Morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven [Conn.]) 1848-1894, 1882-11-06
social Patronage Ia England.


There are certain subtle governing rules in
English society which one can scarcely define
as laws, yet which, from being customs have
gradually come to be considered as rights
those curious prerogatives of wealth social
power about which no American can ever
come to any comfortable decision. Perhaps
the most obtrusively apparent of these is the
system of patronage in society, which has in
it elements SO repulsive to all honest feeling
that it provokes the American mind to criti-
else it's results as under bred"
Mr.. James Duchess, calling upon Miss
Bessie, in an International Episode and
coldly and, to our way of thinking, vulgarly,
staring at and questioning the American, is
a very fair expression of that sense of con
ferring favors which SO often governs the
Engishwoman of rank but society is more
to blame for it than the individual, since
the ''other side" the predominant feeling of
one class toward another is that of the limi-
tations which exist between them. Perhaps
nothing more forcibly emphasizes this than
the method of introducing professional sing
ing recitation at evening parties.
Now 1t is we'll known that the concert
and dramatic stage many ladies and gen
tlemen of most undoubted culture, whose
society could only be an acquisition to any
social gathering, but III London these people
are hired to perform at any evening party,
where they are treated with a certain mock
sembiance of hospitality, which must affect
them as far beneath the complete ignoring of
them as guests.
The mode of procuring their services is as
follows Mrs. A. Lady B is going to give
an evening party. AS there is to be no dan
cling, something must be done to enliven the
! guests, since introductons not made. and
people rarely talk to each other; it has
come in fashion to have music. Herr Won
D--and Mademoiselie F-and countless
other artists are delighting audiences at st.
James and the Albert Hall, her lad yship
writes them, inviting them to her party, and
asking what will be their terms for playing
| or singing one or two or three times The
| terms Individually are fixed ones-from 10 to
| 60 or even 80 guineas an evening, and so the
bargain is concluded. Now if these ladies
| and gentlemen could enter Lady A. s or b. s
| drawing room as they would go upon the
stage, quitting it after each song, the humii
! alton aud indignity might be qualified, for 1t
would be something like singing to an ordi-
nary concert audience; but they come as
| "half" guests, are bowed to smilingly by my
lord and lady, find their way rather drearily
| about and go to the piano with the air of an
| in vited amateur, while the fashionable conf
pany, feeling they are hired performers, talk
| and laugh, if they like, almost at the very
| piano A distinguished tenor whom l heard
once sing at such party stopped short at
| the end of one of his songs and left the room
| The next day Lady L----sending him the so
| guineas promised he returned it, saying he
| could not accept money he had not earned
| but tn At henceforth he would never sing to
| ''assist the chatter of fashionable London
| drawing room"
An American girl, we'll known in American
| society, and who from reverses of fortune
was compelled to turn her one gift of singing
to account, went abroad to study for the
concert-room. One evening at party she
was introduced to a lady of rank and very
| fine social position, who, after hearing Miss
Sizing, invited her to a soiree at her house
the following Monday. ''With your music,
my DEAR" said the great lady good humored-
ly.
Miss Shaving procured chaperor
| went to F---house at about 10 o'clock, as
she was requested, bringing her music On
giving her name, she was ushered into a small