"ALIEN'S" LETTER FROM ENGLAND.

Otago Witness, Issue 2842, 2 September 1908, Page 75

"ALIEN'S" LETTER FROM ENGLAND.

(Specially Written for tbe Witness Ladies' Page.) • - ■>• ■ .' .if. . _•" •_• ; - ')

? " ? ' * " LONDON, ' irufy 17. j "Will, you Jbuj my. sweet lavender?!'. -. The*mb*ufnf ul soitg y in~tfce' streets once '-again speaks of .a "'summer season, all too short, drawing near io harvest, * and;' ■feeavy^ tain upon 1 tits '.roof-, tells of . . aaanjf ° "jo.Cyxes' ;'of * I>he .waning London sea^A-xuia^ or..p«ippried. The glorious isunshih© andi the spring, and tropical hea-b ol*«ajly 'summer made-: evsry function a 1 double success, , but — lest we forget — this is b England and" '. 'not _ the" - tropics. ," £t.. , Swit^in^s Dajr;;iblosed' a. '.«f ries of gusty; 1 days wftTi rain, and with ihe- fall in tempetatuxe there is a fall, in thei spirits . of the people, for this ft the' holiday going- . - . away time, and the 013 legend say&--- ' St. Swithin's' Day, if ye do rain, Fox 40 days it will remain; St. Swithin's Day, an ye be fair, For 40 days 'twill rain n*e mail. \ The legend originated in the fact that a century after St. Swithin was buried he was canonised. When the monks-exhumed his body to deposit - it' in Winchester Cathedral, on July 15, 40 days of heavy rain set in, and the ceremony had to be •postponed. But St. Swithin's Day doe 6 not always prove a good weather prophet, and . It is sincerely to be hoped that this year the prophecy will fail,*for although the eeason is on the wane, in Court circles and . in Society (with a big S) there is an enormous number, including hundreds of thousands of provincial and foreign visitors, ' who are only just beginning their holiday, ■ and the great Olympic Games at the Sta- . dium, at the White City, opened on Mon- j day, in the presence of the King. The \ athletic flower of 21 nations are represent- ' ing their, countries, quite 2000 athletes taking part. \ This revival of the international com- ' petition of athletes is due to the diesire to emulate the spirit that marked the Olympic Games of Ancient Greece, and the • great Stadium built at the Exhibition, ' ' capable of seating 80,000 spectators, was ' "not considered too large for the expected 'visitors. But since the opening day the , "weather has been disappointing, and the .seats have been but sparsely occupied. On > . the opening day 40,000 spectators were - . present, and the pageant was worthy of . Greece, bar the lack of-sunshiik. A' bright <■ patch of colour in the royal box marked the dresses of- the Queen, the Princess of ' .Wales, Princess Victoria, and a number of other royal ladies. With the Prince and Princess of Wales were the youni^ {princes. The Crown Prince and Princess of Greece honoured the Greeks who contested with their presence ; the Crown Prince and Princees of Swed«n were also ( present, and the Maharajah of Nepaul, together with representatives of France, Spain, and the British colonies. f When the King, in a loud voice, declared the Olympic Games open, the royal flag was run up, and instantly the two great doors at either end of the stand were thrown open, and two processions of these picked athletes marched past under their national banners from all the civil feed ■world, a pageant representative and in- . etructive in itself, 'and alone worth going -to 6ee. Great Britain was at the head of • one procession, the United States heading the other. An athletic expert saj-js : — j ' They made a wonderful epitome of national! . chamcteristics. - That the Norsemen most filled the eye and stirred, 'the enthusiasm was ibeyond question. Pox> poise and rhythm of . build end gait the SMred*s arod Norwegians were unequalled. They made walking a beautiful thing. Long and supple in limb and big-chested, the outline of< the muscles quite traceable through their thin jerseys, they mighC have stood fox the picture of the coming race; and the little columw of Danish women, _in workmanlike white skirts to the knee, moved as well a« the men. ' The procession was motley as well as athletic. The Americans, characteristically unwilling to risk success (for th* pake of show,' dad their athletes in thick cloth to euit the weather. In the English regimen'j the light and dark blues of Oxford .and Cambridge running, costumes were conspicuous, and the flag was carried by a m-ember c>{ the famous athletic family of the Studds in . cricket dress. De mange), the most famous of the Frenoh cyclists, carried th« French banner, and the colossal weight-putter Rose ■ headed the Americans. " ; Ea-ch group tad its mark. One remembered afterwards th* level compactness of th« little Finns, the gait of the Swedes. ' the strength of the Italians, the high-strung, eager look of the Americans, the long shins • and sha-pely legs of tho English, ,the " Astounding variety of types in the Hungarians, and the weight of the Germans. The nations launched 1 into the stream of competition. A tandem cyole. the fastest xn'an-driven engine in tho world, appeared — •winging round tho concrete slope; and itwas noticed that the machine had only one pair of bandies, and " the bow oar " placed . fcis hands, on his partner's belt. ' The crowd had grown, but would have been half «8 large again if the public realised how exciting the international rivalry «£ • -these Olyiapio Games is. No -athletic .-meeting can bear comparison oar claim like'aiess. There proceed simultaneously in several departments of athletics tibe finest Je»ts of wnich^«a*n is capable. While Oxford and American athletes are surpassing records on tbe tracks, divers fell like plumatoets from the 40ft tower. Fine races were eeen on the tracks and in the tank. ! ' The triumph of th* day was with the • Scandinavians. The Norse- men and women, , with no other apparatus than * few wooden horses and ' some planks, inspired one with . • sense 'of excitement as well as sesthetio admiration. One scarcely looked at the races for the attraction of the gymnasts. Now «nd again one coneiderable group would: s»lay some almost music-hall game, doing %>ack somersaults off the ground and walking across the ground on their hands in as good time and almost as gracefully as on " their feet. •'_ But th© sense of excitement depended! principally on the harmony and concerted grace of the evolutions and on the «xtr»©Ttlinary poise a-nd; control of the 'bodies. At one moment a- line* of 30 or so would do full arm somersault vaults with the speed •nd hilarity of boys down a slide- At ami

