ho were on the town Council gathered round
the royal prince and shook hands and told him that he simply must stay
over. George Rapley, the bank manager, said that if he wanted a cheque
cashed or anything of that sort to come right into the Royal Bank and
he would do it for him. The prince had two aides-de-camp with him and a
secretary, but Bob Curran said to bring them uptown too and it would be
all right. We had planned to have an oyster supper for the Prince at Jim
Smith's hotel and then take him either to the Y.M.C.A. Pool Room or else
over to the tea social in the basement of the Presbyterian Church.

Unluckily the prince couldn't stay. It turned out that he had to get
right back into his train and go on to Peterborough, Ontario, where they
were to have a brass band to meet him, which naturally he didn't want to
miss.

But the point is that it was a real welcome. And you could see that the
prince appreciated it. There was a warmth and a meaning to it that the
prince understood at once. It was a pity that he couldn't have stayed
over and had time to see the carriage factory and the new sewerage
plant. We all told the prince that he must come back and he said that if
he could he most certainly would. When the prince's train pulled out
of the station and we all went back uptown together (it was before
prohibition came to Ontario) you could feel that the institution of
royalty was quite solid in Orillia for a generation.

But you don't get that sort of thing in England.

There's a formality and coldness in all their dealings with royalty that
would never go down with us. They like to have the King come and open
Parliament dressed in royal robes, and with a clattering troop of
soldiers riding in front of him. As for taking him over to the Y.M.C.A.
to play pin pool, they never think of it. They have seen so much of the
mere outside of his kingship that they don't understand the heart of it
as we do in Canada.

But let us turn to the House of Commons: for no description of England
would be complete without at least some mention of this interesting
body. Indeed for the ordinary visitor to London the greatest interest of
all attaches to the spacious and magnificent Parliament Buildings. The
House of Commons is commodiously situated beside the River Thames. The
principal features of the House are the large lunch room on the western
side and the tea-room on the terrace on the eastern. A series of smaller
luncheon rooms ex