"ALIEN'S" LETTER FROM ENGLAND.

Otago Witness, Issue 2850, 28 October 1908, Page 75

"ALIEN'S" LETTER FROM ENGLAND.

(Specially Writte* for the Witness Ladies' Page.)

sfc . ' (Continued.)

'dSv spent in its courts would leave th<3 visitor still a stranger to the resources of the great country t^at^ it reprjeenis^aud. attractive' exhibits buf mejelr?gla^<sed at.' To take it %J1 in : a .day's "^ork'j^s work *it is, and hard^Wttte^tai scan-btit -the surfeoe of this wonderful . White -City, the impression left -is of the .vaetnees repreeented, >i l^y^th~i& resource, a^ a command pf. nwney .^j^ci niajd^ .net Been ?pent-nri£gasdly in an'-^»d«avoUr. io give the stranger, within CJanada's-- *gates some faint notion of- the £nefhaiffitible~ natural of htskingdom.ever the sea. The arches and frescoes of woven jjrain are not only triumphs of art,' but there-" ia> in these wheat decorations a -not only of plenty, but abundance; anjl'apanrt from the lavish ornamentation tlhe fine display of grains in the ear and grains and meals in sacks Impresses on the sightseer that there is a land overflowing with milk and honey. The butter exhibit occupies quite a large square. Behind ■huge glass cases are wonderful baskets of ilow-ers. In New Zealand and Australia both these beautiful 'floral butter exhibits of a like artistic design drew admiring crowds, but Canada's butter exhibit did not confine iteelf to floral representations — it represents modern history, and among other life-size representations shows King Edward receiving the French President ■with a cordial handclasp. The likeness to both rulers of sgreat nations is perfect-, but tie sculptor has been kind,. and put back the glass of Time recording their figures. The butter frock coat of each gentleman hangs gratefully. The fruit exhibit is wonderful, and there is a stage piece which, large as an ordinary stage, represents an appie harvest— men picking the fruit and sorting it into barrels and baskets. In front of the stage one Teal "pile of" apples* gives a. realistic touch to the painted scene behind, a.nd when the light is on at night it is hard to tell tlwt the "tipped-np barrel behind the fruit has not actually spilled them. The Londoner learne how his colonial fruit comes' to market. And tkere is a Election, of Londoner, and not the most ■uneducated class, who 6peak and think of x Coverit Garden Market as the source, and not the mart, of all t*he sun-kiesed fruit and flowers of other climes. The fur exhibits draw crowds all the day long. The u9kx enodels are Pressed in mantles, jackets, stoles, xmiffs beyond piice — yet not beyond price oi the wealthy, or there would, be no market — opossum, beaver, silver fox, and * a list of other coveted specimens. There is a largeness 'about the whole Canadian section that gives you, where possible', Nature in the' Tough : running water, living things in the water, and the -process as far as possible towards finished art is shown. Thus one gets a glimpse of the great pictured rivers and forests, and sees real water ; a museum touched with «>eality, paint'fd cascades' ending in the little natural rill, as the painted apple harvest ended in the •real apples. The effect i 6 imposing and convincing. Out again into the open, tie cosmopolitan crowd claim attention. From all around comer the dash of the electric railways, the mingled laugh and shriek of those who-dre doing the. great scenic railway- journey that the Queen must ha\e martyred herself to perform. High, higb/up on the mimic mountain peaks the cars come tearing down, with ■ accompanying screams of delight and fear, and descend into deep ravines, climbing again to ,tOie "mountains " and dipping again to "raViines." The KCenic -rail! way is a gams of passing through some of the loveliest scenery in the world. The peaks and rivers are 'paint, the accents and descents are feats of engineering skill among sham hills -and valleya, but the game is played merrily from * morning till night, cliieflr by grown-up boys and girls, who turn from the reality of life and its iro>-k t-j the illusions of a play-day. For the Augvet holiday-makers in England, especially in London, are not of the c!a&> to whom every month means but a change of pleasure^ but of men and women who for three hundred days of the \<?ar aie at their po«t. and to whom the holiday at the tag end of the £*aeon i= perhaps moro recreative than t'hafc which extends for three hundred days. The holiday of the worker is in truth a. recreation, a rtelicf from toil, a creating anew of flagging energies. Most of this August orowd at the White City were town-dwellers, who scare© dare lift th*ir eyes from the ground •wbjen going and' comine:- at mort they glance a few yards ahead as a precaution to pick Ulne way beneath their feet, and tho abandon, when once within the turnsiib.?, to the freedom of bhis city within a ritv is in itself a neet. The rick- haws jmd their fleet of dusky TU-nners. the bath chairs and their drivers, rob the weak and frjed of any fear that the extreme limits <>f the Exhibition may not be accessible. Tramcare run iound *he extensive ground-?, every car loaded .vith people. The tramcar trip alone, skh-tvng the extensive area of the Exhibition, is worth the entrance fee. For a few added pon^e, France. Ireland, Canada, Australia. New Zealand, the South Sea Islands, Japan. C'hma — half tie globe, and more — is run through in miniature. But the tramcare ekirt. as it were, the outside of the globe, while rivers flow pa&t palaces, v. indin^ and curving between green banks and iir.d-^r many biidges. Up and down go the swan boat? laden with passengers, below white terraces; it takes little imagination to be transported to the scesvea depicted. It nruGt be a hopelessly matter-of-fact pereon who remembers, within this city of white

