In the evening of the great day the Queen entertained an illustrious company of foreign Princes at dinner in Buckingham Palace. |The Royal Dinner.| Here is the menu:—Potages—Bernoise à l’Impératrice, Parmentier; Poissons—Whitebait, Filets de Saumon à la Norvégienne; Entrées—Timbales à la Monte Carlo, Cailles à la d’Uxelle; Relevés—Poulets à la Demidon, Roast Beef; Roti—Poulardes farcies; Entremets—Pois sautés au beurre, Pouding Cambaceres, Pain d’Oranges à la Cintra, Canapés à la Princesse; Side Table—Hot and cold roast, fowls, Tongue, Cold beef, Salade. A great bouquet of orchids was placed on the dining-table immediately opposite where Her Majesty sat.

The list of Jubilee honours published in the newspapers of June 22 presented some features of great interest. The most popular elevations were those of the eleven Colonial Prime Ministers to the dignity of Privy Councillors. It was felt that the nucleus of the long-dreamed-of Pan-Britannic Council had been formed. The elevation of Mr. W. E. H. Lecky, one of the members for the Dublin University, to the same dignity was recognised as a graceful compliment to the world of learning. |Jubilee Honours.| The baronetcy conferred on the Lord Mayor of London was well-deserved, for no Lord Mayor had done so much in the present century to enhance the reputation of the Mansion House for philanthropic enterprise and lavish hospitality. Two new Lord Mayoralties, those of Sheffield and Leeds, were created; and three towns, Nottingham, Bradford, and Kingston-upon-Hull, were raised to the importance of cities. In late years peerages have generally been bestowed on men who have achieved greatness in the commercial world, and no choice could have been happier than that of Sir John Burns, Bart., the head of the Cunard Steamship Company, while that conferred on the Right Hon. Sir Donald Smith, G.C.M.G., was held to be as much a compliment to the man himself as to the Dominion of Canada, of which he was High Commissioner.

Generally speaking, a more ample recognition of the claims of the Colonial Empire, as well as of Art and Science at home, marked the Diamond Jubilee honours list.

It was hoped by many that advantage would have been taken of this unique occasion to extend the sovereign dignity of the Queen, so that it might include not only the United Kingdom and India but also the English-speaking Colonies. The addition of the names of the Colonies to the legend on the coinage would have followed this step as a natural corollary, and there can be no doubt it would have found favour with the great majority of the Queen’s subjects at home and abroad. Reasons of State may have interfered, but they cannot be insuperable, and we may look forward with confidence to the time when Parliament will decorate the Queen with this splendid honour.

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CHAPTER III.

Illuminations in London—Festivities in the Provinces and the Colonies—-Addresses of Congratulation from the Lords and Commons—Gathering of School Children on Constitution Hill—State Performance at the Opera—The Princess of Wales’s Dinners to the Poor—State Reception—Special Performance at the Lyceum—Torchlight Evolutions by Etonians at Windsor—Naval Review at Spithead—The Fleet Illuminated—The Colonial Troops at the Naval Review.

ON the evening of June 22, and for two or three days following, London was ablaze with illuminations. In the city especially these were on a scale of unparalleled magnificence. The Bank of England was fringed and festooned with myriads of many-coloured lamps, while from the parapet of the corner which looks towards Cheapside there glowed and scintillated a dazzling fan-shaped device of huge size. Over the chief entrance appeared the following inscription in letters of living fire: “She Wrought Her People Lasting Good.” |Illuminations in London.| The pillars of the Mansion House and the Royal Exchange were entwined with bands of light, and every detail of their architecture was accentuated by rows of tiny lamps. In this, the very heart of London, it was as light as day. It may be mentioned that 35,000 gas jets were used in decorating the Mansion House alone.

