight or to slide belly whacker down the biggest hill in the neighbolhood They were pretty decent scarves to have been knitted by u httle boy of 10, and keen discussion was aroused among the entrancea danes Hho lowered over them. as to whether they were done with ordinary bone knitting needles or with d wooden frame and pegs, or how? The consensus Of opinion was in favor of the frames, nobody, apparent- ly being struck with the absurdity of encouraging boy, particularly prince of the blood royal, 10 spend his time Tn as essentially q feminine occupation as knitting, It seems, however, to have been the persistent policy of the Queen to .mollycoddle' her sons. so 1t Is no sur
  even down to little Prince John, are 'bandy' with their respective needles. For all one knows the heir to the throne himself may occasionally beguile the tedum of his carefully regulated life at oxford University by knitting himself a new neektie or doing a bt of em- broidery work.
 Duke an Expert
 The latter suggestion Is not as iidic- ulous as it may seem, for though all the aristocratic danes who gathered al the Needlework Guilds exhibition the other day were voluble over the prowess as knitters of the sons of King George, they one and all agreed that the English princes were not in it for a second with another royal needle worker in the person of the Grand Duke of -Darmstadt, whose em- broidery is the despair of every wom- an who sees il. One would have thought. by the way, that the grand duke might serve as a horrible eX- ample to Queen Mary of the effect of not letting boys be boys, for 1t was largely because of his intensely lady like ways that the Queens own cousin law, Princess Victoria Melita of Sake Coburg Gotha found it impos- sible to live with him.
 The couple were cousins, the grand duke being the son of the late Prin cess Alice, and thus a grandson of Queen Victoria, and the grand duchess daughter of the late Duke of SaXe Coburg Gothd, the second son of the great Queen. The grand duchess was q fearless horseWoman, who frequent ly exhausted three different steeds in one day and thought nothing of driving five. She was an honorary colonel also in several German regiments. The grand duke liked best of all things fo do fD To fn ply his needle q hoy and is now an expert herewith. being especially strong on embroidery. Often when he has an especially elaborate job of the kind on hand he has his meals in bed and stays there all day cmbroiderins away like an old maid with her eye on the first prize at the church sociable. So it's no wonder that the pair didn't hit it off. As a fact. they squabbled continually and the story goes that once, just when a matrimonial tiff was beginning to smooth itself out, the grand duke made matters worse by presenting his wife-as peace offer ing-with fire screen depicting a couple of peaeocks embroidered by himself! Eventually the marriage was dissolved on the ground of incompat- ibility of temper.
 Like Ducks in Water
 According to one of the danes ct tho needleWork exhibition the other day, the youth of England takes 10 needle work as ducks do to water. Boys are learning to knit in many of our pre- paratory schools" she said. "and they soon gee to be quiet 'dabs' at 1t. though not, of course, as expert as dear little Prince George who probab- ly has had special training"
 Perhaps the feature of some future exhibition of needlework may be a jersey or a pair of ncttens knitted by the King himself. Meanwhile one hears that officers of his majesty's army and navy take to yielding the knitting needles almost as naturally as do the school boys. One of the principal nurses at the King Edward VII hos pital, where the chief inmates are mill itary and naval men. told a rriend of the writer that for her patients who don't care for reading she quite ire quently prescribes knitting and she said these incapacitated warriors and sea dogs soon begin to take quite a pride in the perfection of the products of their needles.
 Sweet Revenge