Westward with the Prince of Wales

by W. Douglas Newton

There was a formal program, but on the whole the crowd eliminated that for one of its own liking. It listened to addresses; it heard Sir Robert Borden, and General Currie, only just returned to Canada, express the Dominion's sense of welcome. Then it expressed it itself by sweeping the police completely away, and surrounding the Prince in an excited throng.

In the midst of that crowd the Prince stood laughing and cheerful, endeavouring to accommodate all the hands that were thrust towards him. A review of Boy Scouts was timed to take place, but the crowd "scratched" it. The neat wooden barricades and the neat ropes that linked them up about a neat parade ground on the green were reduced by the scientific process of bringing an irresistible force against a movable body. Boy Scouts ceased to figure in the program and became mere atoms in a mass that surrounded the Prince once more, and expressed itself in the usual way now it had him to itself.

As usual the Prince himself showed not the slightest disinclination for fitting in with such an impromptu ceremony. He was as happy and in his element as he always was when meeting everyday people in the closest intimacy. It was a carnival of democracy, but one in which he played as democratic a part as any among that throng.

Yet though the Prince himself was the direct incentive to the democratic exchanges that happened throughout the tour, there was no doubt that the strain of them was exhausting.

He possesses an extraordinary vitality. He is so full of life and energy that it was difficult to give him enough to do, and this and the fact that Canada's wonderful welcome had called into play a powerful sympathetic response, led him to throw himself into everything with a tireless zest. Nevertheless, the strenuous days at Toronto, followed by this strenuous welcome at Ottawa, had made great demands upon him, and it was decided to cut down his program that day to a Garden Party in the charming grounds of Government House, and to shelve all engagements for the next day, Friday, August 29th.

The Prince agreed to the dropping of all engagements save one, and that was the Public Reception at the City Hall on the 29th. It was the most exacting of the events on the program, but he would not hear of its elimination; the only alteration in detail that he made was that his right hand, damaged at Toronto, should be allowed to rest, and that all shaking should be done with the left.

The Public Reception took place. The only invitation issued was one in the newspapers. The newspapers said "The Prince will meet the City." He did. The whole City came. It was again the most popular, as well as the most stimulating of functions. And it followed the inevitable lines. All manner of people, all grades of people in all conditions of costume attended. Old ladies again asked him when he was going to get married. Lumbermen in calf-high boots grinned "How do, Prince?" Mothers brought babies in arms, most of them of the inarticulate age, and of awful and solemn dignity of under one—it was as though these Ottawa mothers had been inspired by the fine and homely loyalty of a past age, and had brought their babies to be "touched" by a Prince, who, like the Princes of old, was one with as well as being at the head of the great British family.

And with all the people were the little boys, eager, full of initiative and cunning. Shut out by the Olympians, one group of little boys found a strategic way into the Hall by means of a fire-escape staircase. They had already shaken hands with the Prince before their flank movement had been discovered and the flaw in the endless queue repaired. That queue was never finished. Although, on the testimony of the experts, the Prince shook hands at the rate of forty-five to the minute, the time set aside for the reception only allowed of some 2,500 filing before him.

But those outside that number were not forgotten. The Prince came out to the front of the hall to express his regret that Nature had proved niggardly in the matter of hands. He had only one hand, and that limited greetings, but he could not let them go without expressing his delight to them for their warm and personal welcome.

The disappointed ones recognized the limits of human endeavour. His popularity was in no way lessened. They were content with having seen "the cute little feller" as some of them called him, and made the most of that experience by listening to, and swopping anecdotes about, him.