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Hokitika Guardian, 18 August 1928, Page 4

PAGEANT OF OLD LONDON. LONDON, .Tune 2G. People in Clerkenwell Road, E.C., rubbed their eyes in amazement yesterday afternoon as they saw tramwayears, motor-lorries, and bicycles stop to let the -Middle Ages pass by.

In flowing mantles and robes and flat Tudor caps, the Knights and Chaplains of the Venerable Order of St. John of Jerusalem moved in slow procession from the dim shadow of the ancient stone gate of the former priory of St. John.

Led by a liiglnborne cross and the children of the C'liapcl Royal, in gold and scarlet Elizabethan coats, singing a hymn, came the group of chaplains in scarlet and black and white. Then came the Bishop of Gibraltar, whose golden and yellow cope blazed with dazg.ling splendour in the bright June sunshine.

The standard and the silver cross of Ilie order followed, and behind came the Chapter, general officers, commanders. Knights of Grace and Knights of Justice. Among them were the Earl of Shaftesbury, Viscount Galway, Lord Herbert Scott, Lord Mostvn. and, the Earl of Meath, who with his long-white heard and his velvet cap and flowing cloak seemed some venerable figure from a painting by an old master. MOST IMPRESSIVE FIGURE.

Preceded by the sword of the Order in its dark blue velvet senbbard held aloft by n robed officer came the most impressive figure of all. This was the Grand Prior of the Order, the Duke of Connaught. His mantle of dark value Col vet swept the ground and bis bands were crossed gravely on the breast of bis dark cassock, emblazoned like the mantle with the eight-pointed cress of the Order. Across the tramway-lines ho walked slowly to the old quiet church which must bear the most impressive name of any church in England, for it is the Church of the Grand Priory in the British Realm of the Venerable Order of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem. .

There, on the day following the Festival of St. John, the Order commemorated 800 unbroken years of seivice for the sick and injured, which began in the days of the Crusades in Palestine.

WHERE LONDON LEADS. NEW YORK, June 20. When 1,250 British Congregational ists left New York after a short pilgrimage of goodwill to the United States they gave some impressions of this country iMrs T. E. Byroni congratulated the United States men on being much more gallant than the average Englishman. “They sav, you know,” she remarked to a questioner, “that Americans make the best husbands and Englishmen the second best.” Apparently Mrs Byi-om found time to shop and discovered that , .New York sales girls were indifferent to her custom. She says: “In one shop a sales girl offered mo a -dross for £5 which I could buy in London for los. When I hesitated a moment she went away and never came back. The visitors were thrilled with the restaurants where one buys food and drink from slot machines. They considered that street traffic was much more efficiently controlled in New York than in London. They approved New York’s omnibus system of putting money into little machines carried by the conductor in place of receiving, “dirty tickets,” as in London. Another thing which impressed the women visitors was the pallor of the faces of New York girls. .

BURGLAR IX VELVET -MASK. PARIS, Juno 26. The police are sen rolling for a French “Raffles,” who breaks into the houses of rich Parisiens. wearing a mack and armed with a. revolver, wake them up, and relieves them of their valuables. His latest exploit was early this morning, when he broke into the apartment of M. de Crozals in the Avenue do Suffren. M. de Crozals states that at about, 3,30 a.m. he was awakened by ail electric torch flashed in hi= face and that he saw a tall man in dress clothes, wearing a black velvet mask and gloves and carrying the torch in one hand and an automatic pistol in the other. “I am sorry to inconvenience you,” the man said, * speaking with a goad accent, “but you must give me £IOO at once.” When M. de Crozals declared that he had no such /sum with him the burglar ransacked the dressing-table, took all the small change he found (£5) and disappeared. Similar burglaries were committed twice, recently at the house of M. de Ricqles, a distiller, and at the apartment of M. Cornudet, a wealthy senator. In these ekses, however, the burglar obtained several thousand pounds.