would dsa

other spot h»lf the company would dsaw up in sections and lunge simultsuieously '«s in fencdnig. They -*«etDe* . stble-Wi'thoxii • stpaort to axrest their bodies . and limbs in any attitude even if thifey w«re "baJaaoed only -oq one arm and oow leg. The light gl«amed on a forest, <rf arms or on 'a lin©=6T' Bodied as cm » flock of atsurlings manoeuvring in the air. .Inct&ed, -ttterßX was something' almost bird-like in the ease and grace of the performance. £ "- ■ > • * ; ... . Th« women took the hdgh jump .as- one of their exercises. As the company filed out they had' *>■ surprising: ovation. . The. Ameri•cttn »Q^ the ©an*di*n college «h«ers- were in-voked-.rand the waving .of little- fligsr. for- the first';- tito« Xt up the rather sombre tiers of seals, ...... * -? .. „.,, \ Of- -the> -eight : competitions :ifae>,\ _fiist two .. days four- haye resulted in British w,ins ' (iocluding' an 'Australian), two American, * one to France, and one to Sweden. The British excelled in the long-distance running. The French victory waa in the '-tandemr cycle Tace, and the Swedish in the javelin throwing. It seemed that these 2000 Olympic guests were- to* have a very inhospitable welcome to England, for a week before their arrival Lord Deeborough, the president *of the- Olympic Games, made it known in the public press that the £10,000 needed' for the entertainment of the athletic visitors was not forthcoming, and that unless the public came to the rescue these athletes would return to their own countries unhonoured and unfeasted ; ' even . the banquet had reluctantly to be abandoned unless timely aid came. To raise £10,000 in six days seemed an impossible task. However, th© Daily Mail opened a subscription list, and in less than the short j tirae appointed the £10.000 required was exceeded by over £2000. Money simply poured in fi'om all quarters, varying in i sums from a gift of £1500 to sixpence, j Sporting clubs, both male and female, subscribed, and private persons of both eexes interested in sport — disclosing the ■ fact tl^at. British wom«n are keen sportswomen, and have a keen sense of "play- \ ing the ' game" of hospitality to the stranger within, the gate. Her Majesty, who has taken great interest in the Exhibition, and who never loses ., ah opportunity of making any national undertaking popular, paid a pri-j vate and surprise visit to the White City conic few days ago, in company with Princess Victoria, and escorted by Sir ) Dighton Pfobyn. She paid her shj/lling j entrance foo at the turnstile with the general public, and seemed grreatly to enjoy the side Tshpws and other attrac- j tious of the Exhibition. But it was not j long before her Majesty was recognised, j and followed and cheered by a crowd, de- I lighted at their Queen mixing without I ceremony with hex people, and when' she, i with her escorts, took her s&at on the cars that run through the scenic railway, the enthusiasm was unbounded, and there was a great rush for the vacant seats and for the honour of having ridden on the same cars as her Majesty. When the royal party alighted the crowd became so great that at was found, impossible to proceed in comfort, so' the Queen and her attendants made their way to the waiting motor-car an'l drove, off amid loud cheers. The next day the Queen was seen, again at the annual rose show of the National Rose Society, held in the- Botanic Gardens. And so day aft-er day all through the reason she graces Court and pu&lic functions, charity fetes, and bazaars with her presence ; alwayn gracious, always exquisitely dressed, she stamps her personality upon pagpants at Court or in connection with public institutions. Now one hears of her paying a visit to a hospital, where a dying girl lon^s to see her before she dies ; now she is holding Court ; now visiting sailors and soldiers, or reviewing nurses, or buying lace at a bazaar. Regal always, there is always that womanly touch of gracious understand inpjr that makes her .kin with all women. And what Longfellow called "the children's hour " her Majesty calls her Jesting time, for as often ns she is, disengaged, when m residence at Buckingham Palace, the children of the Prince and Princess of Wales go to tea with her. The presence of Toyalty in London — their, unselfish appearance in *he streets, at the theatres and operas, dding honour to artistes, identifying themselves with the philanthropic life of the city, opening Parliaments, holding courts, and attending public functions and private receptions — has done wonders for the last few London seasons. The Court has been transformed from its cold stateliness to scenes of splendour and movement, and. while losing nothing of regal dignity, has greatly gained in brightness and picturesqueness. This season now closing has been one of unusual verve and brilliance and magnificence. But the King has held his last levee of the season, and the last State ball has been given at Buckingham Palace, and 6oon society will be resting in country houses, or on the Solent during the Cowea week. Thousands of visitors are in town this week, which is the climax of the 1 amusement season and the time of the great sales. From all the Continental ' centres, as well as from the • four cornel's of England, there are excursions ; andi more is the pity that rain succeeds rain, for it affects that class whose holiday extends only over a few brief weeks. . Tantalising, indeed, is it for those who . for months past have been reading of all the attractions of the White City, of the Olympio Games, of the Hungarian Exf hibition at Earl' 6 Court , and all the beauties of the parks — the eight to be seen on a fine morning between 11 and 2, 1 with the hundreds riding in the Row, — to find on arrival that the streets are swept with a chilly rain, and all the ! sight* marred and depressing. A week

