The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-07-09


 the strains of 'God Save the Queen" the royal cortege from Marlborough house, bearing the Prince and Princess of Wales, followed by other royal guests, rolls into the courtyard With in the large entrance hall are the yeo- men of the guard-those famous beef eaters whose dress recalls the days of Henry VIII. Ministers in their official uniform remind one of pictures of Nel- son and British admirals, with their heavy gold embroidery, swalloW-tail coats, kerseymere brooches, and pale pink silk stockings. The uniforms of regular and auxiliary forces are there, too. So vast is the corridor that, not Withstanding the number of guests in vited, there is no need for the unseem- ly and commonplace crush of a cloak" room. On this piece of furniture or on that a busby and a bearskin are thrown down; a sword is taken from it's hanging and leant against piece of priceless buhl. Meanwhile ladies file | into the inner room and drop their op- era cloaks.
 Then the internal but brilliant pro- cession files up the long staircase and | the long inner lofty corridor toward | the ballroom. The first quadrille is | formed The Prince and Princess, Am | bassadors of foreign nation, the most beautiful women in England and the l best-looking examples of the British army joins in pretty much helter-skel- | ter, for there is no absolute formality | of rank on such occasions. Rather striking feature this of an English
 State ball. nI every first quadrille members of the royalty, Ministers of the crown and representatives of the foreign powers dance, but so also do | our life guardsman and the popular young man of society in the uniform of Her Majedy's household troops. The lord-in-waiting are there with there
 with their white wands, headed by the sixteenth earl of Pembroke, an ideal representative of the part, and quite 1 the handsomest man in the whole room. For the second dance the Prince and Princess, the Duke and Duchess of Connaught and other royalties are seated on chairs on a low dais. To their right, on benches rising in tiers, are the ! duchesses, marchionesses and countess es of the realm.
 Other seats running round the large hall are thronged by those enterprising persons who are seizing the first occa~
 sion to gratiH a long harbored curios- ity. The debHante and the wife of the l successful colonist are there victorious ly encamped, while the blase Londoner 1 is content to talk with such old frineds as are always to be met at a State ball, at Lords, or at the Derby. You will
 find these latter-in little eeoups in the long. cool corridors and in the all but empty State experiments opening one into the other and happy they are; for, apart from the regal spectacle of those quadrlles, in which our Princess
 is still the most striking and beautiful figure and in which the Prince is the
 best example of perfect kindness to all
 whom he encounters--apart from this
 perhaps, the pleasantest thing about q
 state ball is the opportunity of meet
 ing soldiers who were brother officers
 ten years ago, judges who before their
 hair was gray were on the same cir cult, and political opponents with
 whom one may have had many sharp
 tussle on the floor of the house or on the hustings Tn this corner is a group
 of attaches. A Turk with his eyeglass,
 a perfect French accent and an abso-
 lutely European manner chats gayly
 with an Italian In the uniform of the
 Bersaglieri. The Russian Ambassador,
 M. de Staal, pats some young member
 of the China party on the shoulder
 with a bonhommie which for the mo-
 ment, obliterates painful recollections of the last China bluebook. Sir William
 Harcourt towers above his fellows and
 chuckles in conversation with a politi-
 cal opponent; while passing to and fro
 with perfect grace are beautiful wom-
 en. Yes; they are beautiful in no con-
 ventional sense, for, whatever may be
 the merits of our foreign politics and of
 our art, we cannot in our most humble | moments concede to any nation the
 power of putting into one room at a
 great festivity so much transcendant
 beauty in the way of womankind-most
 divinely tall and fair.
 Court bandsmen in long scarlet cloaks are in gallery facing the dais Suddenly the strains of God Save the
 Queen break forth again, The lords
 in-waiting, with their white wands, ad-
 vance clearing the way. Next to the
 Lord Chamberlain comes the Lord Steward of the household, walking
 backward. Then our Prince, his Prin-
 cess and the more illustrious guests file
 into supper. This is a brief opportun- ity for busnesslike dancing on the part
 of the young. The debuntante begins
 to think court ball is not so much of
 a bore as she whils at a more accus- =-- - l