Moving westward with the vast throng of well-behaved sightseers, the next point of great interest was the dome of St. Paul’s. It had been suggested that the Cathedral should be illuminated, as were the other important buildings in the city, but the possibility of danger from fire acted as a deterrent. Instead of this, powerful electric search-lights were focussed on the dome and west front with wonderful effect. The dome stood up clear against the dark sky, and the stonework supporting and crowning it glowed like whitest marble. It is said that the expense of this installation was at the rate of £1,400 a night.

On every side of the route down Ludgate Hill, Fleet Street, and the Strand, and more westward still, through Pall Mall, St. James’s, and Mayfair, iridescent stars and crowned monograms glowed like titanic jewels from a thousand buildings. Fleet Street and the Strand were garlanded across with festoons of many-coloured globes, and the streets of this part of the town resembled nothing so much as an unending triumphal arch of rainbow-hued fire. Observed from Waterloo Place, Pall Mall seemed literally ablaze with general conflagration, so lavishly were the Clubs illuminated. The beautiful floral arches which crossed St. James’s Street at every few feet were beaded with numberless electric glow-lamps, and these were to have been set alight by the Princess of Wales touching a button in Marlborough House. But on the previous day some unexplained defect in the electric circuit had resulted in the ignition of a portion of the illuminations, and it was considered unsafe to try the experiment again. Marlborough House had over the entrance gates a branch of laurel of various natural tints, interspersed with red berries, forming one main arch over the gateway, and two side arches over the doors. The main laurel arch supported an oval medallion, surmounted by a crown, and bore the monogram “V.R.I.” surrounded by a garter. The side arches carried a Prince of Wales’s plume and badge. The whole of this was in cut crystal. The residence of the Duke of York had a pretty wreath of white rose and pink may (the former the emblem of the Royal House of York, the latter prettily suggestive of the Duchess’s name), with the monogram, “V.R.I.” in the centre. This device was carried out in gas jets. Piccadilly, Regent Street, and Oxford Street were not so generally illuminated as those thoroughfares we have already mentioned, but individual establishments approached very closely to the high level attained elsewhere.

It is safe to say that every town and village in England and Scotland had its own miniature celebration, its own procession, its own feast for the poor, its sports, or its firework display. |Provincial and Colonial Celebrations.| At Sandringham a service was held on the hill outside the church. About 2,000 children from the various parts of the Prince of Wales’ estate had tea in tents in the cricket ground. In Liverpool the principal streets were lavishly decorated, and about midday there was a procession of trades and friendly societies, in which about 8,000 persons took part. On the river there was a grand display of mercantile vessels dressed from stem to stern in flags. The Corporation of Manchester had generously voted £10,000 towards the Jubilee festivities. The streets were gaily decorated, and in the morning 100,000 children were entertained at breakfast and presented with Jubilee medals. In Birmingham there was a great historical procession, and in the evening displays of fireworks in three of the public parks. Many places commemorated the event by building new hospitals or by placing those already existing on a sound financial basis. The generosity of the citizens of Newcastle-on-Tyne was such that a fund of £100,000 was raised for the purpose of establishing a new infirmary. In the city of York the round of gaieties commenced at the Mansion House, where the Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress entertained to breakfast the members of the Corporation and the Jubilee Committee. At noon a thanksgiving service was held in the Minster. To the young people of the city the occasion was made an eventful one, for 14,000 of them, along with 1,300 teachers, assembled at 1.15 p.m. at their respective schools, where each was presented with a medal commemorative of the occasion. At night various points of the city were illuminated; a powerful search-light lit up the country for miles around, this being fixed on the central tower of the Cathedral, the west front of which was also illuminated with coloured fires. All over the country the occasion was made one of real rejoicing for the poor and needy, public and private enterprise co-operating to entertain them in the most hospitable manner.

