The St. Louis Republic. [volume] (St. Louis, Mo.) 1888-1919, 1902-11-30

WRITTEN FOR THE SUNDAY REPUBLIC.
The Marquis of Anglesey has succeeded
in the tolerably easy task Of sending a rip
pie through the press.
He has done 1t before and we hope he
will do it again.
1t is SO delightful and romantic to read
about the goings on Of the nobility.
In discussing them you get to feel as
intimate as though they were your second
cousins.
To all self-respecting Americans that feel
ing is particularly uplifting.
In the present instance it IS not merely
uplifting. it is upsetting.
The Marquis has taken to careering about
in a scented automobile.
Is not that fearsome?
Even so. it is not original.
No one that we ever heard Of has done
It before.
But once upon a time there was a set Of
people that would have done it had they
had the chance.
Or, more exactly, had they a the auto
mobile.
Lacking that. they scented their chariots
Yes. indeed, they did not stop there,
either. In the bad old days in which char
lots jolted over the wide. white roads of
imperial Rome everybody and everything
was drenched with perfume.
Dogs, horses. filters. beds, houses and
streets We're scented.
The Romans put perfumery in their
saucepans and on the soles of their feet.
Perfumery was on their kisses. their
dishes and their hates.
There was never a place so scented as the
city of the Caesars.
They had perfumes that were poisons.
They had perfumes that set men mad.
women madder, and which smelled as pur-
pie looks.
They had perfumed books and perfumed
dreams.
The crimson sails Of their jeweled yachts
were perfumed.
The standards OF the legions tina dripped
with blood dripped. too, with perfume.
Perfume represented to them malignity
and JOY.
One of them was so delighted at the death
of his wife that to celebrate the event he
burned more incense than Arabia could re-
produce in a decade.
Another was so bored by his guests that
he suffccated them with aromatics.
RAINED SHOWERS OF PERFUME.
We are not making these things up.
They are all down somewhere.
With them Is the fact that In the amphf-
theaters where musicians answered the roar
OF beasts with the blarc of brass there
rained from the terraces showers of saffron,
of ounce. of cinnamon and of myrrh.
As We have noted, the chariots were also
scented.
Lord Anglesey has. therefore, a prece-
dent 1t IS poor. indeed, and for the moment
entirely his own.
But 1t has its t~errors.
Where he passes instead OF the smell of
gasoline there is the odor of eau de CO.
logne-of the Forty-Seven-Eleven brand at
that. which the Caesars never knew. and
which, IL they had known. they would have
disdained, Tor cologne water. of whatever
brand. is fit only for ladies' maids.
As such. whether 1t be lessor more
distressing than gasoline Is wholly and sole
a matter of taste.
In any event there are odors that are
There is. for instance, Russia leather,
There is also Spanish tobacco. These things
We're particularly praised by Brummel.
What he preferred. though. was simple
freshness. "A man of fashion smells. SIR
he said. but of the open"
The remark, a paradox then, has become a
platitude since.
Smart folks used to stink vilely.
The use that was made Of %patchouli, OF
millef1eurs and of similar denominations we
can only qualify as unholy.
So uIholy was it that 1t disturbed Parlia-
ment.
A triHe over a century ago an act was
passed, of which the following was a pro-
vision:
"All women, Of whatever age. rank, pro-
fession or degree. that shall betray into
any of his Majesty's subjects
by the use of paint. false hair, false teeth,
bolstered hips or scents, such as amber,
musk, bergamot, shall incur the penalty OF
the law in force against witchcraft, and
the marriage. upon conviction. shall stand
null and void
And quite right. too AxIxasxAi.