The evening tribune. (Pawtucket, R.I.) 189?-190?, 1897-07-26
PLEASURE In LONDON
EARL'S COURT IS THE SUCCESSOR or
vAUxHALL GARDENS.

Its Various Expositions. Credited To DIFF
ferent Countries, Are Only Prctenses.
The Great Thing, the Only Thing. II,
the Place Itself.
Mrs. Elizabeth Robins Pennell con-
tributes to The Century an article OH
"Play In London" After speaking OF
Vauxhall Gardens and Cremorne Mrs.
lPennell says:
Everybody knows what tho old gar
den was like-Thackeray has seen to
that-with the hundred thousand lamps
always lighted, the fiddlers who made
ravishing melodies, tho singers, the
dancers, the Nine. Saquis on the slack
rope ascending to the stars, the hermit
In the illuminated hermitage, the dark
walks 30 favorable to lovers, the pots Of
stout, the dinners and suppers-in q
word. the sort Of combination Of cafe,
music hall, restaurant and Fourth Of
July that nowhere else has been brought
to such perfection that to Sir Roger
had seemed long before Thackeray's 3
day "a kind of Mohammedan paradise. I"
But what every body does not know so
well is that London still has it's garden,
called by another name, to be sure. ig-
nored by Murray and Baedeker and offer
ing another programme, Nine. Saquis
and hermits gone from it apparently
forevermore, but precisely the same in
principle and practice.
Vauxhall has vanished; Cremorne
sends up no more rockets skyward to
fill the night with beauty; the Crystal
palace is only for the suburb and the
country cousin, but every summer
Earls court has its exhibition-an ex-
hibition only by courtesy, only out of
Difference to the present fashion of gath
ering our knowledge or pretending to
while we play. One year it was called
Italian, and there were macaroni and
chianti in the restaurants, and nice
new pasteboard forum. Another year
it was German, and the air was heavy
with the fragrance Of schnitzel and
wurst. Then 1t was American, for a
change, and cowboys and red Indians
staggered across the scene, and soda
water and maple sugar figured On the
menu. Now 1t happens to be Indian,
with fine oriental flavor, but by the
time this il published il will be some
thing else, and 1t really matters very
little. The exhibition, attributed to any
nation, would be as gay. Nobody cares
save, perhaps, few tradesmen and
mummers, who smell the commercial
battle from afar. It is an open secret
that the semblance Of q show is there
merely to court avoidance. The years
in passing have turned il into big
bazaar, but not even In this guise can 1t
prove the chief attraction.
No; the great thing, the only thing,
that counts is the garden, where one
may walk under pleasant trees; where
one may ape the continental and drink
tea or coffee at little tables-but most
'ly tea, in capacious pots-to the accom-
paniment Of thick slabs of cake; where
one may be still more un-English and
eat ones dinner outdoors-not like q
wild beast in a cage, as in the old
"box" at Vauxhall, but in. company,
on low, broad veranda, where there
are side shows more diverting than
Pepys ever dreamed Of; where one may
loaf away the summer evening, listen
ing to music which is at least as good
as the honest Briton likes it. For the
truth is the garden furnishes just that
form of amusement which Mr.. Henry
James has lamented was not to be
found in London, and so long as it is
open one need not, as he thought, "give
up the idea of going to sit somewhere in
the open air, to eat an ice and listen to
a band of music. 4" Only the amusement
must be shared with SO big a crowd
that one will have to scramble for q
chair, engage a dinner table full 12
hours beforehand, and struggle to get
home by underground or bus as furi-
ously as the mob fights to push into the
pit Of popular theater.
To provide the Englishman with a
crowd, to give him the chance to use
his elbows, is to convince him that he
is enjoying himself. And the old gar
den's questionable features, its jewellers,
its jockeys and courtesans and gam
blers-where are they? Where are the
SHOWS Of yesteryearp All gone with
other times and other morals. The
world of Earl's court and Kensington
has taken the exhibition under its pro-
lection, and there sits in stately splen-
dor u magnificent example of respecta-
bility, within an Enclosure bumorously
called the Welcome club, because ad-
mission is refused to all but the elect.
Where the west end condescends to
spend its afternoons and evenings there
surely every one may venture in safety
by night as by day. Indeed there is
strong domestic element about the ex-
hibition. 1t is place for the family,
for the decorous.
nur