TROOPING OF THE COLOUR.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1180, 15 July 1911, Page 11

TROOPING OF THE COLOUR.

PAGEANTRY AT THE lIOKSE GUARDS. _In the bright medley at tho Horse Guards, on May 28, some of us missed the point of ililfcrence from earlier ceremonies of trooping the colour (writes the London correspondent of the "Manchester Guardian"). it came at the end as wo were waiting for the King and his retinue to ride hack to the I'alace. A little company of Life Guards detached themselves \<'n V 1 ®' a,va J" through the arch into \» lutchall. Tliey were going ,to change the guard as on any other day. All that had happened was that the King had come down to see it done. King Edward used to ride away as soon as the actual ceremony was over. This return to the real meaning ; of the pageant, as 1 wrote before, was King George's innovation. It is two years since Londoners saw their pet pieco of military ritual, and this time there was sunshine to bring out its radiance. were recalling the scene at King Edward's last birthday parade when tho crowd and the soldiers'waited in the rain and were sent home at the last moment by the postponement. It is an immovable feast, for whenever the King's birthday falls they troop the colour at tho end of May. "Brilliant" was the adjective everyone tacked on to the show, and its glare of colour and finished neatness of movement deserved it. The best moment was when wj *aw tho King's cavalcade come dowi through the trees of tho park into the hngo square, palisaded round with scnrlct Guard?. A few Life Guards tossed in front and then came high officers and a rich group of Indian orderlies. Tho King, riding with the Duke of Connaught, looked unfamiliar in tke seclusion of his Grenadier's bearskin. The crowd, squeezed between the military and tho wall, found it easy to overlook him. A little company of Royalties followed the King, also the foreign attaches, whose uniforms always save a show from monotony. There was a deep green plume that stood out surprisingly against all the reds.

Wo saw the Kins turn smilingly (o----1 wards tiio window in the Horso Guards where the Queen and her children were sitting, and after that there was an hour of music and of inarching so smoothly perfect that one remembered nothing of it but its perfection. The King rode round the square of troops and the massed band of the three .companies of Guards came swinging slowly into the middle of (lie sruiaro, tho mounted drummer plying his sticks in wonderful pride. The crowd marvels at these mounted players. The man who plays the trombone and rides a horse at the same time is one of the most-admired men in London. It was the darkly red colour of tho Scots' Guards that was "trooped." A sergeant held it up in the middle of the square and all the troops saluted it. and then the Scots came up, and saluted it too, and received it and took it back to its proper place. All was done as London has seen it time out of mind, even to the strut of the four drummajors at the head of the troops and the pretty jerk they give tc their staves as they walk.- Someone said tho mass of men stod and moved like soldiers out of a box. When the arms went up to the salute you saw a cloud of pipeclay float up from the ranks . When it was done there was a long pause until the Quean and the Princes had taken their places in the carriage and driven off in the wake of the Kincr. The colonial Premiers enjoyed the spectacle from a baiconv. with on Tndian prince in white and gold for neighbour. .