A SOP TO THE CROWD

The secret christening of Princess Mary's second son has aroused complaint among the good parishioners of Goldsborough. Though he is only Master Gerald David Lascelles his humble neighbors still insist upon their right to tyrannize over him as though he were the Prince of Wales. Of his, every infantile move they expect him to make a public spectacle.

Sympathy for the position of the Lascelles is easily aroused. The British royal family in all of its ramifications is expected to make a show of its existence, to make all its acts functions, in order to satisfy the English public. And satisfying the English is no whit easier than gratifying the whims of any other body, public.

Yet in spite of the attendant annoyance it might have been wiser for Princess Mary to christen her baby publicly. If it were not for a king and emperor, for his opening of Parliament in forty pound robes of state, for a Prince of Wales whose tours furnish reams of copy the British Empire might not be the unit which it is today. Then, too, there is always the danger that if the circus-parade instinct of the British is not appeased the worried tax-payers will refuse to support an institution which, if nothing else, is an expensive luxury.