|At the Mansion House.| At a quarter to one the Queen’s carriage halted outside the Mansion House. The Lady Mayoress presented Her Majesty with an exquisite bouquet of orchids in a beautiful silver basket. “The Queen,” says a writer in the Times, “was graciously pleased to accept the gift, and twice said to her Ladyship, ‘I am too grateful,’ at the same time extending her hand to the Lady Mayoress, who kissed it.”
G. F. Watts, R. A.] [Photo by F. Hollyer.
THE MARQUIS OF SALISBURY, K.G.
Lord Robert Cecil, eldest surviving son of the second Marquis, was born at Hatfield in 1830, and educated at Eton and Christchurch, Oxford. M.P. for Stamford, 1853–1868, when he succeeded to the Marquisate. Secretary of State for India, 1866–67, and 1874–78. Minister Plenipotentiary at the Constantinople Conference, 1876; Foreign Secretary, 1878–80. With Lord Beaconsfield he represented England at the Berlin Conference in 1878. Leader of the Conservative Party in the House of Peers since 1881; Premier 1885–86, 1886–1892, and since 1895.
It is needless to trace the progress of the Empress-Queen through the districts inhabited by her poorer, but no less affectionate, people—from the City to London Bridge, in Southwark, in Lambeth, and on over Westminster Bridge. Everywhere her reception was the same—a magnificent outburst of love and devotion.
The stand that had been erected for the Members of Parliament at Westminster occupied almost the whole space between the Clock Tower and the river, and was crowded in every corner. Places had been balloted for and Conservatives and Radicals were found seated together in the utmost harmony, differences of political opinion being entirely forgotten in the universal desire to see the procession, and to do honour to the great lady who was the centre and cynosure of all. When the Queen’s carriage came in sight the Members rose in one body and cheered as they had never cheered even their chosen leaders in the House itself. This assuredly is a testimony to the universal esteem in which Her Majesty is held by the Nation at large. There were about 600 Members, representing every shade of political feeling throughout the three kingdoms, rivalling one another in their eagerness to display their devotion to the hereditary head of the State. It is safe to say that no popularly-elected president of any existing Republic would be greeted in the streets of his capital by all classes of his fellow-citizens with a tithe of the respect, admiration, and affection accorded to our constitutional Monarch on this day of her Jubilee. The Sovereigns of the other European States—some of whom are wont to exact loyalty at the point of the sword—may well have envied the happy lot of a Queen whose chief protection is her people’s love.
From a Photograph] [by the London Stereoscopic Co.