The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1904-05-01

| seller assured Us that every seat in the
building was taken, except those in the
private boxes. 1t was late, it was rain
ing, our cabman was discharged, and
under pressure I paid two sovereigns
for a private box, instead of sixteen
shillings for seats in the balcony
I brand that ticket vendor as a per-
son who economical truth to the verge
OF parsimony. I declare that his name
is Ananias and that he isfuIly eligible
to membership in the Sazerac Lying
Club, for during the entire evening not
more than half the seats were filed,
and do not believe that the intelligent
| British public pay for places which
they do not occupy.
AS soon as we entered the foyer, two
policemen remarked simultaneously and
| audibly, THE lydy will please remove
| her bonnet" I remembered that the
| ''lydy's" hair and the lace thingamy
which she calls a bonnet were woven
together. and L replied to the police
| man: Sir. this lydys back hair is
! fastened to her bonnet, and her bonnet
\ is pinned to her back hair. They are,
| 50 to speak united by artificial integu-
ments. She cannot remove one with
out removing the other, and She de-
clines to cut off her hair in order to
comply with your request" Then the
operate performance of the uniformed
satellites of the British drama com
menced in earnest.
The head usher declared in basso
profundo:
'.Lidies in the boxes must remove
their bonnets.'' The deputy usher
squealed contralto, Rules require all
bonnets to be removed before entering
the boxes. The assistant deputy usher
howled a staccato to the effect that,
"bonnets would be cared for in the
toilet room,' and seven deputy assist
ant deputies brought up the chorus
with a grand refrain concerning bon
net moving
The demand was unreasonable, for we
Were the sole occupants of a box, and
no persons had seats behind US. If I
had been a hidalgo of blue blood, I
would have insisted on the right of my
companion to sit bonneted in the pres
ence of the British public-as it was,
1 advised her to succumb; L even alb
jectly aided to disentangle her head
dress from her ''frizzles."
As soon as 7 gazed upon the audience
I understood the reason of the rule re-
quiring ladies to appear without bon
nets. 1t is done for the purpose of
preserving continuity OF effect. It is |
essential that the full-dressed English |
lady shall wear all her clothing below |
the forty-fifth degree of north latitude |
The dress skirt may drag, and often /
does drag many feet behind the wearer, |
but no Christian woman will mar the |
beauty of her shoulders by draping !
~ ,T-ea1
and not ashamed" and to cover her |
head with a bonnet would destroy the |
effect and-interrupt the view.
All that is lovable in London we have |
in books, or in Westminster Abbey un- |
der the gray stones. Perhaps England |
is making another history today, but |
/ doubt me if ten centuries shall un- /
cover an atom compared with that |
which she has already given to inInor-
tally. Her people of today seem mar
row and painfully conventional. They
accept no truth unless it bear the stamp
of the cross of st. George, or the Brit
ish lion, carry two umbrellas and stride
in wide shoes The princes and peers of
by-gone centuries were probably men of
brains and spirit, but their dawdling
descendants have bred in, and IN. and
in, until their place in the mathemati-
cal table of the times would be most
itly represented by a cipher The an
eient Normans and Saxons were in
heir crude. clumsy way leaders among
he people; with sword and tongue they
made themselves great, but my Lord
is only 1.-The son of an earl I
Ind the House of Lords now is lit {
lie more than a convocsltion OF i'm
,eciles. assembled to register the de-
rees of the stormy and brainful Com
mons, and led in this by the new men c
rho were not hereditary legislators, butA
we're elevated to the peerage for dis G
lnguished services in the field or the a
orun- The great slames of England p
re those of men who carved their own a
ard Gladstone and $
,israeli. and Peel. and Napier, and Y
selson. and Wellesly, and Fox, and a
lit, and Walpole, and MacauIay, and
ulwer. and Dickens. The orators who
ave entranced listening multitudes. D
he Statesmen who have plotted their q,
suntry past treacherous rocks and
yer stormy seas; the soldiers who have 9
climbed the red path TO Immortality a
le sailors who have borne their ma a
on's flag aloft amid the smoke of con- b
the .dulnOIS ana pOSlS WIZ nave q
lided pens of fire and struck the ii
lords OF harmony, were nearly all 81
ON the body OF the English people. al
the peerage has come to al
err: seldom or never have they come dc
pm the peerage- The plan of lord
behind the age anyhow. One can toll bl
ate monarch. because he represents WI
e idea of a nation of authority, of Ia
wer. of the enforcement of law. of ga
: executive department of govern an
mt: but an earl represents nothing TT
{ the assumptions of an exclusive Ia
sra class without power. without ins
ility without enterprise. without be
,gress. I hate to be odd, or to seem of
,bbish, or peculiar, or to fiaunt my bol
eagle obnoxiously, but I have the
{ two or three OF these gentlemen, LIE
/ I have talked around them, and Til
r them. and through them, to avoid by