Los Angeles herald., 1906-06-24
LONDON HEARS OF
OUR PEEK-A-BOOS
TRANSPARENT WAIST ARoUSES
INTEREST OF BRIT0NS
Gets Impression From Newspapers
That American Women Are Clad
Now in Fashion Set by
Mother Eve
snecIal cable 10 The Herald.

Special Cable to The Herald.
LONDON, June 23.-Nothlng can con-
vince London at the moment that The
women in America are not going about
clad in the fashion of Mother Eve, that
they are not less modestly arrayed than
was Lady Godiva.
The newspapers assert that a crusade,
far from Purtanical, is being waged in
America against the peek-a-boo shirt
waist and long descriptions of the
shocking garments worn by women
there are being published. One journal
has canvassed twenty of the greatest
dry goods stores in London to discover
whether there is likely to be a peek-a-
boo shirtwaist craze In this truly prim
country.
Nor can anybody make London be-
lieve that every American man here is
not millionaire unless he Is a multi
millionaire or a king of this or that
staple.
The newspa pers TEEN with descrip-
tions of Americans and accounts of
what they are doing. The great hotels
Claridges, the Savoy the Carlton, the
New Ritz-are the centers of this fever
ish interest in Americans. Believe the
these hotels is about as wealthy as was
Croesus and Midas, as all the Roth
schlds. The truth is that the vast ma
jority of these Americans first learn
that they are millionaires from the
London newspapers.
Clardge's is the only hotel where an
American who really is a millionaire
can hope to obtain privacy. When the
Vanderhilts, the William Rockefellers
and the Marshal Fields were staying
at Claridge's last year they summoned
the manager and told him that they
would leave Immediately If anything
more about their doings in the hotel
appeared in the newspapers.
Doubtless Ogden Armour will give
the same warning at the New Ritz
where he has engaged suite for next
week. But it will severely tax the re-
sources of the management to bar the
hosts of newspaper men who are wait
ing to ask Mr.. Armour all about Chi
cago canned meats.
So, being millionaire, by repute at
least, every American at these hotels
is regarded as legitimate prey by all
the tradeSmen ana dealers in London.
They lay siege to his hotel and try to
ambuscade him in the halls or in the
street. Art dealers rush over from
Paris bearing priceless works of art
to the American millionaire; jewelers.
tote Jewels worth a kings ransom TO
them all day long, and younger sons
of the ariStocracy tout to them, for
dealers, alleged antiquities.
Needy dowagers roll up to the hotels
in hired carriages, gush their way into
private sitting rooms and propose au-
dacious schemes to chaperon the mil
lionaire's wives in the most exclusive
society. Young Vanderbilt received four
hundred begging letters day last year
on an average.
The old oak furniture factories in
Yorkshire and Belgium are now work.
ing overtime turning out treasures for
American millionaires. OF these, the
most popular this season is the chair
in which King Charles I sat during
his trial by parliament. Three thou
sand of these chairs have been made
and sold already.
The newspa pers say that the Ameri-
can millionaire epicures at the Carlton
are plunged in despair To tickle their
homesick palates they ordered from
duck, terrapins and soft shell era bs. The
day appointed came, the millionaires
appetites were sharpened to the mo-
ment-but the longed-for delica cies did
not arrive.