Life — June 22, 1911 — page 12: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

1200 lingerie shop in Cheapside, Leave his name out of this despatch if you think best. I won't mind. When I left the King wasn't up, as he had slept late, so I had to run into his room and say au revoir, Almost stumbled over the coronation robe as I entered. “Well, old fellow,” I said, “ you were fine. I couldn't have done it better myself.” “We couldn't have managed without you,” he replied. They were holding up the steamer for me, so I burried away. J. Bounder Ballingford. Success 1 what do you attribute your suc- cess?” asks the interviewer. “To my advertising,” re- plies the magnate. “But you had the goods you advertised.” “Not at first. First thing I did was to engage a star advertising man and have him formulate my campaign Then I made the goods to fit the advertising.” On the March LL the world is said to love a lover, but it doesn’t. Lovers are close corporations, offering little or nothing to outsiders. The only thing which all the world really does love, and has al- ways loved, is a parade. Anything that parades will answer, Rows and rows of stodgy policemen filing mournfully through the streets, rows and rows of firemen, rows and rows of Free Masons, distinguished from their fellow citizens by the ostrich feathers in their hats— all these melancholy spectacles draw an enamored crowd, while soldiers or a circus arrest for half a day the ordinary business of life. Therefore is it that our glittering militia regiments are dear to their country’s heart, Therefore is it that pageantry has been revived ona dazzling scale, and the indigent taxpayer receives letters requesting him to contribute funds to buy tin helmets and cheesecloth cos- tumes for the pageants. And therefore is it that Americans casually ask their neighbors: “Going over to the corona- tion?” as if it were a matter of cross- ing a ferry, or as if the hospitable Lon- don tradesmen were robbing themselves to make us comfortable, when they offer us whole windows along the route of the procession for a trifle of cight hundred dollars. It has always been the same story. Socialists and suffragettes may disap- THE ROYAL MEWS prove of the great coronation parade and threaten interference with its glo- ries, but the heart of England loves it at any price, and the heart of America beats a cordial response to this senti- meni, Military parades, with plenty of drum and fife, have for centuries sweet- ened the bitterness of war taxes. When- ever the Roman populace began to count the cost of conqvering barbarians, it was treated to a first-class strect parade, with a conqueror in a cas, and captives walk- ing in achain-gang. The barbarians them- selves, when the fortunes of war threw a victory their way, imitated their bet- ters and got up @ rude but effective copy of a Roman triumphal procession. In the Belle Arti at Florence there hangs a beautiful old piece of tapestry, repre- senting a grand drill of animals ir the Garden of Eden, Two by two the ac- commodating beasts march in an end- less file, while Adam and Eve watch the show and have the time of their inno- cent lives. It is the earliest develop- ment of a passion which has never wavered or weakened, and which to-day sends us by thousands across the ocean to see, at any cost and in any stress of weather, a really good parade. Agnes Repplier. Not a Bad Way DAUGHTER of our Mayor eloped last month. That made the third elopement out of the Mayor's family. He: has other daughters, and, as someone has said, may yet see one of them married in the conven- tional fashion, That will doubtless be nice; a wed- ding in a family is pleas- ant, but there is a great deal to be said for elope- ment, provided the young people are really ready and have chosen well. We suspect the Mayor favors clopement. It saves a great deal of fuss and trouble and spectacu- lar effort, especially in large families, and in offi- cial or political life. It will be recalled that a century ago General Philip Schuyler’s daugh- ters had this habit of elopement and three of them practiced it with ex- cellent matrimonial _ re- sults out of that old Schuyler house in Al- bany, which was bought the other day to be pre- served as a_ historical monument. Coronations And_ people taking the whole thing seri- ously instead of shrieking with laughter at the preposterous show. HAT is what Mr. Charles Edward Russell says in the Coming Na- tion. Whether a coronation is cause for laughter depends entirely on the in- dividual. For those who have windows to let on the line of march, yes. For people with a sense of humor, also yes. As for the principal actors, the Kings and Kaisers, Dukes and Princes and other hereditary things—who can say? When a grown up man is rigged out with medals he never earned, with gold lacc and waving plumes and many but- tons, he knows that the world to-day is not deceived. Moreover, as he moves along to the sound of music, he knows that among the crowd that lines the way the wiser ones are laughing at him. So, when we consider the solemn pomp of a coronation compared with the brain and muscle of a base- ball game or a circus, is Mr. Russell far astray? comicbooks.com