On the following day, in Hyde Park, London, the queen drove in state
down a long and happy line of twenty-seven thousand school-children, who
had been made happy by a banquet and various amusements, besides being
given a multitude of toys. The special feature of the occasion was the
presentation by the queen of a specially manufactured jubilee-ring,
which she gave with a kind speech to a very happy twelve-year-old girl
who had attended school for several years without missing a session.
There was also a review of fifty-six thousand volunteers at Aldershot, a
grand review of one hundred and thirty-five warships at Spithead, and
other ceremonies, one of the chief of which was the laying by the queen,
on the 4th of July, of the foundation stone of the Imperial Institute in
the Albert Hall, this Institute being intended to stand as a sign of the
essential unity of the British Empire.
The well-loved queen of the British nation was to live to celebrate in
health and strength another jubilee year, that of the sixtieth
anniversary of her reign, a distinction in which she stands alone in
the history of the island kingdom. George III., who came nearest, died a
few months before the completion of his sixty years' period.
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