Rensselaer Journal, Volume 10, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 January 1901 — DEATH OF QUEEN VICTORIA [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

DEATH OF QUEEN VICTORIA

Passes Peacefully Away Surrounded by Family. ALBERT EDWARD IS NOW KING He Will Ascend the Throne as IdwarS VIL History of the Queen's Falling Health—Had Been AUlng for • Long Time. Queen Victoria, the most beloved of all Europe’s rulers, died Tuesday morning. She was surrounded by members of the royal family. Her death came without pain. The alight rally of Monday morning which gave rise to the hope that she might live a few days was dissipated

late at night when she began to sink rapidly. The royal family present wept silently as the most famous monarch of the century passed into the Great Beyond. Preparations vfrere at once begun to officially convey the news to the Prince of Wales and crown him as King Edward VII.

(queen failed gradually. H»r Mind Had Been Glrlni Way 4m Months. A dispatch to the New York World from London says: “Your correspondent has obtained from a source within court circles the first comprehensive account of the queen's illness that has been given out They show that her mind has been failing for many months, even before her visit to Ireland. She has been a mental wreck for months. Whenever it was officially announced that she made felicitous responses to speeches at public functions it is a matter of cold fact that the poor old queen was in such a daze that all she could say to her companions was ‘Where am I?’ Several time* when she has appeared in public during the past six or eight months she has fallen asleep.

War Frayed oo Bar Mind. “When her brain was clear she immediately reverted to the horrors of the war in South Africa. Again and again she harped upon the war. This war, which she strove with all her power to avert, made the last hours of England's queen who reigned happily longer than most men live, most wretched and miserable. In her lucid intervals it haunted her incessantly. Gen. Buller, before leaving England for the South African campaign, assured the queen that the war would be ‘difficult, but not dangerous.’ In consequence the news of the many revedses came to her with added severity. She felt that she had been deceived and never forgave Buller. When his name was submitted to her for a visit to Windsor after his return from South Africa she stroked it through with her pen. « Suffered Flu of Crying. "It was at this time that the queen had the fits of crying in an aggravated form which immediately preceded her critical illness. The assassination of the king of Italy last July shocked her deeply. The news of the illness of her eldest child, the Empress Frederick; added greatly to her distress, and the fact that she was physically unable to visit the empress and see her before either died made her nervous and excitable. Later came the death of her second son, the duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (Edinburgh), which in a few weeks was followed by the death of her grandson, Prince Christian Victor, son of her daughter Helena, wife of Prince Christian of Schleswig-Holstein. The prospect of an indefinite prolongation of the war was a trial under which her health again began to sink in November last. Her spirit remained undaunted, and when it was reported that President Kruger had said the war would claim her as one of its victims, the queen replied: ‘I may die, but Kruger won’t kill me.’ The last time she drove outside the grounds of Osborne, the villagers of East Cowes were astounded to hear the clear treble of the son of the princess of Battenberg trilling out popular songs from the royal carriage. “The boy was singing to keep hi* grandmother awake, in obedience to .her wishes. Now and again she dozed, wakening to tell the boy to continue his chant, which to the initiated onlooker contained a world of pathos.

QUEEN VICTORIA.