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New Zealand Tablet, Volume XII, Issue 8, 13 June 1884, Page 18

Labouchere, whose free use of a sardonic pen in his sparkling society-paper, Truth, goes far towards proving that the name is no misnomer, declares a London court " drawing-room " in the reign of Queen Victoria to be "as discreditable and inhuman a spectacle as can be conceived." He gives a harrowing description of the privations of ladies attending these drawing-rooms. The. costume they have to wear is a shock to decency and the comments they bave^o listen to, while waiting for hours in the broad day light in their riages under the inspection of a London mob, are an outrage to me ears of any woman. When at length they enter the drawing-room " naked, blue-nosed and ashamed," they are met by a- chill inhospitality which, it appears does not provide them with a glass of sherry to act as a reviver or a demi-verre of brandy to keep out the cold.— Pilot. " • •