LILY LANGTRY’S “REIGN.”

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLIX, Issue 104, 2 April 1929, Page 8

LILY LANGTRY’S “REIGN.”

HER TOWN IN TEXAS. WOES OF AN ARCHITECT. , America is regaling itself with stories of Lily Langtry. The news of her death at Monte Carlo recalls that most interesting incident of her travels, from which a little settlement of 150 souls in Texas bears her name. In the early eighties, when one of the most famous or the south’s characters, Judge Beau, was “the law west of the pecos,” Lily Langtry visited the then unnamed town. Between trains she alighted for exercise and visited the Juuge’s poker table. When the game was over, Judge Beau cashed several thousands of dollars’ worth of chips for the famous actress. Captivated by her beauty, lie named the settlement “Langtry"’ in her honour. Recently, just before his death, James E. Mitchell, an English architect, told of his difficulties in trying to translate the passing whims of the Jersey Lily into wood and brick. Two mansions in Fifth Avenue were altered to her specification. “The interior was to be entirely finished in highly polished black walnut,” said Mitchell. “It all had to be imported from a certain English forest. It .took us more than a year, and, when we finished that beautiful walnut job, 1 was the proudest man in New York. Mrs Langtry looked it over and hardly noticed it. ‘The very latest thing in interior decoration is hard-finished white enamel,’ she said. ‘I want all this covered with white, enamel. You 11 have to send to England for it. “It nearly broke .my; heart when my men set to work covering up the walnut with this hard white finish. I don’t know where she got the idea, but at that time women were copying her hats and gowns and imitating her speech, and before long all the moguls in New Y’ork were smearing their houses with enamel.”