SPECTATORS OF THE CORONATION

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume III, Issue 198, 5 September 1901, Page 3

SPECTATORS OF THE CORONATION

To all those New Zealanders who no doubt are already making plans for going Home next year to witness the Coronation, our London oot respondent utters a word of warning. It is just as well, ha, says, that it should be realised, as it may save subsequent disappointment, that there is not the ghost of a chance of their obtaining admission to Westminister Abbey on the great day. The Abbey is at the best of times not a good place in which to go gaia a view of an impressive ceremony. Tuousands who will be there on Coronation Day cannot hope for more than a passing glimpse of the Royal procession as it passes. But, apart from this, it has been estim ited that every possible seat that can be made available in the Abbey on that occasion will be required for persons who have a statutory or official right to be present. The requirements under these heads alone are estimated to be fully six-fold those of 1838, when the late Queen was crowned. The present Royal Family of Great Britain in all its ramifications provides quits a little army itself. Then there all the numerous foreign sovereigns’ potentates and their families and suites, the diplomatic body, the various legislative and municipal functionaries, including all the peers and peeresses and their belongings, altogether making up quite a good big army, which will not only fill every inch of possible apaee, but will also tax that space to the utmost, aud even then find considerable difficulty in squeezing in. Therefore it may easily be pictured what prospect the mere casual colonist will have of finding himself or herself atnong that very select number. It has been decided that Westminster Abbey shall be closed to the public for three or four months next year, moat likely from March to June inclusive in order that the horde of workmen who will be employed in disfiguring the venerable fane with brand-new wooden structures for the accommodation of tho spectators of the pageant, may have full,scope for the performance, of their duties* A visit to the Abbey is usually one qf the first missions undertaken by every cultured soloaijrt who comes

(to London, especially if this be foi the first time, hut our correspondent remarks that the interior of the Abbey is unlikely to be visible to the public in general until somewhere about the end of the summer. It is sincerely to be hoped that this time the Abbey will suffer less damage than it did when fitted up for Queen Victoria’s first Jubilee, on which occasion the interior was knocked about to a deplorable extent. Dean Stanley once remarked that Westminster Abbey was all glorious within, as Salisbury Cathedral was all glorious without, and one cannot contemplate without a tremour the presence in the Abbey of an army of workmen. —Press.