There was a great bonfire display in Scotland. For a fortnight ten Highland ponies had been carrying materials up Ben Nevis. The brush-wood came chiefly from the neighbouring deer forest in Glen Nevis, and many loads of peat from the Distillery mosses. A shower of “May” rockets gave the signal to the bonfires on the neighbouring hills to make ready, and a few seconds before 10.30 Mrs. Cameron Campbell of Monzie touched the wire at the foot of the hill, and on the stroke of time the huge beacon burst into a brilliant sheet of flame, and was answered from hill after hill throughout Scotland. At the same time the following telegrams were despatched:—

“To Big Ben, Westminster:—‘Our Highland hills in blazing bonfires join with London’s illuminations in honour of our Queen.’” “To the Lord Mayor, London:—‘O’er loch and glen our bonfires shine to greet with you our Queen.’”

In all two thousand five hundred bonfires that had been erected on as many eminences throughout the United Kingdom were set alight at about half-past ten o’clock at night, and as the fires of these great beacons died down there faded away into history the greatest day of rejoicing the Anglo-Saxon has known since the glad news arrived that the conqueror of Europe had been overthrown at Waterloo.

The Colonies were as enthusiastic as the Old Country in their celebrations of the Jubilee. In Ottawa there was a gathering of 7,000 school children on Parliament Hill. Each of the children carried a Union Jack, and when these were waved together, while the National Anthem was being sung, the effect is described as having been very remarkable. At night the Parliament House was ablaze with 10,000 incandescent lamps, an inscription on the right or Senate wing reading “God save the Queen,” while on the left or Commons wing the device read “Dieu sauve la Reine.” Quebec, Montreal, Toronto, and Winnipeg had each its own well-arranged festivities. In Melbourne, Sydney, and Adelaide, and in the cities of New Zealand, the day was kept as a general holiday, the decorations and illuminations being splendid in every case. In Cape Town there was a review of troops and a huge procession headed by the Naval Brigade. In Egypt, at Lagos, Sierra Leone, and at Mauritius, in the far east at Singapore, at Hong Kong, and at Shanghai, in the East Indies and the West Indies, in British Honduras and British Guiana—everywhere where the Union Jack flies Her Majesty’s subjects gathered together to do her honour. Save only in her Empire of India, where the hearts of men were hardly in tune with the festive spirit of the day. Yet, in spite of the recent earthquake, which had shaken Calcutta to its foundations; in spite of the plague, now happily only lingering in Bombay, and the devastations of the recent famine, India was not without her joyful celebrations, these appropriately taking the form, for the most part, of acts of charity and mercy.

On Wednesday, June 23, the Lord Chancellor (Lord Halsbury) carried the address of congratulation of the Upper House to Buckingham Palace, and presented it to the Queen. This address had been moved in the House of Lords by the Marquis of Salisbury on Monday, June 21, in the following terms:—

|Addresses from Lords and Commons.| “That a humble address be presented to Her Majesty on the auspicious completion of the sixtieth year of her happy reign, and to assure Her Majesty that this House proudly shares the great joy with which her people celebrate the longest, the most prosperous, and the most illustrious reign in their history, joining with them in praying earnestly for the continuance during many years of Her Majesty’s life and health.”

Mr. Speaker Gully, arrayed in his handsome Robes of State, went in his great old gilded State coach to the Palace with a similar message from the Commons.

The same day the Queen left town for Windsor. A touching ceremony marked the occasion. At Her Majesty’s special request, the stands on Constitution Hill were filled with 10,000 children from the Board Schools and Voluntary Schools of all denominations. By four o’clock in the afternoon the children were in their places, and were regaled with buns, milk, and sweets. |Gathering of School Children.| At about a quarter to five Her Majesty—with whom were the Empress Frederick, Princess Henry of Battenberg, and the Duke of Connaught—drove up from Buckingham Palace. The children rose in their places and cheered their Queen to the echo, and immediately afterwards they sang the National Anthem, the band of the Grenadier Guards leading. “While the voices filled the air with the grand old melody, Her Majesty turned upon the singers a face radiant with love and happiness. Those who think of Her Majesty as ‘the Queen-mother’ should have looked upon her then to have found a realisation of the ideal.”

