RAGE FOR MASQUERADER

Evening Star, Issue 22070, 2 July 1935, Page 6

RAGE FOR MASQUERADER

WHEN LONDON FLOCKED During the food riots in Loudon in 1772 the condition of the middle and lower classes found little sympathy among persons of fashion, says the ‘ News-Chronicle.’ In the very midst of these distresses sprung up a rage for masquerades. At one of these licentious entertainments given in London it was calculated that, not less than 10,000 guineas were expended by the revellers in dress and other luxuries. The trade of the metropolis would have profited by this to a certain extent had payment of liabilities been a recognised duty of the time. Dr Goldsmith is named among those who masqueraded in “an old English dress”; and after lists of ladies, descriptions of t their dresses, and praises of their wit and beauty, wo find a sample of the easy virtue of the times in the presence of “ a lady abbess and her nuns.” The license of speech, action, and allusion was astounding. At the Pantheon the excited crew generally finished by breakfasting at daylight on the remains Of the supper and then going home “ gloriously drunk.” At Conielys’ masquerades in Soho square, after a supper marked by hard drinking and immodest singing, the custom was to lllng Open the windows aild pelt the eager, .hungry, thirsty, amt howling crowd below with half-empty bottles and the remains of the supper. There was a Queen of Beauty at these masquerades as ivell as a Queen of Fashion. She excited jihe greatest admiration by giving frOcks and tambour waistcoats as undress livery to her servants and by the splendor of her chairmen, who never carried her abroad without feathers in their hats. This gay yoUng woman died m 1782, in the thirty-second year of her age. By her death masquerades lost their great patroness. This species of entertainment was never encouraged by. George 111., at whose request Foote abstained from giving a masquerade at the Little Theatre in the Hay market, There were some curious scruples entertained oven by people of pleasure at this time. The most fashionable of them appeared at the theatre in .Lent attired in mourning, and at, the same season masquerades were considered as out of place; but these scrupulous persons found a method of reconciling their sense of religion with their taste for dissipation: In Lent, if masquerades displease the town, Call ’em ridpttos and they still go down. ‘ Madame Teresa Conielys, a German by birth, and by profession a public singer, was one of the entrepreneurs of masquerades. Walpole describes her as ft singular daine. She took Carlisle House. On the east side of Bobo square, enlarged it, and established here assemblies and balk by subscription. She wont bn building, and made her hbUSo a fairy palace for balk, concerts, and masquerades. Her opera, Which she called 1 Harmonic Meetings,’ was charming. To avbid the Act she pretended to take no money, and had the assurance to advertise that the subscription Was to provide coats for the poor, for she courted the mob and gained their favour. She then declared her nlasqnerades were for the benefit bf commerce. At last the Bbnch of Magistrates decided against her and she wfts compelled to shut Up the IlbUse, Hoi' improvidence then induced her to become a “ vender of asses’ milk” at Knightsbrklge. but She sank still lower and died in 1797 in the Fleet prison.