[ palaoetf,- tf &6rein Tfi: represented t)b© -finest : [gtt-, science^ en^inee^i^gjskill in the wide j ! world* "that here' lwo'^eara ago was a „ V{ % , the 'Exhibition "is V living world, peopled by representatives '.of all .notions, and as the day grows older tlie'Englieh section is" leas pronounced— provincial aoI cent ie lost ' among a babel of tongues.^ I The scene grows brighter ;v; v "all tJhe world". i "of London in town congregates more ! and more on -the -white terraces, in the - many squares and gardens, where the bafads are playing, in the restaurants, and ' around the thousands of tables of the or-en-air cafes,- which are scattered conveniently throughout the wide spaces of , the Exhibition, which is so large that without an appointment at a definite spot friends might wander through its courts and gardens and palaces for a week witfl- j I oat meeting each other. \ The French section alone is quite a town, approached either by broad, grave - [ led roads, beside the stream on which i the swan-boats ply, or from the terrace lof the Count of Honour. Once inside the • French EahiSbitdon, all other exhibits are foi the time forgotten in the wonder of I the Paris gowns and hats which adorn the models. An attempt io describe thesa Creations of art would be fu-tiie. One j passels through avenues of shov. -caees in which the most marvellous fabrics ace displayed, "worn" h\ the models. But I these wax women do net bieabhe or move, and that any living woman could do so in these sheatli gowns is inconceivable. They are pictures; the bleeding of the colours as daring and as exquisite as only the French colouring can be. The showcases are works of art. Ihe wax ladies ard gentlemen are n-ct mere stiff &h«j> drafttime, buL are grouped acecrding to the occasion and pericd the style is intended to represent. One scene is a gorgeous rose garden in France. *jwh#re I ladies an 4 gentlemen of the L#ouis period are gathering roses' in thcer silks and ■satins, powdered hair and patches, and high-lieeled shoes; the ladies wearing hats that' ccc ■» world- wide marvel— a scene resplendent as a life-sized grouping Hof Dresden china fiords and ladies. I Another case represents an afternoon reception with the Directoire-gowned and picture-hatted ladies being received by the hostess, and a gentleman arriving by the terrace. Each one of these figures, is a separate work of art. The style and ' colouring of the gown, the shape and character of the hat are ■m«::mt to &eit off to perfection a distinct and eeparate style of beauty. , One is bewildered by the endless ' beauties of fabric, and one's eyes ache with the massed colours. One may gather endless i-deas of the prevailing " modes, and diessmakers and milliners "by the hundreds have diligently studied the models. Hip London firm of Owen have bought a Urge section ofthe Paris exhibit.*, im hiding day and evening gowns, mantles, jackets, furs, hosiery, undeiwear, and millinery. j The* tall. lissome womar has evidently i come to stay. Howvver. she adapts herself to : the v process a fashionable woman of the *>eas>on must appear slerxlor, and it is rumoured that ioreat miseries are being endured by dieting and flesh-reducing , .exercises, which, in aJI probability, will j improve the health of many, for the new j figure is not so much pinched in at | the wal=t as compressed all over. The new corsets allow ido ro r/mr /m for curves, but stiff bones are not introduced for slender '/inures. They are more ti a waistcoat cut. made, of firm yet flexible eh-amo's j leather, over which the gowns can be j draped without a wrinkle. j Pat sing from the French section, the • i British art section next claimed a-ttention. j 'But a week would not do justice to all I \\\e wonders of this p.nJace. Jewels worth > n, king's lar.som — diamonds, pearls, sapI ylrres. ruble-, pnie-ralds, through the ; whole list of precious y-tones. One single lusfrfet ruby was valued at £200. Uold, ! silver, corals, all the wealth of a nation, ; seemed leathered together in those jewelleiV >!mw-cas'. > s. And many of the private ( •'xhibaUs hud hi#torief. that would fill a . voh;;*e. Tito art of the gold and silverJ i>mith. of the clock and watchmaker, of a j hundred other arts in jjcrae and stones ; and metals draw. 4he bewildered glance ; i pr«fc( ntation caskets *o famous people, j among them, that piesentei to ithe French j President aiming his recent visit to Loni don. and that pre.-cnted to Mr Gladstone. i 'Near are the e\voi<"> of honour presented to famous g-enerals, the jewelled hilts gleiunin-c, in the light, and amon^ them the sword of Lord Roberts. But it is only bofore *one treasuT© in a thousand ' th;wt the individual lingers. The English fect'ion of pic£tnes and sculpture is n:ore important tha-p the French section. Oi.m-or.ij: the great French sculptures are itiioae by Mercic. Dubois, Rodin. Carpeaux, . Ingres, and Giu'tave Moreau. MM. Bonnat and Carol us Duran are among the ! painters, with many others of the imsresfiionist schools. Among the fine collection of English paintings are Gainsborough's wonderful " Blue Boy,'" and " L?dy Bate Dudley*" Romney'e "Lady Hamilton" smiles in imperishab'e beauty in several of her mf'st famous portraits in the ' Turner* Reynolds. Holm an Hunt. Rossett'i, Watts, Constable. .Bume-Jone*, LeigMon, • ard a "•'«t of otJ-era are th&re. ! When weary of pight-secnq the crowds r!u-1"r rounJ th-3 tab"c« of Lyons's opfi;air <-af»s and enjoy the.r tea with all tl. > pan< .-inri ■>/! !if« pr.uird. or make ;i rroie Mtbs-tnnlinl nv»al :.n: .n the restaurant*., the inii»!c of l>and« T.d the perfume of flowers w.ifturl through the open windows. But it ■is when t he day io fading aod the- <c.ty of white palaces is picked out au'amst the darkening t\iy that the chief fascination of the scene is felt Far as the- ey«

