The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1908-01-20
Waiting ENGLAND
When the Dance Was First introduced to BritOns

Lewis Melville in the London Chron-
icleD
When William Almack. a Scotchman.
came 10 London as a valet in the suite
Of the Duke of Hamilton. though there
is no doubt he was an ambitious fell
low. he can scarcely have hoped that
his name would be a household word
more than a century and d quarter
after death. Yet today Almack has
still a worldwide reputation, though,
by the irony of fate, he had been dead
for many years before the great fame
began TO attach itself TO him. The
valet must have been a clever as well
as a provident man, for he found
money to run a st. James street tav-
ern-probabiy the Thatched House,
venture which, in a short time, proved
so lucrative that he was able TO estab-
blish Almacks (now BroOkesO club in
1904 and to build with hot bricks and
boiling water" the historic "Almaek'
rooms in Kings street, St. James,
which still exist as Willis rooms" so
rechristened after the founders rela-
tive and heir. The rooms were opened
Feb. 20, 1865, and the venture was from
the first successful. There is now
opened here in three very elegant new
built rooms, a ten-guinea subscription.
for which you have ball and supper
once q. week for twelve weeks. You
may imagine by the sum the company
is chosen. The mems tickets are
not transferable, so if the ladies do not
like us they have no opportunity 10
change us. Our female Almack's
flourish beyond description. Almack's
Scotch face, in bdg-wig waiting at
supper, would divert you, as would his
lady in a sack. making tea and curt
seying TO the duchesses.'
The club, for such it was to all in
tents and purposes, while it was open
to both sexes, was controlled by a COM
mittee of ladies. whose delight il was
to make it so exclusive that, as mat
ter of course, every one desired to be-
long to it. It's time of greatest inn
portance, however, was during the re-
gency, when its destinies we're con-
| trolled by Lady Jersey, Lady CoWper
(who afterward married and reformed
Cupid PalmerstOm, Lady Castle
reagh, Lady Seton, Mrs. Drummond
Burrell, Princess EsterhaZy and the
/ Countess LieVen. Under this regime
| Almack's obtained such renOwn that
to belong to it was to belong to So
ciety. with the largest capital letter
/ conceiVable), while to be excluded from
| il was to be relegated to secOnd-rate
| circles. Vouchers of admission were
granted only to those who were per-
sonally known to the lady patronesses,
while Lady Jersey, the high priestess
/ of the temple. would never admit any
one unless she had proof that the ap-
plicant was a skillfui dancer, and
would relentlessly blackball anyone
who had any connection with COM
merce in any of it's branches-a re-
| striction that was not the less CALLING
! because she was heiress of the banker
| Robert Child, whose surname was
subsequently added to his own by her
/ husband, the fifth earl.
, An assembly that could regulate the
| hour OF arrival of its members, and
could venture to turn away the Duke
| of Wellington because he came wear
/ ing trousers instead of knee breeches,
might legitimately regard itself as the
arbiter, even the despot, of fashion,
and certainly no innovation stood any
| reasonable chance of acceptance that
was not sanctioned by it, and so it
came to pass, as a matter of course,
/ that all changes in any department of
/ fashionable life were submitted for its
august approval Nothing could per-
tuTb its serenity. You might address
the lady patronesses:
| Tired of trousers are you grown?
| But since to them your anger
| Is it because it's so well known.
You always love to wear the
/ breeches2"
| but you left them unscathed. They
were impervious to all comment, satiri-
cal or kindly; they sweTved not from
their path for any shaft of wit. and
their word was. law TO the uttermOst
limits of their kingdom. Yet on one
! occasion they were nearly defeated,
and it is probable that they escaped
such a catastrophe only by enlisting
the support of a crowned head.
At Almack's, as elsewhere in Lon
don. the day had passed when in the
/ ballroom the minuet and other stately
movements were fashionable, and dur
! ing the early days of the regency the
dances in vogue were the English coun-
try dances, Scotch jigs, and Highland
! reels, the last, it is said, introduced by