ARMISTICE DAY IN LONDON

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 83, 2 January 1919, Page 6

ARMISTICE DAY IN LONDON

b HAFEKING ECLIPSED K I SCENES AND INCIDENTS ° (From the "Daily Mail" of November 12.) l Utter your jubilee, steeple arid spire! i Flash, ye cities in rivers of fire! 1 Eoll and rejoice, jubilant voice! —Tennyson. Ijondoners who remember "Mafeking Night" have always said that whatever happened ii) this world there could never t be another Mafeking. .They recanted that 5 contention yesterday. "Mafeking Day" ( celebrated a little speck event in world [ history; yesterday was world history . come to its cosmic climax. [ And yet, though the London scenes of , yesterday in many ways recalled and surpassed those of Mnfeking-Day they were ; different: "When London went delirious • iu the Boer War all ages took part in the carnival. On Armistice Day the mid-dle-aged and the old walked silently, , wrapped in silent joy, incommunicable, reveries, in a transfiguration of thankfulness and relief. • , The soldiers and (he munition girls - made tho carnival while London watched them. From a thousand factories the girls poured out; on thoiisands of lorries they swept the Strand. They made caps for their heads with Union Jacks; they used flag pins for hat, pins; they ribboned themselves ' with ' bunting. They piled their lorries with pyramids of living beings. They caught up soldiers ! from the crowds and. Backed them into space thrice packed. They snatched the soldiers' caps and wore them, and thrust their own Caps on, the soldiers' heads. Thousands of them marched in processions, linked arm-in-arm with soldiers. Not a 'unit in those long sarabands who 'was riot either a warrior or a shellmaker. - • .• Girls, girls, sirls; soldiers,'soldiers, soldiers. A soldier marching along with 30 girls. Thirty soldiers marching along with one girl. Sometimes.a march,of soldiers. Officers only who' seized passing officers and made tli?m lead them. Sometimes a band of , little boys, drumming on tin cans, led by a During the mid-day delirium of the Strand a major led one of the,- boys' bands. Other soldiers packed the tops of omnibuses' and mado wild tatoos with their canes on the metal advertiseinentjioards.! In Trafalgar Square (whefe the fountains played after four years) soldiers were hanging, like swarming b.ees, on the tops of the high masts of the streetr lamp 3.," On Mafeking night we thought-it.-mar-vellous when we saw five people perched on the top of a hansom cab. There were 30 and more people—soldiers and girls agairi—perched on every Vaxicab yesterday. On Jlafekinfr night,the demonstrators stopped the traffic. 'Yesterday the demonstrators were the traffic. The age ' of petrol has come since Mafeking night, and it auickened arid maddened the scene. On-Mafeking night we were jammed in the stijeets; yesterday onr revol tore throueh the streets in a flying gala. The human voice predominated-(in Marking niirht; tho niotor hon ruled the, discord yesterday.. And to the. leasts of the bonis was added. the <"iristnnt crash of dM-onatdi-s. ri""'"- of bip Mie ."-lirop of mouth sirens. All over Lnndnn flicks of frightened pigeons wheeled »nd fluffnred. And from everv; high office building fluttered, huge, flaked, a confetti of torn paper. The rnin came in mid-afternoon, but rain, which I'ns always heretofore cooled end disporspd human crowds, could not di-sprrsp ,tliat astounding multitude Hint, bv universal accord, had made ' the. Strand London's fesM High Street. Arid the climax of the- revelry "f tho dnv that lulled but little before the re- ! volry of the night was tl"> passing of tho King and Queen through the sVeets. Wit-bout csmrt, save >-fnr tv'o mounted policemen they .drove through their delirious neaple—the Kins and Queen who, when thrones are .falling like ' autumn leaves, ran ride with only the escort of a people's love. -A shattering huzza! rose aWove the wild cheering that never ceased. A, carriage passed. ;a. woman.with a face nlittM n-jth unutterable happiness: a tirpd-lookirig man. the bearer for four j-ears of a hurden that none of his pcnnle can ffiie'ss—and' he. too, was smiling gravely on the prowd.' And boys and girls, soldiers and'munition-lasses were running alongside the King and Queen's carriage and hanging on to it. •' And in-all the ioyousness of the crowd there was only lisrht-bearted, "cheerful good-humoured friendliness for the solemn significance of the occasion, and the snectacle of the self-order;d, jubilant crowds made onlookers proud of their countrymen. THE KING'S SPEFCH SPONTANEOUS, JOY AT .THE PALACE "With you I rcjoicq and thank God for the victory which the Allied Armies - have wou and brought hostilities to an end and pence within sight," said the tile King speaking, troni idle balcony of Buckingham Palace recently to the joyous demonstrators. The spontaneity with which all classes made for the palace was one of the features of the day. The forecourt was thrown open to men and women in uniform.' ■' As Big Beli began to boom'eleven the huge concourse stood silent. The last rang out and a tremendous sheer, starting by the palace gates, rolled in'mighty volume along the Mall and outwards until one Could hear it' dying away like echoes from the big; guns whose .silencing it heralded. While the guard was being changed, and at other times,' the King, in ad - miral's'uniform, and the Queen came on to the balfeony, which was draped in crimson. The Queen carried a small Union Jack, and both ma<te smiling acknowledgment of their ovations. Enthusiasm reached ■ its height just after noon. The King and Queen, with Princess' Mary, the Duke of Connaught, the Dnchess of Argyll, and Princess Patricia, stepped out on the. balcony and" • looked down such a picture ns human eyes had never seen before. Across the forecourt stretched a l double column of V.A.D.'s, Wrens, nurses, and women war workers. At one end stood a group of American soldiers with a huge American -|flai?._ At the other a group of British, soldiers of all ranks and from all partis [of thfi"J3mpire. ■ Behind many bands. | Outside the palace railings dense masses | who had swarmed up every tree, balustrndo, or vehicle. Women perched them- : on the Queen Victoria memorial. I _Fifst the massed bands played the Kntion.il; Anthems nf all the Allies, Siring these in alphabetical order. Then j the King made in n loud, clear voice, the swech ousted above. As soon as the | cheers/d'»d away the. whole concmivri . ; Vd by the massed bands, sari "Now thank we nil our God." The Kin<? and I Then "Auld Lam* Pvne." The T?nvil i "artv we the cue by joinine hinds. ! !P«onle. for the moment went wild. Dain-Hl.v-clad won'-ou seized the hand* of muniin blue ov-eral's. soldiers, nartieulirlv the wounded, had never such a handshaking b»foro. Once more the bavds plaved the National Anthem. His Mnjesty standing at the salntc. Then more and more cheering. , CALEDONIAN SPORTS \ By Telegraph.—''"ors Association. Timaru, January. 1. Tho South Canterbury Caledonian Society (one of the few such bodies that | has kent going through the war period) j held its forty-fourth New Year sports gathering to-day. There was a good attendance. The takings amounted to about .£ISOO. The sports were good, but were marred by an unusually severe cloc- j Heal storm, with heavy hail and rain, i All the bicrcle events were won by a new competitor. T; Joyce, of Whimate, who showed exceptionally good form. Amnnrr those present, was the Hon. T. M. Wilford. who complimented the society on the excellent grounds and appointments. I Asthma.- bronchitis, sore throat and catarrh, Oh. what 'distressing afflictions they are; Bringing anxiety, nnguish and grief, Priceless the treatment that gives us relief. ; All through long nges of human distress, Science■ ha<l striven in.vain for success; Until it-discovered 1 • that remedy sure, . Wonderful Woods' Great Peppermint » Cure,—Adyt.