ago the farmers were talking of "drought" j 1 and damage to crops — three weeks without ] rain is a drought in England, — to-day they ' •are as anxious for the rain to cease as j they were for it to come. The ecientifio , cause^ jjiven^. fo;r the breakdown^n . thfici ' have withdrawn 1 southward to France, per- .j < haps with object- of "enticing our . < ■fneueande of French visitors home again, < -for up till now they have shown £eluet- ] ance. to go ; or, probably with a business l i motive, to draw the , holiday-making ;1 Britisher across the Channel to ie-circulate ' there some of the money • tnat : has. beeS^-'l spent, here. Every branch of West End trade has profited by the good season, i and fashionable milliners, dressmakers, and . ] tailors are as busy as they were in June; J for Americans find they can purchase as < fashionable hats in Lpndon -for half „ the } price they give" in Paris^ while .Americans ' and Frenchmen are giving large orders to i tailors. An . autumn session of Parlia- ] ment will bring back between 500 and 600 ' peers and their families ,to London, after i the recess, and that will constitute another « spell of entertaining in town. It is cited 1 as an instance of the prosperity of this > season, compared with last, that at Har- "] rod's — only one of the hundreds of the '< great houses having their season's sale — 1 during the six days of its continuance 1 .£20,000 over the receipts of last year was 1 taken. - ( ' The early " fruits have been in abund- : ance — such a season for strawberries and J cherries has rarely been known ; and after | the first pick of Covent Garden for the West End, they have penetrated by the , evening on costers' barrows to less genteel quarters, strawberries are eaten without cream for twopence per pound. "Penny 'arf pound, nice fresh strawbriss." cried from the roadway on hot evenings has caused much rivalry with the " 'Arfpenny a bunch, nice fresh watercresses!" For watercress is with the poor continually,, and strawberries rarely. Meanwhile the imprisoned suffragettes are on prison fare. The Home Secretary refused to interfere with the decree of the magistrate that their imprisonment should be in the second division,, and not I i in the first division as political offenders, j The two ladies who broke the Prime j 1 Minister's window are serving two months in the third division, while .the remainder of the 27 ladies are serving three in the second division. The first imprisoned batches of suffragettes were treated as political offenders, and were permitted to wear their own clothes, buy their own • food (a privilege of which they did not avail themselves), receive and write letters (which they did)), read newspapers, and see their friends, and occupy a double cell, which ihey were at liberty to furnish. There were many interesting letters written and many enlightening interviews ; otherwise they did not seek to soften their chosen lot, and as a result | the magazines on their rele*a6e obtained some informative articles, and through them the public. The suffragettes now \ doing sentence, refined and cultured ladies many of them, with no greater fault than an attempt to ease the heavy yoke of their suffering sisterhood, wear prison clothes, branded as criminals, must diispense with night wear, spend 23 hours of the 24 in solitary confinement, read no newspapers, I receive no letters or newspapers until they have been in prison a month, eat I prison fare, and scrub out their ©wn cells each diay. Those in the third division have hard labour added, and their hours of exercise reduced ' to an hour and ahalf a week. It is a shame to the manhood of England, or that smirking majority who urge complaisantly, ''That will cure them," who hare not the fortitudia and loyalty to a cause to go a 6 far as self-sacrifice and physical discomfort. Many of tbem r idling in their clubs or sitting in the publichouses, talk grandiloquently of their protection of the "weaker" sex, and laugh themselves, and not the women they jibe, to scorn — women who look upon the cause of a sister's wrongs as • a religion, and not a craze, and they will no more be "cured" of their conviction than the long army of women martyrs who went before them to the pillory for their religion. If they can endure the rigours of their prison hardship the world will gain by it, for the last word has not yet been said on prison reform, and out of the sufferings of these heroic women — grant to a point they are mistaken in their methods, they aie still heroic — good will come to those less fortunate than themselves, who have no high thoughts and purpose to sustain them during those J months of dreadful solitude, where belief in a heaven might die save for "That blue i speck a prisoner calls the sky." | What wonder, when such 6cant justice and sympathy are meted out by the majority of men to women who aek for freedom to win life's battle fairly by % their side, that the majority of women resort to ! other means to gain their end — a share of j man's good? Which "sisterhood," after I all, is the more contemptible — the sisteri hood who demand, who fight, who "ehriek," ! if you will, for fair chance 6in the world's • [ struggle and fair pay for their work, or j that vast sisterhood who wheedlle, and ■ flatter, and deceive men to gain ease and luxury, pleasure, and position, whose j whole personality is a physical lie, false j from her head to her feet — false hair, false complexions, false eyebrows and eyelashes, 1 false teeth, fake figures, false smiles, and 1 false movements ; bedecked, bejewelled, bathed in milk and perfume and champ agne, " beauty -doctored" at the cost of j hundreds a year, so to appeal to the passions of men? Such parades are surely j a greater disgrace to womanhood than the i ' march of factory girls, and nurses, and j \ women working with needle, pen, and brush, asking for a voice in the laws that govern the conditions under which they labour. But .so far, it seems, the men of England prefer the pageant of millinery and artifice. However, recent new 6 from America reports that the men there are : beginning to strike against "aide to

