COURT NEWS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 12711, 5 August 1919, Page 7

COURT NEWS.

r.'nere art; no fewer than twelve hundred debutantes waiting to make their how to the King and Queen this season. If (says a Home paper) they are already taking lessons in the correct procedure to adopt nt the presentations, the masters and mistresses of deportment must have their bauds full. As a matter of lact, many of the elaborate oetails that used to be in vogue are dispensed with nowadays, but it is by no means easy for the young debutantes to pilot a heavily embroidered train of four, five, or six yards through, a small spec, to make the correct curtsey, and to walk sideways in a crab-like fashion a,s they are doing so- It takes a lot of practice, and as the debutantes have only a little over a. chatr-siiace to manoeuvre in, somethirnos they deviate a little too much and fall among the attendants behind. This has occurred on many occasions in the past. Something like a shudder is likely to run tlirough Bond Street (writes Q.. in the London “ Evening Hews,”) and the surrounding thoroughfares bv the announcement that the King has it in contemplation at the present time to. abolish the long Court trains that are now the fashion. The King has been brought to consider this matter by the very large number of debutantes and J brides that are awaiting an opportunity to pass before their Majesties, and the time that would be saved if there were not these trains to get in the wav and impede progress. The present rule is that those trains shall not have more than 54 inches drawing on the ground, but it is to he feared that this is exceeded in many cases, hut as a former Lord Chamberlain once remarked, How on earth can one carry about a measuring tape in one's pocket to measure the dowagers’ trains with?” The late King Edward once laid it down that the only thing longer than a Court train was the hill that had to be paid for it. If these trains were abolished it would be possible for a much larger number of ladies to. attend an evening Court.