Jasper County Democrat, Volume 3, Number 42, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 January 1901 — VICTORIA’S LAST DAYS. [ARTICLE]

VICTORIA’S LAST DAYS.

The Queen’s Health Had Been Failing for Months. According to a London correspcndent, Queen Victoria’s constitution manifested the first symptoms of serious decay during the strfy of the court nt Windsor in November nnd December, 1899, when the evil tidings from the South African war came in rapid succession. Gen. Buller, before leaving, had assn-ed the Queen that the campaign would be “difficult, but not dangerous.” So tie news of re ca me upon her will: added severity. She never forgave Gfh. Buller. and when his name was submitted for a command to visit Windflw after

his return from the war she stroked it through with her pen. At this time the Queen first had fits of crying, which in an aggravated form preceded her present critical Alness. Her excitement over her Irish visit seemed to revive her, but before the visit ended a reaction set in. The public, however, were hoodwinked by accounts of her alleged replies tq addresses and other evidence of mental aefivity, when in reality the Queen lived as in a dream. 8o alarming was her condition beginning, in December that the royal family was precluded from going on the continent. The change, to Osborne did not work the benefit anticipated, as the war news and the illness of Empress Frederick became an obsession with the Qneem who suffered with increasing frequency from depression and crying. She was constantly referring to the death of the Duke of Saxe-Coburg and expressed a wish to see the duchess, who accordingly

was brought to Osborne, but the first interview xtih the duchess left the Queen prostrated with grief. The last drive she had wns with the duchess as a companion. On her return in the carriage the Qucoq was nsleep, in which condition she was taken to bed, from which she did not afterward arise. For a fortnight before Sir Francis Laking. without the knowledge of the public, hnd bech assisting Sir James Reid at Osborne, nnd later Sir Douglas Powell, the famous heart nnd lung spevinlist, was summoned owing to two attacks of heart failure. Then the Queen had a strong stroke of paralysis, after which she remained in n couiatesc or semi-f comatose condition, occasionally asking: "Is the war ofetf?" Princess Beatrice was the otilj» member of the family, according to reports whom the Queen seemed to plainly know iu hsr last hour*.