HOW QUEEN VICTORIA ENTERTAINS.

Waikato Times, Volume VII, Issue 347, 4 August 1874, Page 2

HOW QUEEN VICTORIA ENTERTAINS.

I need not tell you how simple, plain, and perfectly English and womanly are the habits and tastes of the Queen. The Prince of Wales, socially, is nothing more than a rich, sporting, pleasure-loving English squire. The style of entertainment at the palace,, for example, is quite like that you would receive at the house of the Duke of Sutherland or the Marquis of Westminster. Nay, I have even heard the complaint hinted that when the Queen entertains officials at dinner, the viands are not as various or as well served as at any ordinary aristocratic gentleman's house. The Queen certainly sets an example of economy to her upper-class subjects. When she comes to London for the coaly parliamentary season, her favourite method of dispensing hospitality is to give garden parties and " breakfasts" in Buckingham Palace gardens, or in the private garden of Windsor Castle. Invitations to these are, of course, much sought for, because they are tho most select ; there you come directly in contact with royalty, and see it more nearly and familiarly than if you dined with the Queen in the castle. When yo\i are conducted to the garden by one of the scarlet flunkeys of majesty, said flunkey is aboitt the only visible hint of its being a royal party. You see pretty tents and canvas pavilions disposed hero and there under the oaks, on the velvety lawn, or by side of the pretty miniature lake. If this is in the Buckingham Palace garden, which is in the very centre of fashionable West-end London, tho moment'you have passed beyond the high wall which, shuts it out from St. James's park on one side and Grosvenor-place on the other, you would never guess that you were in the midst of the city. The surroundings are exquisitely and most illusorily rural. You see a number of gentlemen and ladies, elegantly dressed, standing about in groups, or partaking of the by no means sumptuous fare, which is being served without ceremony in the tents. The scene is cheerful, elegant, bon ton, easy, and unrestrained. You catch a glimpse of the Queen, dressed in black, with here and there a relief in rich white lace, but with no suspicion of tinsel or gaudiness about her — a plain lady, of substantial proportions, in the prime of life, the centre of a respectful but by no means awed or abashed circle ; receiving these whom she recognizes with a slight smile and a pleasant word, and the presentations of those whom she does not know with a slight bow. There are faces here familiar 1 to you in tlie windows of tLe print-shops noblemen, statesmen, ministers, ambassadors, leaders of .society and court fashion ; but there is little or no pretension of manner or carriage. You are surprised, above all, at the simplicity, the elegant common-place ot the whole thing. You may jostle the Prince of Wales, or the Russian Ambassador, or the Lord Chief Justice, without being in the least aware of the fact. The gentleman who, seeing you arc a stranger, asks you if you will not have a sandwich and cup of coffee, may be a fashionable artist or a provincial mayor, and may be the Duke of I Teck. If, perchance, yon have been at tkfetc chavii pcti cat some great country house — say at ChatsI worth or Belvoir — you say to yourself that this ! differs in no striding respect from it, unless indeed j it differs by its lesser brilliancy and its moie .suggestive simplicity. And this is the striking chaiacteristic of modern English royal life. Theie is a great change even from the time of gentleman George's time. That padded and painted old dandy never appeared as a host without being bedizened with stars and laces. To be biire, theie are now-a-days grand occasions, like drawing-room, levees, openings of Parliament, thanksgiving pageants at St Paul's, and so on, when majesty assumes all the trappings and insignia of its rank. But those are the rare exceptions — rarer to royalty than our own birthday and patriotic anniversaries — to the ordinary routine of royal life. — London Cor. Boston Fosi.

Most people are too ready (says a contemporary) to lake oiienco ; a lew, however, err m the opposite direction. Not long since, writes a correspondent at Bio Janerio, an ice ship from Boston cnteied tho bay, commanded by an American. Fort Santa Cruz, not recognising his house flag, hailed him, and ordered him to " heave to." But the worthy skipper merely announced the name of the vessel j fco a blank shot was tired to induce him to stop. But he called ior his revolver, and pointed it skyw ai d, fired six successive shots. Then a solid shot from tho iort skipped across her bow, and another better aimed, passed through his ioresail. The iort and two other batteries opened lire upon him, and beverol ot his light spars were cut awaj. 13ut he held on his course rejoicing, loading and firing his re\ olver. Finally he 1 cached quaianleen, and came to anohor just as his ilynig jib-boom went by the board. lie was then so near the oilier shipping that the forts dared lire on him no louger, and the police boab and Custom-house boat and the health boat all hoarded him together with the captain of the port, wlo with, moie \ i£our than politeness wanted to know wny lie did not heave to ? "Uenve to!" ijaculaled the astonished skipper j '•whs that what -\ou wanted! I thought jou was salutiu' tho American ilag !"