PRECEDENCE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 3101, 26 January 1909, Page 4

PRECEDENCE.

The English Table of Precedence is full of anomalies, but this is not strange, when it is remembered that it dates back to 1339, and sttfl retains regulations drawn up at that time. An Admiral of the Fleet, holding the highest rank in the Navy, has no place in tbe table (says a writer in an English magazine) if he has no personal title, may be called upon to follow a young midshipman at a State ceremony, if the junior officer is titled. The rank of Field Marshal, the highest in the Army, and held by only a few men, carries no place in the order cf precedence, and four L of its distinguished holders are placad quite low in the list. Tjie Lord Chief Justice would have to follow a Puisne Judge, who was also a member of the Privy Council, if the latter happened to have been sworn in to the Council lirst, The Lord Chief Justice comes after the Knights of the Garter; King's Counsellors are ignored, but Sergeant-at-Law and Masters in Chancery and Lunacy are included. The medical profession is entirely overlooked, and the ablest surgeon in England, holding a Royal appointment, would have to give way to an empty-headed young Peer. To 1 ladies the Table of Precedence is singularly unkind. The Archbishop of Canterbury ranks next to the Princess of the Royal House, but his wife is plain Mrs Randall Davidson, and ranks after the wife of a newlyknighted alderman. This only applies to the wife of a Prime Minister, a Lord Chancellor, or a Secretary of State, unless her husband has a title. The exact places of members and connections of the Royal Family must be a source of anxiety to Court officials. The Duke of Fife, the husband of the Princess Royal, ranks twentyfour degrees below his wife, and Princess Louise, sister of the King, ranks below little Princess Mary of

Wales, grand-daughter of the King. The daughters of the Duke of Fife are placed after the Duke of Connaught's family, though they are nearer the succession to the Throne.