A State Performance at the Opera was, however, the principal feature in the Jubilee programme of June 23. With the exception of the Queen herself, almost every Royal personage who had taken part in the Jubilee Procession of the day before was present, and a special box on the right of the Royal Box was reserved for the Colonial Prime Ministers and their wives. The house was decorated from floor to ceiling with roses of every shade—some 60,000 blossoms being used for this purpose. Boxes on the grand tier, which had been sold by the management for £50 for the evening, were sold again at prices ranging up to £150, while the stalls realised £10 at least in every case. Famous as Covent Garden is for splendid “houses,” the brilliant assemblage on this evening quite eclipsed all previous gatherings.

It is not too much to say that the whole social world of the country was there. The handsome uniforms of the men, the beauty, diamonds, and dresses of the ladies, set in a frame of so much floral magnificence, made up a scene the splendour of which was never likely to fade from the memory of anyone who witnessed it. In all that gorgeous company none attracted as much admiration as the Princess of Wales. Simply dressed in white satin, with the red sash of some Order across her shoulders, and wearing a crown of diamonds, Her Royal Highness was, by universal consent, the queen of beauty in a house full of the most beautiful women in the three kingdoms.

It was only to have been expected, perhaps, that the most generally-approved Jubilee celebration should have been inaugurated by the same most charming Princess. This was nothing less than the entertaining at dinner of 300,000 of the London poor. The feast took place in different large buildings all over the poorer parts of the Metropolis. The Princess, accompanied by His Royal Highness and the Princesses Victoria of Wales and Charles of Denmark, drove round and was personally present at as many as possible of the dining halls. At the People’s Palace, in the Mile End Road, where 1,600 crippled children feasted, Her Royal Highness went in and out among the children, bestowing here and there a smile, and here and there a few words of kindly encouragement.

|State Reception.| A State Reception at Buckingham Palace, where Her Majesty was represented by the Prince and Princess of Wales, brought the festivities of June 24 to a close.

Friday, the 25th, was marked by an afternoon performance of “The Bells” and “The Story of Waterloo” at the Lyceum Theatre, to which the men of the Colonial Contingent had been kindly invited by Sir Henry Irving. |Special Performance at the Lyceum.| Sir Henry was uproariously cheered on his first appearance and at every interval during the afternoon, and after the splendid presentation of “The Bells” he was called again and again before the curtain, and finally compelled to make a speech. He said:—

“Ladies and Gentlemen—I will say my dear comrades—for your greeting to-day proves that we are comrades, one and all—I cannot tell you how great a delight and pleasure it has been to us to have the honour, the privilege, and the pride of making you welcome here to-day, and I hope—I can but hope—that centuries hence our children will hold very dear to them the spirit which gives us the opportunity of meeting you; that spirit of love for our Queen and our country—that great nation which you typify—which is the strength and glory and power of it; and of that sweet and gracious lady, that beloved Queen of ours, for whom your swords will flash and our hearts will pray. I thank you with all my heart and soul for your welcome, and I thank you on behalf of one and all behind this curtain, and we send our most cordial greeting to one and all in front.”

Eton College has always enjoyed the favour of royalty, and on the evening of Saturday, June 26, the boys furnished one of the most picturesque celebrations of Jubilee time. In the morning the Queen had entertained, in the Home Park at Windsor, five or six thousand children. |Torchlight Evolutions by Etonians.| After that a grand review of firemen from all parts of the country took place. At ten o’clock in the evening the Queen took up her place in a window in the east corridor, and the Eton boys filed into the Quadrangle (many of them in the uniform of their Volunteer Corps) each boy carrying a torch or a lantern. A beautiful effect was produced when the boys went through a variety of intricate evolutions.

