Page:King Edward VII, his life & reign; the record of a noble career 3.djvu/23

Rh Prince and Princess went to King's Lynn from Sandringham, accompanied by the Earl of Leicester and Lord Sondes, and inspected the show of the Norfolk Agricultural Society, at which he was a very successful exhibitor, taking a second prize for Shorthorn heifers, a like award in ponies and in Southdown ^we lambs, and a first prize for the best Southdown ram. He took the chair at a banquet in the afternoon, having the Princess on his right hand; and, replying to the toast of his health, pro- posed most fitly by the Earl of Leicester, he agreed with that nobleman that it was " most desirable that ladies should associate themselves in their husbands' pursuits, and when the Princess did not accompany him he always felt that there was something wanting". He also referred to the high position of Norfolk as in agricultural county, and noted that the fame of the great nobleman, better known as " Coke of Norfolk ", had not been forgotten by his son, the present Earl of Leicester. He further declared that "a landlord ought to feel a pride in having the working classes properly housed on his estate", and that he felt pride and satisfaction in having attained that object on his own land. The last toast, proposed by the royal chairman, was that of " The Ladies ".
 * The next public appearance was on June 24, in a far different

scene. In company with the Princess, and on behalf of the Queen, he opened the Bethnal Green Museum. This institution was established by the Committee of the Privy Council on Edu- cation, in the Science and Art Department, as a branch of their museum at South Kensington. The name of the east-end locality where it was founded had long been, to the " west enders " of the metropolis, suggestive of nothing but poverty, squalor, and mental and spiritual depression. That crowded quarter of the vast capital had, however, some historical and commercial interest. To the district called Spitalfields there had migrated from France, after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, a large number of Huguenot or French Protestant exiles, who introduced silk- weaving. The industry grew and flourished, and Spitalfields silk goods held a high place in the world of luxury and fashion. In