It may be suggested that the ladies of the Royal Family, who are instinct with patriotism and love of their fellow-countrymen, may have preferred that their charities should pass unpraised by the nation. But even were that so, one would expect that the expenditure of some £11,000 out of the King’s private purse would have been reported far and wide, especially since it had been impossible to conceal that the troops were suffering severely from want of proper headgear in the tropical summer of North Africa. But beyond the bare announcement that the King had ordered this immense number of sun-helmets to be procured for the troops in urgent haste, from abroad, because they could not be purchased at home, no comment was made on an act of truly royal generosity. A Liberal paper said that information on the subject was held back by ministerial instructions “until a suitable time for publication arrived,” but beyond the bare fact of the number given and the price said to have been paid, no further details were ever published. The Conservative organs confined themselves to commenting unfavourably on the size, shape, and colour of the new headgear, and one of their correspondents turned the whole affair into ridicule, describing the soldiers in the new helmets as “having the appearance of walking mushrooms, which destroyed all that had hitherto been picturesque in the campaign.” But when the illustrated papers brought out one picture after another in which the men were seen wearing these solar topees, and the soldiers began to write home to their families that “the King’s helmets” not only protected them from the sun by day, but kept their heads dry and warm while sleeping on the damp ground by night, the people scored another black mark against Señor Maura, crediting him with a deliberate intention to conceal evidences of the King’s care for the soldiers from the people at home. The vests sent out by the Queen were never mentioned at all by the Press. Yet my informant, a returned soldier, told me they must have numbered thousands, for, said he, “there seemed to be enough for all of us; at any rate, all I knew had them.” It was thanks to these, he said, that there were not many more fever patients when the torrential rains of October fell on an Army destitute of winter clothing and even of sufficient sleeping accommodation, so that for nights at a stretch “men lay on soaked mattresses or blankets only, sunk in a bed of mud.” “The Queen’s vests kept us warm in the middle, and that helped us to bear the wet and cold,” he said.