aeauty,"' and Georgia, which has re<sfcntly i)ecbme a prohibitionist State, is now con- | ttmplating banishing another form of intoxication than that which proceeds from &rq:ojr,di3u^^namely,.,. man's intoxication. ifwhen-rfchey . are ' .%aj^cß4«tt' introduced Si^i^s^Fl^i^y'inse|«Btiß|t*'aiid warm ; Escuseion, provides that all nr&Triagee "become null and void Trhen. the husband is mtrapped by the woman's use of cosmetics, paints, ~ powder j scents,- ' artificial teeth md- hair,- lingerie, padding, open-work lose, high-heeled _ shoes, transparent 'waists" " (blouses}, arid ' 'other- -aids- • tojeauty.' The author of the bill, Mr.Geo. i jHenti, is -a- 'married man and 40 yeans if age. He supported his bill with a powerful and eloquent 'argument on the necessity of preventing •, the disillusion so. iomtoon after marriage when the husband iiscovers half hie wife's hair to -be false, tier lovely teeth the result of the dentist's skill," and her complexion enriched .by paint and . powder. According to Mr I 31enn, marriages " effected by- such ways; ire equivalent to a contract made on the strength of false pretences, and> should >c declared void. The women of Georgia ! ire furious, and are bringing powerful j pressure to bear on the members of the j lommittee to report unfavourably on the ! bill. To all criticisms Mr Glenn replies that the measure places no restrictions ' whatever on women who do not wish to ' be married. Now, as before, they may

1 employ all their arts to render themselve* more beautiful. The Most Beautiful Women. During a recent interview, Bodin, tba great sculptor, whom George Bernard f Si^w considers the greatest oi:i*lfc-liying j- artists in .any njilsdiumj.;was{ «s^p-; \yhat country •" produced -*. the" ' tno|££fceAutif ul women. Bodin said : " All "^taxtfem. Each country has its own beauty. What As beauty ? . N.q. exact definition cart be [>given.* - -Tiose "who most resemble the i classic type "tee sbmfe' 'of the vltalian_v ltalian_ ! models from the- south, and from Sicily, .really the Greek part- of Italy. These I also have^ptefcaMariiyicaFelyfoQifa fljow- ■ "sdays -with'^s? ttlat-.tiioifibtesacondjjtoa I being longer' than" -the. big dfcok' '.Qne jftnds , it invariably in* Greek .•statuesj" Andther .'classic featare^-'the "jnose cbntinulng. the .line of the >o f pjehead, ", is. rarer. „^I ~#ncs j saw it in a 'jroung 4ady, jfijiss j D-^-, who* bad* prgd&H^it^ artificially by injecting parafEn td' fill 'up "ftte^ hollow ai the bridge of thfe iiose. T!?e effect was very ugly." \. ' \ ■ If Some one having' 'reinarke'd that* th» Italians and Spaniards lost their beauty early, Bodin said :—": — " ii r es ; nowadays with us beauty is continued much 'ater. Among the English beauty seems to be- ! remarkably preserved. Perhaps it is th« 1 effect of the climate. When I say, • English, I mean the beauties one sees iij ! London. Generally, no doubt, they arc Irish, in whom beauty is natural."