SILLY SENSATIONALISM.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLII, Issue 90, 15 April 1908, Page 6

SILLY SENSATIONALISM.

_The event of the hour (says the .New lork correspondent of a London newspaper) is the appearance of Mrs James B. Eustis, one of the most beautiful of New York's young matrons, in a.series of tabelaux vivants ****. Oriental dances got up by Mrs Waldorf Astor and a number of other well-known ladies. When the curtain was, rung up Mrs Eustis was discovered posing as Salambo, the Carthaginian heroine of Flaubert, with a live boa constrictor twined round her body. The spectators shuddered in horror.

For weeks past society has been preparing for the tableaux, which were organised for charity. Mrs Eustis rehearsed her picture with a "property" snake, and was forced to submit to much banter on the unreality, of the cotton serpent with spring stuffings. One of her friends "dared" her to appear with a genuine snake. She took up the challenge, and a large boa constrictor was immediately obtained from the Zoological Gardens. Slumbering in a basket of roses the huge reptile was brought to the stage door, and, with the assistance of the mana-. ger, Mrs Eustis coiled it round her waist and neck, with the head stretched across her breast and resting on her left arm.

The audience gasped with astonishment and dismay as they saw the serpent slowly waving its neck over the arm of the beautiful Salambo. She, howeber, preserved her poise admirably, and repeated the performance in the evening. When the reptile began to writhe in dangerous tashion she calmly gave its head a tweak and maintained her position till the curtain fell.

Thunderous applause greeted the performance, but the intrepid lady refused to respond to calls for an encore. The snake weighed 451b, and Mrs Eustis confesses that she only submitted to the ordeal because her honour was involved in the challenge given her.

She is the heroine of the day, and the society dames of New York are enviously puzzling their brains to invent a fresh sensation which shall rival the awful thrill with which she and her boa constrictor furnished them.