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All other happenings throughout the
world have been dwarfed by the obsequies of the nation’s illustrious
dead. To such an extent has this been true that it has almost seemed
as if the activities of the world were stilled for part of a week.
The observance of Thursday as a day of mourning throughout the country
was most impressive in its completeness. The general suspension
of business, the draping of public and private buildings, the flags
at half mast in every town and hamlet in the land, and on all its
lakes and rivers, and somewhere on almost every great sea throughout
the earth, told with sad imposingness of the grief of a great people
for a lost leader. Not less memorable, perhaps even more so, were
the observances of the day in other lands, the most remarkable of
these being the stately services in memory of the President in Westminster
Abbey and St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, where so many of the greatest
of England’s dead are laid at rest. The general postponement of
gatherings, which, of course, marked the observance of the day in
the United States, was also a feature of the regard paid to Mr.
McKinley’s memory abroad. Learned societies suspended their sessions,
the Stock Exchange in London shut its doors, all public functions
were omitted by the traveling members of the British royal family
in Canada and on the continent, in Asia and Africa, and in the remote
islands of the sea the funeral day of the departed chief of the
state was marked by impressive memorial services.
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