can see the twinkling myriads of golden etar-lights rim hundreds of towers and domes and terraces. It isn't England ; it isn't the Franco-British Exhibition any

longer. It is tbat fairylaix* we believed in and longed for in the days of childhood; that world, flooded with light and music, where enchanted folk lived and moved and had their being in prismatic splendour, and sailed in ' swan-boatr on Lsiill. livers, which wound - betweer green ; banks and terraces of gleaming marble. (This is the place — the fairyland ol ; romance. Grandfathers and grandmothers seated on the-* terraces and lawns, smiling 'in content,"~feel that the' fairy -story ot childhood has^ not wholly ihsated them 'after "all. They 1 have caught it up ay the end of their days- And the children wall scorn the fairy-tales, 'and Quote the White City. For here are lakes and fairy- - boats, and in the great Court of Honour Tound which run tuie terraced palaces ol ■' princes and princesses, a wonderful waterfall, named "The Cascade," of a thousand colours, falls in musical streams of rose ■ r and blue, orange, pink, and every rainr bow hue. Happy thY child does not know that the cascade has a fail of glass beneath which the colour scheme is | worked. But to those who know, the | illusion is not spoilt. Thousands of men and women stand on the white bridged which .span the lake, leaning over -the parapets, or sit unon the terraces, under the spell of the illusion of a colour-world — a world of light and nnsic and flowers. Is it, as advertisements say, that a glimpse of fairyHnd supplies to" grown-ups a "long-felt want"? i The ascent in the Flip-flap — two mighty cross arms, which, rising from the ground, form a semicircle in the air — is a experience not to be forgotten. Each arm of tlris gigantic engineering feat is fitted ■ with calces. You pay your sixpence at 1 the turnstile it the Flip-flap platform, i take your 6eat in one of nhe cages, and with an almost imperceptible movement the great arms begin to rise from the ground, crossing each other "up in the sky, ever sq high." each arai loaded with cages bearing laving freight. You are taken up at one point, pass a semicircle in the air, - and are deposited at another point. It 16 as though you took a rainbow journey. And as you are borne up, if it is night, all the wonder of the lighted White City lies below, "describable, with the duller encircling lights -of London, city lying beyond. '• Meanwhile, Japan, and China, and " Old London " »vere yet unvisited, and there was but time for a glance at the oriental treasures of each, and at the unfoi'tunate man whose duty it is to sit in old English clothes in the stocks outside the gates of Old London, where, could the old-time crier have called, he would have said : " Ten o'clock, and a fine night." Time to catch our train, although the- Exhibition ds not closed.