QUEEN ALEXANDRA.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 872, 19 July 1910, Page 3

QUEEN ALEXANDRA.

:THE IDOL OF THE CHILDREN.. Just as the late King will be known for 'all time. as "Edward the Peacemaker," says the "Standard" in its charming character sketch of the Queen • Mother,: his gracious Consort .will go 'clown.-to history as "Alexandra the Compassionate." It. has not been by Words that she. has endeared herself — not by conventional patronage to this or that institution. ' Her help has been jn-actical—her interest real. •She is a veritable angel of light in •children's hospitals. There is ' scarcely a; hospital which has riot a " Queen's" bed" or a "Queen's ward," not because .her Majesty has contributed especially toward its support, but because, at this bed or that she has stopped to show some mark of. affection to a sick child, or'has spent a longer time in one ward than another.. ~: . . ■'.'..:■■; [."The • Queen comes unannounced,"' Baid. the* matron of a great hospital. "We may know half an hour or so before'her arrival that she is expected, but she. .jyill have no fuss, .-nothing in the nature of a ceremonial. Nurses go round the wards and tell, the children, and . for that half-hour before her Majesty's arrival there is some. difficulty in. keeping, anything like silence. The children chatter excitedly.' Some, twrh'aps, have seen her beforer-those bad: cases which require years. of. treatment and. they; are , very .'anxious to Jmow. whether her Majestv will rememBer them again.' They need have no fear, for she never forgets;' she remem- , bers .their- names and what is'wrong with them. , She remembers; them well enough to tell whether they are looking better than they were i.when she saw them,the last time she*was here." 'r. There is a story told in. one of the Bast-end hospitals of how the. Queen quarter of an'hour chatting to one little boy to the intenso indi'g'na- ; tion. of all the other small people, who, on' her Majesty's departure, fiercely questioned the lucky.boy as, to what the Queen had said, and .for what reason she had spent so much time at his bedside. .*: ,:■ . : .

a- pain, an' I ; made v a-face." was the little, boy's, solution. . It so happened that the Queen paid another visit to the same hospital 'a short time afterwards. Just before she entered the children's ward Jthe matron made-a, providential visit, ;.to find ~; t he sister and nurses ;6n. duty! in. a condition bordering on despair. ■ / you came, matron," said the agitated ' sister in charge; 'these children are misbehaving so badly."

■ "What: are they doing?" asked- the matron in surprise. .. • ."Look!" said the sister with a tragic sweep o'f arm,'and the matron glanced along the trim row of beds. On every pillow was. a small head and a small face—and each face was one hideous contortion! In the hope of;atQ ueen 's attention .twenty little ' people were busily engaged in making faces!" V . ltee is tragedy. enough in.the children s and the Queen has never spared Jier mvn feelings in making her frequent visits.. She did not confine herself to.the "interesting" .cases," or to .the clean cases, • The "dying have seen her calm, sweet iacethe mother watchmg _the fliokenng away of her child s life has been -soothed by the . lady .in. heliotrope," who shared her sorrow and her vigil. -The poor of London know of these happenings;: they .--are . carried from - tongue to tongue,, they have - become legends- in the homes of the humble. It is not so long-ago that a man wsa- charged U 'if il f End : Police - Court with wilfully damaging" a portrait of the Queen exposed, for sale at a little furniture-shop; and, in giving ' his evidence, the constable who arrested the raa-n informed the. Bench that he had ff 'f rea^ st dlffic ulty in rescuing the ' fur >" ° f women of the neighbourhood. Thisepisode may convey srime idea' of tllo extraordinary reverence in' which the' .Queen Mother is held by her poor, ■ It isn t loyalty, it's worship," said one lyho has _ spent a life amongst the poor of Lambeth and .Walworth. "It .is unbelievable, that any; human .being could ni his -or her lifetime attain to m,Ei ? °? c T lod her Moijesty. ..W hatever loyal devotion comes, to 1 her -the people of . -England,, her dominion is m the. hearts of the poor."