The business of the Legislature was curtailed on Thursday night
; for there was the splendid fête at Buckingham Palace, and noble Lords and honourable Members had to don the dresses of EIFWARD the Third's days and take their station in the groups of amateur ballet-dancers and mummers. By one of those coinci- dences with which life is chequered—the gay and gorgeous jostling the sad and squalid—within the same week that has witnessed this unparalleled display at the Palace, the Queen has found it needful to issue a letter recommending charitable contributions in the places of public worship for the sufferers from protracted depression of trade. The cynic will remark that the Court dances while the poor starve. But after all, the young Queen is not the arbiter of fate and circumstance : she cannot, if she would, feed all the hungry ; she cannot, if she would, reject her flowing purse; and few, even of the hungering, will grudge pleasures not unsuited to her age and station, or the opportunity which the fete has afforded of bestowing on her youthful husband, for an evening at least, the name and insignia of King. Moreover, out of the lavish expendi- ture of aristocratic wealth, a modicum reaches the poor toilers and spinners.
