Evening star., 1953-06-04
By Paul GolIico

thing this city gets over in a few
hours. London's traffic, para
lyzed for several days, still is
suffering a bad case of harden
ing of the traffic arteries. due
to the continued duties of mon
archy, which do not come to an
end with the lowering of the
crown of st. Edward onto the
royal brow. :.
Yesterday, when correspond
ents and merrymakerS, who had
celebrated at the grand corona
tion ball in the Savoy Hotel the
night before and had watched
from the roof as $36, 900 worth of
fireworks we're exploded, sat
around with wet towels on their
fevered heads, Her Majesty held
an investiture at Buckingham
Palace and took part in a pro-
cession to the East End.
Once more eager viewers lined
the barriers and the professional
route in the usual cold. clammy
drizzle. Once more the heart of
the city was choked with buses.
trucks and taxicabS. moving a
foot or so every 10 minutes. The
Queen appeared upon her bal
cony as late as midnight the pre-
vious night.
When the original program
for her majesty was made out,
considerable fears were expressed
that London's plans for the cele-
bration would exhaust her. Now
1t is beginning to look as if the
amazing energy of this indefati-
gable parsonage was going to
exhaust London first.
Englishmen Are Tough.
American visitors here, on re-
turning to the United States,
will be able to report firsthand
as to why there always will be
an England. It Is chiefly because
the Englishmen, his wife and
child are tough cookies who can
survive what would kill most Of
us stone dead, antibioticS or no.
One tends even to forget what
the EngliShman has survived
until reminded.
Sunday night, I was in the
Mall interviewing the first side
walk campers, who were plan
ming to sleep there Sunday and
Monday night to be there all day
Tuesday. When I asked them
how they could take two nights
and two days On a few square
inches Of hard pavement, one Of
them said: ''Yoi forget, sir, them
shelters we lived In for weeks
during the blitz. At that time it
wasn't exactly no Ritz Hotel"
This was before the real dis
comforts set in. Time and again,
during the long vigil. whole fam
lilies who had taken up sidewalk
quarters were drenched, not
merely by showers, but by gray
curtains of wind-blown rain that
swept over London for 48 hours
and persisted right through to
coronation day and the process
sion. Very few of them quit.
With the rain came q miser-
able chill around so degrees, with
never q sun long enough to dry
them out. Nevertheless, for
these Britishers it was a lark and
holiday.
Accustomed to Bad Weather.
They are used to bad weather.
I have seen them camping down
in the country, living in pup
tents, through their two weeks
of vacation, drenched contin-
uously with sodden rain, but not
minding it q bit.
There may be a post-corona-
ton rise in the pneumonia in
cidence. but I doubt it.
Everyone Is talking about the
brilliant organizational job done
by the Duke of Norfolk on this
coronation, in which no detail
was too small to be overlooked.
No single mistake made at the
last such ceremony over which
he presided was repeated in this
one.
One of the more amusing IA
Gets Of life In Westminster Abbey
last Tuesday-and we did lit
orally live there up in caves from
six in the morning until nearly
four in the afternoon-waS the
provision made by some far
seeing soul for the comfort of
guests where the assertions of
nature are concerned. At the
last coronation there we're bitter
complaints from peers that there
were insufficient facilities and
that it was difficult to reach
them.
This time busy little men from
the Ministry Of Works had been
all over the abbey, high and
low. If there was room up in
the stone tracery beneath the
roof for q rook to nest, they
quickly built a lavatory there.
Guided Tours.
Most enchanting were the
guided tours Of these conven-
fences, run by gentlemen of the
Gold Rod, gorgeously uniformed
men Of the services, as well as
youthful peers, armed with gold
en- wands, tipped with azure,
who. shortly before the process
sions were to begin, ushered
whole rows in the various sec
tionS to the lavatories. This
maneuver was carried out so that
no guest in the transept or tri-
forum would have to set
through the long ceremony in
discomfort.
The gold stick usher would
march down the steps Of our sec
tion of the north transept, pause
at the head of the aisle, point
with his wand and issue his sum-
mons. AS meekly as school
children, q whole row, contain
ing bewigged chief justices, gen.
erals, ambassadors, peers and