The Madison daily leader. [volume] (Madison, S.D.) 1890-current, 1897-08-05
PLEASURE IN LONDON
EARu,S COURT is THE SUCCESSOR OF
vAUxHALL GARDENS.

Its Various Expeditions. Credited to Diff
ferent Countries, Are Only Pretenses.
The Great Thing, the Only Thing, Is
the Place Itself.
Mrs. Elizabeth Robins Pencil con-
tributes to The Century an article OH
"Play In London" After speaking of
Vauxhall Gardens and Cremorne Mrs.
Pennell says:
Everybody knows what the old gar
den was like-Thackeray has seen to
that-with the hundred thousand lamps
always lighted, the fiddlers who made
ravishing melodies, the singers, the
dancers, the Mime. Saquis on the slack
rope ascending to the stars, the hermit
in the illuminated hermitage, the dark
walks so 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
day" kind Of Mohammedan paradise.
But what everybody does not know SO
we'll is that London still has its 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
I'LL the night with beauty; the Crystal
palace is only for the suburb and the
country cousin, but every summer
Earl's court has its exhibition-an *
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 a nice
new pasteboard forum. Another year
it was German, and the air was heavy
with the fragrance Of schnitzel and
wurst. Then it 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 it happens to be Indian,
with a fine oriental flavor, but by the
time >tis is published it will be some
thing else, and it really matters very
little. The exhibition, attributed to any
nation, would be as gay. Nobody cares
save, perhaps, a few tradesmen and
mummers, who smell the commercial
battle from afar. 1t is an open secret
that the semblance of a show is there
merely to court avoidance. The years
in passing have turned it into a big
bazaar, but not even in this guise can it
prove the chief attraction.
No; the great thing, the only thing,
that counts is the garden, where n
may walk under pleasant trees; where
n 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
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 a 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 MI. Henry
James has lamented was not to be
found in London, and so long as it is
o~n,, avn -.a1 ,ot &c he &eO.,rh< sr,
up the idea of going to sit somewhere in
the open air, to eat an ice and listen to
q band of music" Only the amusement
must be shared with so big a crowd
that Il will have to scramble for a
chair, engage a dinner table full 10
hours beforehand, and struggle to get
home by underground or bus as furi-
ously as the mob fights to push into the
pit Of a 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
snow Of vcstervear: 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 i'll stately splen-
der "a magnificent example Of respecta-
bility, Wlthln an Enclosure humorously
called the Welcome club, because adj
mission is refused 20 all but the elect.
Where the west end cOndescends to
spend its afternoons and evenings there
surely every ID may venture III safety
by night as by day. Indeed there is
strong domestic element about the ex.
hibition. 1t is a place for the family, q
playground for the decorous.