All this time the Naval Review at Spithead had been a-preparing. Every nation that boasts a Navy had sent a ship, and the streets of Portsmouth were filled with our own bluejackets and those belonging to the foreign ships. |The Naval Review.| All the World had come to see for herself what the British Fleet was like, and we were able to provide such a Naval spectacle as has never been witnessed before. Just as on June 22 we had furnished forth an Imperial pageant demonstrating the scope and strength of our dominion over the land surface of the globe, so now, on Saturday, June 26, we showed that our sovereignty over the seas is as far reaching and even more absolute. Without taking one single vessel from the Mediterranean, from the Chinese Seas, from Australia, India, or North America, we displayed at Spithead such a congregation of ships of war as filled with amazement and despair those representatives of alien Powers who knew our sea-going prowess only by repute. In all about 165 ships of our Navy rode at ease, in four long lines and two short ones in the narrow Strait, and they were manned by 40,000 officers and men. The length of the lines of British ships aggregated nearly thirty miles! The Commander-in-Chief, Admiral Sir Nowell Salmon, G.C.B., V.C., flew his flag on the Renown.

Painful, indeed, must have been the reflections of those strangely-constituted Britons—if any were present—whose interest in public affairs is limited to the squalid area of parochial politics, as their eyes ranged over the water in the direction of this mighty fleet. With what vain regret must such as these have looked back on the days, some ten or a dozen years since, when British Naval supremacy was but a name—when we had few ships, and those out of date, and few men to man them. Alas! for the fond anticipations of those who were looking forward to the time when Britain should throw away her Empire and sink to the prosperous unimportance of a Belgium, the cheerful mediocrity of a Holland. There, at Spithead, was overwhelming proof that such views are not shared by the great bulk of British people, whether Liberals, Radicals, or Conservatives; that power is still sweet to the ruling race; that that Empire which has been bought with the blood of the Anglo-Saxon will be maintained in its integrity at any cost. Here they lay in serried ranks on the moving waters, orderly as soldiers on a parade ground—the steel-clad champions of a nation’s honour—as powerful to compel peace as to put the issue of war out of question if war must come.

Exactly at eight o’clock the combined fleet began to decorate itself with a million flags, taking time from the Commander-in-Chief’s flagship. The unnumbered merchant and pleasure craft of all kinds that dotted the waters and lay still at moorings by the quays were already gay with streaming pennants, nor were the fourteen battleships of the foreign powers behindhand in embellishing themselves for the great review. Some time before two o’clock the business of clearing the lines for the procession commenced, and at two precisely a Royal salute of guns on shore announced that the Royal yacht was under way. Not long afterwards the Victoria and Albert, with the Prince of Wales on board, preceded by the Trinity House yacht Irene, approached the head of the lines. Royal salutes and the cheers of bluejackets marked the passage of the Royal yacht along and through the lines. The Victoria and Albert was followed by a train of vessels—the Peninsular and Oriental Company’s liner, the Carthage, carrying those Royal guests for whom there was no accommodation on the Victoria and Albert; then another Royal yacht, the Alberta; then the Enchantress, with the Lords of the Admiralty and their friends; next the Danube, carrying the members of the House of Lords; after her the Wildfire, with the Colonial Prime Ministers and their suites and the Right Hon. Joseph Chamberlain, Secretary of State for the Colonies, on board; then again the superb Cunard liner, the Campania, carrying the House of Commons; and lastly the Eldorado, with the foreign Ambassadors. The procession occupied two hours in traversing the lines. Before the proceedings terminated the Victoria and Albert anchored abreast of the flagship Renown and the Prince of Wales received all flag officers, British and foreign, on board, After this ceremony the Royal yacht weighed anchor and returned to Portsmouth, receiving, as she departed, three cheers from every ship in the fleet. Simultaneously with the arrival of the Prince of Wales in Portsmouth Harbour the following signal was made to the fleet by Admiral Sir Nowell Salmon:—“I am commanded by the Prince of Wales, as representing the Queen, to express his entire satisfaction with the magnificent naval display at Spithead and the perfect manner in which all the arrangements were carried out, and at his request I order the main-brace to be spliced.” Splicing the main-brace, it should be explained, involves the serving out of an extra allowance of grog, and is still a very popular order with our man-o’-war’s men. Almost immediately after this a thunderstorm burst, accompanied by a deluge of rain, and for some hours the “city of ships” was lost in an impenetrable haze.

