The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1874-04-04 00:00:00

A "DRAWING ROOM."

The Daily News thus describes one of the grand sights of
London, on the cawaaion of a "Drawing Room" being held :

For the crowds of ladies who compose seven-eights
of the spectators along the Mall on a Drawing Room
Day fine weather is an absolute necessity to enjoy-
ment, although there may be found ill-natured cynics
who say that some of the Court-going dames, sitting
patiently in their carriages until the Palace gates shall
be reached, do not successfully bear the searching test
of a bright sunshine. Wednesday last was a Drawing
Room of Drawing Rooms, for special honour was in-
tended and paid through it to the young Russian Prin-
cess Who has recently become one of our Royal Family.
A glorious spring day favoured the thousands of per-
eons who found pleasure in the sight, without the re-
strictions of chamberlain or marshal, and without the
preliminary worry and cost of feathers, trains, and low
dresses, as by Court etiquette prescribed. Leigh Hunt,
in his delightful topographical and historical gossip !
about London, remarks that St. James's Park is asso
rioted in contemporary minds with nothing but ,
amusing recollections of bands of music, marching I
soldiers, maidservants, and children, drinkings of milk
from the eow, the hoop petticoats of the Court days of I
George the Third, and fading images of passages in
novels, or of shabby-genteel debtors sitting lounging on
the benohes. St. James's Park was gay with a scene
into which none of these itenfs entered. The docile
Guernsey now, it is true, stood in her usual place by
the orange stall, looking, as she always does, as if I
nothing would afford her so much pleasure as to be
milked out of life in the publieservice ; but the children
had been sent home to be out of harm's way, and the
maid servants had other claims upon their attention.
The Mall on a Drawing Room day is a curious sight,
even when, as frequently happens, the rain beats upon
the carriage windows and the horses are splashed with
mud; it is brilliant also when, as on the present oc-
casion, the sky is cloudless and the ground dry. In
one of his latest novels Dickens (who, it may be re-
remembered in passing, always hit hard at these Court
ceremonials) was particularly happy in his character of
a little seamstress— it was the doll's dressmaker in
"Our Mutual Friend "—who used to loiter about the
doorways of the wealthy, or in the park, to scan
the recent fashions, as illustrated by the dresses of
the arriving lady guests. There is, no doubt, at
all times a large contingent of such spectators in
the Mall. They pass with a business-like air from
carriage to carriage, generally in groups of two
and three, and sip honey, so to speak, from every
flower. We noticed one such young lady, whose special
forte seemed to be rapidity of observation, and to her
had been assigned the duty ofilictating in undertones
to a female companion, who surreptitiously, under
cover of a grey muff, pencilled hastily notes of her
friend's criticisms. But only the initiated into the
mysteries of ladies' toilets could in many instances
deduce definite conclusions from what caught the public
eye. Mostly all that appeared was is head rising out of
billows of gauzy or silky material, the billows swelling
in high tide half way up the carriage windows. Some-
times, however, when the fates were more generous, or
the ladies' trains more circumscribed, the inmates could
be plainly seen, and were, it must be confessed, in-
variably stared at with undisguised boldness. Well-
dressed spectators of both sexes made nothing of stand-
ing close to a carriage, and staring point-blank at
I those within, or of discussing their peculiarities, or
supposed defects, in frank everyday tone and lan-
guage. The gentlemen in Court dress, it was amusing
to 'perceive, bore this severe ordeal with less equani-
mity than the ladies, who, knowing they were keenly
and even rudely passed under review, yet looked
serenely over the grass and water, apparently uncon-
scious that there was another human being within a
league. It must, of course, be very trying to be kept
waiting in the Mall, moving forward at the rate of a
yard every ten minutes ; although there is the consela-
Lion that what one carriage suffers is suffered by a
couple of hundred similarly placed. The block of
vehicles is, on the other hand, a priceless boon to the
ladies and gentlemen thronging each side of the road-
way, since it enables them to regard leisurely, and
criticise deliberately, the glittering harness and car-
riages, the gorgeous coachmen and footmen sitting or
standing behind the huge bouquets of flowers to which
they have been securely bound, and the fortunate
people inside the vehicles. Near the Buckingham
Palace railings the crowds were very dense, and if
there was was a rough element abroad, here it was to
be found. Perhaps we have no right to expect much
delicacy or politeness in an English crowd, but it is to
be hoped some of the ladies whose carriages were com-
pelled to halt outside, however much their appearance
might be held to excuse comment, did not hear certain
opinions uttered, in no modulated tones of voice, from
the side-walks. Happily, ill-behaviour of this de-
scription was exceptional, the crowd, as a rule, re-
garding the sight and the sunshine with an enjoyment
that was not diminished by its undemonstrative cha-
racter.