A ROYAL "LUNCH" PREVENTED.
It must be a relief, indeed, to Her Majesty to get away to Scotland, where in the retirement of Balmoral she is at least free from the importunities of that sort of loyalty which deprives her of the common comforts of a private individual. Provincial Mayors are perhaps the greatest pests that Royalty has to encounter; and the Preston Corporation seems to have made itself a fearful bore on the return of the Queen from Scotland. No sooner was it understood that Her Majesty would stop at Preston fifteen minutes to take luncheon, than the Town Clerk issued a circular to all the members of the Corporation, calling on them to meet for the purpose of deciding how the fifteen minutes Her Majesty had allowed herself for refreshment could be consumed by some municipal twaddle, of which Royalty was to be made the recipient. Instead of the Queen being suffered to take her hurried basin of mock-turtle at the station, she was to be bothered with calf's head, in the shape of the Mayor, and a dish of hash was to be set before her in the form of an adulatory address from the authorities.
It is indeed hard that Royalty cannot get a quarter of an hour free for luncheon on a long journey, but is compelled to give up every minute of spare time to the swallowing of a quantity of unwholesome stuff in the way of flattery from the authorities. We admire a loyal address when circumstances render it appropriate and convenient; but to intercept Her Majesty at every resting point on her way, and subject her to the fatigue of listening to and answering a mass of commonplace rubbish from the mouth of a Mayor, is no less impertinent on the part of the authorities, than it must be annoying to the Sovereign. We are quite sure that the Queen would prefer a sandwich to a puff, and a glass of sherry to all the milk-and-water in the world—notwithstanding all the sugar that the authorities might put into it.