The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1899-03-04
MY LADY OF INDIA.
IFrom the London MALL

From the London Mall
G. w. Stevens, who accompanied the
viceroy to India, sends the following
graphic description of the first recep-
ton in the government house at Cal
cutta
On the night of Lord and Lady Cur
IONS first state ball nearly everybody
could hardly see the ball room for the
people. Thousands of candles lighted
it; the chandeliers We're captured from
a French ship on their way from Louis
XIV to the NiZam of Hyderabad. The
room is really a great hall, divided into
an inner hall and outer galleries by a
quadrangle of white pillars; the dane
ing was in the center, and along the
galleries paraded Calcutta You could
touch the coat tails of the whole of the
central government of India. In knee
breaches and court swords were the
dozen or so men who make laws for five
times the population of the British Isles
and the Judges who in the last appeal
administer them. In scarlet, crusted
with medals and stars, were the gen
erals who command an army Outnum-
boring the total of our British soldiers.
1t was the most aristocratic assembly
cOnceiVab le-the very essence of ariS-
tocracy, whether you regard the fitness
and fewness of the rulers or the help
less multitude of the ruled. You saw
authority over nearly a quarter of the
whole human race contained within
Quadrille.
The head of the company was worthy
of it. Lord Curzon seemed an aristo-
crat among ariStocratS. Where these
carried command in look and bearing
he carried command in chief. The close
fitting uniform of a privy councillor,
the knee breeches and cream silk stock
ings, the broad ribbon of the Star OF
India, would be merciless to a poor
figure; they showed him we'll grown,
well made and well proportioned. AS
he walked round the room he might
have been a royal duke on the Families;
his head was high, his look lofty, his
eyes bright, his color fresh, his gait
slow without dislocation.
Viceroy and vicereine seemed to find
hospitality pleasure as well as duty,
and Lady CurZon's brilliant beauty once
more enslaved Calcutta. Politically, it
is too early to forecast the new vice
reign; you can but say that it has to
attack a hard task. Socially and per-
sonally it is already an assured triumph
You can not see all the glitter of
vice-royalty except at a party where
natives also go. The scarlet and gold
of the state ball is all there, and the
ladies' silks and jewels-but on this
night the ladies are hopelessly outshone.
When you see the Viceroy's native
guests you know what the Indian en-
pire means. Here is the bland babu in
frock coat and gold spectacles beside
the huge jack-booted soldier, jingling
with the medals of every fight from
Delhi to Dargai, who could break him
across his knee-and would, but for the
British peace. Here is a massive Afghan
ma gnate in tall Sheepskin cap and
green ribbon, and there Japanee-a
real Japanee with his hair tied in a bob
on top and a circlet of white twisted
cotton by way of turban. And here are
scores of subjects in strange apparel,
in turbans that ape every pattern of
European hat-bowler, straw, wide
awake or Tam O'Shanter-but shame
the somber original with stripes and
and shot gold. Big men
and little, smooth-faced and bearded,
pale yellow and dusky amber, SURVIVOR
and devil-worshipper, stately
and grotesQue, they pass and repass, |
their strange thick voices mingle in
your ears like creatures of a dream.