The Royal family have a remarkably soft thing of it. Her Royal Highness, the Princess Royal, receives a yearly allowance of eight thousand pounds, the Prince of Wales receives the snug sum of forty thousand pounds, which he manages to squander in questionable ways (this does not include the grants Parliament has made at divers and sundry times to pay his debts), the Princess of Wales ten thousand pounds, Prince Alfred ten thousand pounds from his marriage and fifteen thousand pounds from his majority—twenty-five thousand pounds in all—Prince Arthur fifteen thousand pounds, Princess Alice six thousand pounds, Princess Louise, she of Canada, six thousand pounds, Princess Mary five thousand pounds, Prince Leopold fifteen thousand pounds, Princess Augusta three thousand pounds, Duke of Cambridge twelve thousand pounds, and in addition the last mentioned fraud has princely pay as field marshal, general, colonel, and no one knows what else.
Whoever chooses may figure up what all this costs the people of Great Britain. I have not the patience.
And bear in mind the fact that this does not represent any portion of what these absorbers take out of the people. This is merely pin money for the female leeches and pocket money for the male! In addition to this they have enormous estates all over England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales; they have offices beyond number, with a salary attached to each, and they have allowances for everything under heaven. If the tax-payer breathes it costs him something, for the nobility have revenues based upon everything.
The Royal household is a curiosity. There’s the Lord Steward, who draws two thousand pounds a year; the Lord Treasurer and Comptroller, nine hundred pounds each; Master of the Household, twenty one hundred and fifty-eight pounds; Secretary of the Board of Green Cloth, whatever that may be, three hundred pounds; Paymaster, five hundred pounds; Lord Chamberlain, two thousand pounds; Keeper of the Privy Purse, two thousand pounds; Assistant Keeper of the Privy Purse, one thousand pounds. It takes two men to keep the privy purse, and it is large enough to require it. Then there are eight Lords in waiting, who get for waiting seven hundred and two pounds each, and there are grooms in waiting, grooms of the privy chamber, extra grooms in waiting, four gentlemen ushers, one “Black Rod,” whatever he may do I don’t know, but for being a “Black Rod” he gets two thousand pounds a year. Then there’s a clerk of the closet, mistress of the robes, ladies of the bed-chamber, and bed-chamber women, maids of honor, and poet laureate, and examiner of plays.
The poet laureate gets five hundred pounds a year for writing a very bad ode in praise of Her Majesty on each birthday, which must be a very bitter pill for him, he being actually a poet. But he does not give the worth of the money, for there is absolutely nothing in the Queen of England to praise. Mr. Tennyson has a very hard place.
THE ROYAL HOUSEHOLD.
The Master of the Horse receives two thousand five hundred pounds, the Master of the Buck-hounds one thousand seven hundred pounds, Hereditary Grand Falconer one thousand two hundred pounds, (by the way kings don’t falcon any more), then there are eight Equerries in Ordinary at seven hundred pounds each, which is certainly cheap; five Pages of Honor at one hundred and twenty pounds each, and a Master of the Tennis Court, which is a sort of a ten pins, I suppose, at one hundred and thirty-two pounds.
These, understand, are only a few of the people belonging to the Royal household. There are over a thousand persons, male and female, attached thereto, all receiving magnificent salaries, for real or imaginary services to Her Majesty.