WATER CARNIVAL ON THE THAMES

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 267, 7 August 1919, Page 5

WATER CARNIVAL ON THE THAMES

PICTURESQUE' PROCESSION

By Telegraph-Press (Rec. August 6-7, midnight.) London, August 4. The Thameside was a centre of attraction for all holiday makers in London. Every bridge was gay -with streamers, and there were dense crowds between Tower Bridge and Chelsea. . Their Majesties drove along Customhouse Quay, where a Royal salute was fired from the Tower. Their Majesties (hen boarded the Royal barge, and headed, a great "procession of boats towards Chelsea. The fast boat had left the Customhouse as the King reached Chelsea; The Lord' Mayor, as Admiral of the Port of London, followed the-King. Launches representing tho Navy, the Ministry of Shipping, the National Lifeboat Institution, Trinity House, the training ship Worcester, and the Warspite and Arcthus followed. Coastguards, fishermen, and Sea Scouts were represented, and finally were seventy boats, representing tho shipping companies, manned by active service seamen frbhi the war vessels present, including several-destroyers, and a mystery 6hip capable of submerging to the deck, and the motor boats which destroyed tho Gorman'vessels on Lake Tanganyika. Tho picturesque red and gold barge containing the King and Queen Alexandra, and Princess Mary/.pulled by red-coated oarsmen, was everywhere greeted with prolonged cheers. ' The proceedings were happily without inciter. Tho whole pageant was a well-earned tribute to the mosquito craft and morchant seamen whose unquestioned gallantry saved the nation from starvatiox A lightning strike of six hundred drivers and firemen held up tens of thousands of holiday makers at Waterloo. Thero were extraordinary scenes— angry fathers and mothers denouncing the strikers, and children weeping when they found their day's pleasure spoilt, A prominent trades unionist describes the strike as "A dirty trick to play upon trippers."—Aus.-N.Z. Cable Assn.