Dislocated Birthday

Albert, the obedient Duke of York, succeeded his brother to the throne of Britain six months ago with an understanding from the British Government that henceforth his name should be George. Last week, again at the suggestion of the British Government, obedient George VI, born Dec. 14, 1895, celebrated his birthday. From now on, it was announced, the official birthday of George VI shall be June 9.

Celebration of the King's birthday has become one of Britain's most impressive spectacles, drawing thousands of gaping tourists to London. Not the least of sanctified George V's services to his empire was the fact that he was born on June 3, when the weather is fine, when trade is apt to be dull. A king's birthday in the fog and rain of December and in the midst of the Christmas shopping rush is poor business. No reason whatever was given for choosing June 9 as George VI's birthday but the natural supposition was that weather records had been consulted.*

Whatever the reason, last week's ceremony of Trooping the Color, high spot in all King's Birthday celebrations, went off with unction and dispatch. Crowds as dense as those for the Coronation itself jammed the Mall from Buckingham Palace to the Horse Guards Parade back of Whitehall, packed solidly the rim of that vast parade ground. Forming three sides of a hollow square of bulbous bearskins and scarlet coats stood eight companies, chosen from the five regiments of the Brigade of Guards:

Grenadier, Coldstream, Scots, Irish and Welsh. The massed bands and drums were in the centre, and, flashing silver, blue and scarlet, in the southeast corner mounted troops of the Royal Horse Guards and Life Guards.

Onto the parade ground rode the royal procession. King George came first as Colonel-in-Chief of the Grenadiers, with the bright blue ribbon of the Garter across his chest. Behind rode his aides: the Dukes of Gloucester and Kent, the Earls of Athlone and Harewood and Prince Arthur of Connaught, behind them again, a patchwork of bright color, gilt and jangle, all the foreign military attaches. Passing the balcony of the Horse Guards Building where stood Mary, the Queen Mother and Queen Elizabeth, King George looked up from under his extinguisher of a busby and smiled. Princess Elizabeth waved prettily.

Riding slowly around the ranks, King George took up his station at the reviewing stand while the massed bands swaggered up & down, turned themselves inside out. Trooping the Color actually is a guard mount at which the "King's Color," a gold-embroidered flag presented to the Guards regiments by the Monarch, is paraded before the troops.

Emotionally, the ceremony of Trooping the Color is the salute of the King himself, surrounded by his Guards, to the emblem of monarchy, a ritual devised by Stuart Charles II after his restoration. The Horse Guards Parade is the scene of the ceremony as the nearest available spot to the actual scene of the execution of Charles I. Although each regiment has its King's Color, only one flag is used for the ceremony, the regiments taking the honor in turn. Last week it was the Coldstream Guards' turn. While two officers and the Ensign for the Color marched across the field to take the flag from the sergeant and sentries guarding it. the band played The British Grenadier.* This was no slight to the Coldstream, but meant that the King's Color was always originally entrusted to the grenadier company of the several regiments.

After the Color had marched round the square of glistening bayonets came the march past, in slow time--most difficult, most impressive part of the ceremony. The British slow march, a half-time adaptation of the Prussian goosestep, is said to be an invention of choleric old George II who found it an instantaneous method of discovering how many of his troops were drunk. All looked sober last week.

*Old Etonians, who form a large proportion of all British Governments, felt a slight inconvenience at the June 3 birthday of George V, since the school's greatest festival, the birthday of George III, is June 4. *Words: Some talk of Alexander, and some of Hercules Of Hector and Lysander and of such great names as these But of all the world's brave heroes, there's none that can compare With a tow row, row row, row row, with the British Grenadier.

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