lem of how to obtain a crust at dawn.

CHAPTER XII--CORONATION DAY

O thou that sea-walls sever
From lands unwalled by seas!
Wilt thou endure forever,
O Milton's England, these?
Thou that wast his Republic,
Wilt thou clasp their knees?
These royalties rust-eaten,
These worm-corroded lies
That keep thy head storm-beaten,
And sun-like strength of eyes
From the open air and heaven
Of intercepted skies!

SWINBURNE.

Vivat Rex Eduardus! They crowned a king this day, and there has been
great rejoicing and elaborate tomfoolery, and I am perplexed and
saddened. I never saw anything to compare with the pageant, except
Yankee circuses and Alhambra ballets; nor did I ever see anything so
hopeless and so tragic.

To have enjoyed the Coronation procession, I should have come straight
from America to the Hotel Cecil, and straight from the Hotel Cecil to a
five-guinea seat among the washed. My mistake was in coming from the
unwashed of the East End. There were not many who came from that
quarter. The East End, as a whole, remained in the East End and got
drunk. The Socialists, Democrats, and Republicans went off to the
country for a breath of fresh air, quite unaffected by the fact that four
hundred millions of people were taking to themselves a crowned and
anointed ruler. Six thousand five hundred prelates, priests, statesmen,
princes, and warriors beheld the crowning and anointing, and the rest of
us the pageant as it passed.

I saw it at Trafalgar Square, "the most splendid site in Europe," and the
very innermost heart of the empire. There were many thousands of us, all
checked and held in order by a superb display of armed power. The line
of march was double-walled with soldiers. The base of the Nelson Column
was triple-fringed with bluejackets. Eastward, at the entrance to the
square, stood the Royal Marine Artillery. In the triangle of Pall Mall
and Cockspur Street, the statue of George III. was buttressed on either
side by the Lancers and Hussars. To the west were the red-coats of the
Royal Marines, and from the Union Club to the embouchure of Whitehall
swept the glittering, massive curve of the 1st Life Guards--gigantic men
mounted on gigantic chargers, steel-breastplated, steel-helmeted, steel-
caparisoned, a great war-sword of steel ready to the hand of the powers
that be. And further, throughout the crowd, were flung long lines of the
Metropolitan Con