Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922, 1919-06-29
.LOND0NERL|KES
LATEST YANKEE
BEDROOM PLAYS
While Cockney Beauties Take
Plunge In Shocking Garb,
7heatergoers "FaI|" for
U. S. Plays.
By FLOYD MACGRIFF.
international News Service Staff
COrrespOndent)

London, (By Mail. )-Every male
Londoner with a pair of white pants
stops work early these fair days and
HES himself Thames valleyward,
where pink checked amiable maidenS
grow in profusion and punts may be
had at S. an afternoon and evening,
including the l5-foot pole used to
push the thing along. It's an art,
like tightrope walking. Or, again,
granted the white pants, he may fit
about an emerald green tennis jawn
at less expense.
There are police patrol boats
which 60 phut-phutting along, evil
IDENTIFY to see that the white-pants
brigade is decorously punting along
and that no mermaids are leaping off
the bank into the pea-green waters,
bathing only being permitted from
boat, for there are divers and SUM-
dry folk who promenade along the
banks who might be shocked at the
abbreviated things girls wear over
here under the name of bathing
suits.
However, there are no such re-
strictons at Brighton and other sea-
: side resorts, where the scantiness of
feminine bathing attire is reported
to be driving away large numbers of
elderly visitors. AS the London
picture papers so wildly portray, the
naiden's sea-plunge suit is a one
piece, skin-tight affair, which by
comparison would make one of Zieg-
fields chorus girls far overdressed.
Many American Plays.
The London theaters, by the way,
are presenting so many American
girl and music" or bedroom plays
that critics have we'll named the
present condition as the American
INVASION" some dozen theaters play
ing to crowded houses with Yankee
shows, the latest thing being a re-
vival Of the Belle of New York"
Since the war theaters have been
running all the year round with ex-
ception of week or two for re-
decorating.
A little more speed is expected to
be put into the life of Britain. which
much to its own displeasure learned
few things more about doing
things in hurry, owing to the war,
than in all her previous existence,
when the electric power bill, central
izing and expanding electrical devel-
opment, is made operative. But
whether that will enable woman to
do her ironing with an electric iron.
clean house with a vacuum cleaner
or make toast at the breakfast table
would be venturing too far into the
realms of prophecy. All those cleo
trical home appliances in one gen
Grafton would be, perhaps. too much
OF shock for any British house
wife.
however, the automobile has been
taken to the Britisher's bosom as
the long-sought fountain of life.
The wars responsible. Before the
war it was very unusual for man
with an income under $1,000 a year
to own motor car. But during
the Hun struggle more islanders, as
army officials and soldiers, rode about
on pneumatic tyres" as they are
called in the kings English than in
all previous compiled statistics. The
country is now getting up such an
automobile appetite as the United
States developed in 1910. And
there is no country, perhaps, which
as whole has more garden-like
scenery, with quaint though insani-
tary villages with excellent roads
through it all. Pretty and placid
aptly describes it and any realist
who would not rave about it should
be branded bolshevik. Hence the
millions of dollars being banded
about for motors. Even the man
who. in 1918, had never been up to
London" though living but 40 miles
away. has developed a taste for
travel. But the middle class and
downward are pocketing any pride
they might have in the matter and
are seeing their country in a motor
bike sidecar. which the various war
girls organization operated so skill
fully.
Paris Gowns Reign.
But these latter are now laying
away their war toys and putting on
short Paris skirts and other French
fashions. American women who
know even Keokuk, Ia, styles do
no. marvel, after a brief stay in Eu-
rope, why Paris is the fashion CEN
ter of this part of the earth. They
- an realize why London or Berlin
-me could not be. An Amer
isSass -o.lfan who knows how they
do such things in cole New York"
or Chicago town sums it up thus:
Italian women, as a whole, wear far
too brilliant colors to appeal to any
great part of the human race; the
German women are too "frowsy" in
their dress, with an idea as to util-
ity more than style and chicness.
while British women are betrayed
by poor tailors who know only how
to spoil most excellent cloth. No
woman could want better wooden or
dress patterns than the British
weavers supply, but. horror of hor-
rors! how it is made up-no style,
no cut, no faire.
And the British shoes! As one
most intelligent Englishman who
fought in France put it: "Wear
British shoes and die cripple; wear
- e