The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-09-21
FAMOUS IN LONDON.
Almack's Restaurant After Running .
 Hundred Years Disappears.

 Almack's Restaurant After Running
 Hundred Years Disappears.
 One by one the old landmarks of London are disappearing, and now Willis rooms, in King street, St. James square, are to be torn down, to make way for buildings of a more modern date. It was in Willis rooms that Almack's held social sway throughout the greater part of hun dred years; that Is to say, from the beginning of the reign of George III until some years after the marriage of Queen Victoria and the birth of the present king. During all that time AL mack's, in Willis rooms, was the temple of fashion, the ark and the sanctuary of societey During twelve weeks in each London season a weekly subscription was ten guineas-$50- but not 10000 guineas would have availed to secure admission unless the candi- dature had received the approval of that board of 'lady patronesses" who yielded the most arbitrary and despot- ic sway over the English great world. Smaller in number, but equal in power, to the Venetion council of ten, this feminine oligarchy exercised the most jealous watchfulness to prevent what Grantley Berkeley describes in his me- moins as "the intrusion of plebeian , rich or untitled vulgar, and they drew up a code of laws for the elect who received admission which were as un- alterable as those of the Medes and Persians.
 The lady patroneseses were not ne- cessarily all English, nor were they all titled. Thus, In 1874, they consisted of Lady Castlereagh, Lady Jersey, Mrs Drummond Buprell, Princess Ester hay, the Austrian embassadress, and Princess Liever, the Russian embas- 1 sadres. On one occasion these fair la dies issued a solemn proclamation that no gentleman should appear at tho weekly tAlmack dances without being dressed in knee brooches and black silk stocings The great Duke of Vel. 1 lington ignoring this rule, was abou to enter the ballroom one night dress. ed in black trousers whereupon he wa: immediately stopped, and, In spite oi | his request to the lady patronesses tC make an exception in his favor, they refused, and he was turned away al | the door
 | The Almaek dances owed their name to William Almack, who came to Lon don as valet of the seventh Duke O l Hamilton, and, retiring from the lat ter's service, invested his savings il coffee house In St. James, whicl eventually he transformed into tht Thatche1 House club. A little later h' \ moved to No. SO St. James street, ant there founded the club so famous il | the annals of Whiggery as Brook, ant which fiourlshes to-day; while in 176 he opened the assembly rooms nov known as willis rooms, but which Il lthose days bore his name. Horace Wal pole describes the stately grace wit
 which old Aimacl, with powdered hea and silk stockings, welcomed hi guests; his wife, Mrs. Almack, in hoo and ruffles making tea for the grea
 ladies while their daughters wer dancing.
 For many years after Almack's ha passed out of existence, and through
 out the greater portion of the reign Q Queen Victoria, the rooms were use
 for dances and for public banquets and whenever the rooms were let fo
 an entertainment 1t was always stip
 ulated that only wax lights should b
 used-a tribute to the past During th fast two decades unsuccessful attempt lhave been made to run the place as
 restaurant But the glory of the plac
 has departed from it. Few of its ire
 quenters even knew that it had bee 1 the scene of those famous Almac balls which enjoyed an altogether in Iternational celebrity a hundred year
 ago, and so thoroughly is this forgot
 ten that the destruction of the room
 is creating litle or no attention,- Maj
 quise de Fontenoy" in the New Tor
 Tribune.