It was not destined, however, that the hundreds of thousands of spectators who were afloat in the pleasure boats and who lined Southsea beach and the shores of the Isle of Wight overlooking Spithead, were to lose the most beautiful spectacle of all. As daylight faded so faded the storm, and at a quarter-past nine o’clock, when the signal for lighting up the ships was given by a single gun, the conditions for viewing the illuminations were as perfect as possible. To quote again a writer, Mr. G. W. Steevens, to whom we are already much indebted:—“The thunderstorm was only an episode. Having done its business, it went dutifully away, and left the field clear for the illuminations. Out on the sea front you could see the lights of the fleet like glow-worms in the dark. Then suddenly there sounded a gun; and as I moved along Southsea Common there appeared in the line a ship of fire. A ship all made of fire—hull and funnels and military masts with fighting tops. And then another, and another, and another. The fleet revealed itself from behind the castle, ship after ship traced in fire against the blackness. From the head of Southsea they still came on—fresh wonders of grace and light and splendour, stretching away, still endlessly as in the daytime, till they became a confused glimmer six miles away. It was the fleet and yet not the fleet. You could recognise almost any ship by her lines and rig—just as if it had been in day, only transmuted from steel and paint into living gold. The Admirals still flew their flags as in the day, only to-night the flags were no longer bunting, but pure colour. The heavy hard fleet vanished, and there came out in its stead a picture of it magically painted in pure light.

“For three hours this miracle of brightness shone wondrously at Spithead. At half-past eleven or so the Prince returned the second time as before, and the golden fleet sent a thunder of salute after him. Then, as I stood on the high roof of the Central Hotel, the clock struck twelve, and before my eyes the golden fleet vanished—vanished clean away in a moment. You could just see it go.

“Here half a ship broken off, there masts and funnels hanging an instant in the air; it all vanished, and nothing at all was left except the rigging lights, trembling faintly once more on the dark sea.”

The Naval Review of 1897 was over. It had provided a sublime spectacle for our Colonial and foreign visitors, and it had taught a lesson that was meant to be learned by the whole World, and was actually so learned. A great military Power we might not be, but on the seas our dominion was, and must ever be, unquestionable. The chorus of admiration that arose from the Continental and American press showed that the necessity for this pre-eminence was recognised and allowed. If we had not known it long ourselves, our foreign critics, both friendly and hostile, had been aware that a great navy was the paramount condition of our national existence.

A circumstance that concerned the gallant men of the Colonial contingent who had taken part in the Jubilee Procession must here be touched on. |The Colonial Troops at the Naval Review.| Strange as it may seem, there had been originally no provision made for the representation at the Naval Review of the Colonial contingent. This remissness on the part of the authorities occasioned a good deal of surprise, which found its expression in the columns of the London Daily Mail; but it was not until the newspaper in question took the matter up in right good earnest that the authorities bestirred themselves. It was then proposed to charter a vessel and send the Colonials down to Portsmouth some two or three days after the Review—it being somewhat artlessly explained that as the fleet would still be in position and the Review well over, our visitors would enjoy a better opportunity of examining the ships in detail! Needless to say this line of argument found little favour with the Daily Mail, the Globe, and the other newspapers which were now strenuously advocating the claims of our visitors. They raised their voices once more, with the result that at the eleventh hour the responsible officials announced that the difficulties—whatever they were—had been surmounted, and that the Colonial contingent were to see the Imperial fleet on the actual day of Review in all its majesty and splendour. The fleet was again dressed and illuminated on the following Monday—Coronation Day. Mention should be made of a little vessel, first seen at the Review, which marks a new departure in marine engineering. This is the Turbinia torpedo-boat, driven by steam turbines at 2,100 revolutions, accomplishing 32 or 33 knots per hour.