Los Angeles herald., 1906-07-08
DEBUTANTES ARE
IN A MAD WHIRL
HOW TO ATTEND FIVE DANCES
IN ONE NIGHT
Revolution Worked by Automobile
Craze Crowds Season" Into
Three Weeks-Town
Houses Deserted
Special Cable to The Herald.

Special Cable to The Herald
LONDON, July 7.-After a hard week
chaperones are in bed nursing ex-
hausted systems whilst their daughters
geefully are building up statistics of
the balls they have attended. Devon
shire house, Stafford house. Bath house.
Dorchester house, in fact all the big
houses opened their doors to society
during the week
1t was balls, balls, everywhere. Four,
five and six dances in an evening has
been the usual record of the fashion
able debutante in the whirl of social
gayety. 1t will only last about ten days
more and the Chaperones are heartily
| glad.
The London season of today lasts a
! little more than three weeks, one week
before Ascot and two after, and at best
another spasmodc week just before
the Glenwood race meeting. lAll the en-
| tertainments of society are rushed into
the briefest period, and during those
| crowded three weeks the leaders fight
for nights upon which to give their en-
tertainments.
Can't Keep Track of Functions
1t all ends in s. many social functions
on the same evening that no one can
keep track of them, and society keeps
wildly rushing about from house to
house on the chance of meeting friends
AS one of Londons best known hostess
es said yesterday:
IF the present condition of affairs
continues there will be no London sea-
son. | attribute it largely u the effect
of tho a11tOr1oohi1e craze PpOnlp now
| adays won't live in London. They have
houses in the country and come into
town on their automobiles"
And one of the principal results of
this remarkable condition of restless
society is that as any house agent will
tell you, houses don't let and hotels
are crammed jam full. In fact, tn"
whlom fashionable Kensington is
transformed into a district where every
second house is for rent and the me-
tropolis altogether has become hideous
owing to the huge wooden signs telling
OF this house to let"
Auto Creates Social Revolution
Such is the effect of the automobile
craze that people who live in Kensing-
ton prefer to live out of town and those
who are rich enough to live in the
fashionable parts of Mayfair only in
| habit their houses by nus ana StarlS.
The week end habit, which means you
pass three days out of seven out of
town, has become de rigueur and has
given the final blow to anything like
the continuity in the London season as
| in the good times of yore.
| Discussing the summer exodus from
| London and the curtailment of the sea-
son, one society woman gave yet an
other version, which is this: that rates
and taxes have risen to such eXorbitant
heights that people with large houses
and moderate means cannot afford to
pay the sums asked.
And" she said, i've a long lease
and can't get rid of it. Rates and taxes
are running me. Servants of today have
become quite impossible. If 1 only
could I'd go and live in a hotel"
Such is the way in which the society
people of London are talking now and
the question is one of much seriousness.
| Tradesmen are at their wits ends what
to do in the face of such a situation
and rightly or wrongly they seem in
clined to put it all on the back of the
liberal government just as much as
upon the automobile.