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Foreign News: Elizabeths

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TIME

COMMONWEALTH (British Commonwealth of Nations)

To the Queen-Empress there have been born no children for 21 years.* Yet as Her Majesty re-tired at Buckingham Palace one evening last week, she was pleasantly conscious that a room adjoining her bedchamber sheltered an infant princess. Her Majesty and the rest of the royal family had partaken of an unusually frugal meal. No soup was served, and everything was cooked with as little grease as possible. Such a dinner is Her Majesty’s invariable precaution against queasiness of the stomach when she is in expectancy of taking a sea voyage. The soupless royal meal was served for the benefit of the Duke and Duchess of York. On the morrow they were to embark aboard H. M. S. Renown to visit Australia and there open the new Parliament Buildings at Canberra.±I In their absence Queen Mary will care for “Baby Betty”** (Princess Elizabeth) their eight-months-old daughter.

Parting. “Baby Betty,” when an hour old, yawned at the Home Secretary Sir William (“Jix”) Joynson-Hicks, who was present to attest her birth. Though an infant, she has gained the reputation of being distinctly self-possessed. Therefore when her petite and tearful mother, Elizabeth, Duchess of York, bent over Princess Elizabeth to say goodbye, last week, the royal infant was concentrating upon an effort to suck her left great toe. . . . “God bless my baby,” said Elizabeth of York softly.

FarewelL At Victoria Station the King-Emperor and his Consort, who never leave London to welcome or say farewell to anyone, bade Godspeed to the Duke and Duchess as they entrained for Portsmouth. With grave decorum the King-Emperor entered the Ducal railway compartment, kissed his daughter-in-law, half-embraced his son with a fatherly pat upon the back and stepped out of the com-partment again onto the platform. Edward of Wales, always in high spirits when chatting with his merry sister-in-law, rode down to Portsmouth, as did Prince Henry and Prince George. When the royal party stepped upon the quay, it was seen that the Duchess had donned with a reason her ensemble of silver grey shoes, stockings, custume and hat, relieved only by a bunch of violets. There, lolling upon the waves, lay the grim, dark grey Atlantic Fleet; but, in the centre, the Renown shone all resplendent in silver grey dress paint. . . .

Sailors, arm-in-arm, lined the decks and guns of the Renown. Shrill boatswains’ whistles piped as the ducal party stepped aboard. Then the standard of the Duke of York broke out at the masthead. Thunderous, a salute roared from the battleships Iron Duke, Marlborough, Benbow and Emperor of India. Humorously pat, the Renown’s band blared: “The Girl I Left Behind Me.”

As the great bow wave of the Renown feathered out and she steamed away, a slender male figure climbed atop a pile of chains and rubbish on the wharf. For some moments the handkerchief of Edward of Wales was waved by its owner.

Unprecedented. Aboard the Renown the Duchess and her two ladies-in-waiting*experienced the qualm of being not merely the only three women on a very big ship, but absolutely the only women who have ever been transported — except in emergencies — aboard a British ship of war. No maids are at their disposal. Their hair will be dressed by a marine especially educated for this duty by London coiffeurs (TIME, Dec. 27). They must subject their washables to the deadly friction of sailor scrubbing boards.

*Her last child was Prince John, died 1919. ±The new Australian Federal Capital. **Not to be confused with Miss Betty Baldwin, 18, daughter of the Prime Minister. *The Countess of Cavan, and the Hon. Mrs. John Gilmour.

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