"PEARLY" MANIA.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1166, 17 June 1911, Page 10

" PEARLY" MANIA.

RIVAL COSTER KINGS. If iu certain -parts of London the drapers' trade' is experiencing iust now an unusual demand tor fancy buttons of every kind, hilt mainly of pearl, it is becauso tho costermonger world is agitated by such a crazo for buttons as it never knew in its most picturesque period (says a writer in an English, paper). Men aud women who lead their donkeys and shout their various wares round tho streets all day are spending every square penny on buttons and staying up half tho night to sew them on their clothes. They I are buying buttons by thp hundred and. I thousand, and keening a closo eye on all others in the neighbourhood who are similarly smitten. It is a fever—a fever of rivalry, of perpetual stitching, of painful transformation of sober, unromantic garments into mail of nearl and gleaming SiK.. ; ■~.-... .i. ; ~ ....„., ~ ... The International Horse Show is the cause of all the stir. When the author!-, tics first made the class for costerniongers' donkeys an "appointments'.' class, in which "driver's dress" counts 30 per cent., it was seen that; certain superlatively bitttoned competitors paraded with material success. As a consequence, tho show of buttons increased immensely last year, while this year there arc indications that when the costermongers liold the arena Olympia will have reached tho zenith of its splendour. The competitors' in this class exceed 100 already, and tho officials arc bewildered at tho number of "Pearly Kings" who have signed entry forms. It has been found that some districts have rival "monarch*.'' Two men, for instance, have inscribed themselves "Pearly Kins of Somers Town." All have a regalia in which the buttons are counted in thousands. Some give tho figures—Sooo, 10,000, 22,500, and the like.

But the most sumptious of these turnouts probably will be that belonging to the man who has signed himself "Tho Right Pearly King of Designs. "Ho aripends the following account of the buttons which will bo worn by the occupants of his barrow:— Jiysolf 50,000 Mate. 18,500 Wife s.nftO Baby (two years old) 5,000 Total 01,500 The K.P.K.D. and his court may possibly encounter a more brilliant barrow, but there arc no details given on tho form signed "Original Pearly King and Queen of Seiners Town and Button. Kingof the World." They arc dark horses. "Coronation Jenny," tho donkev pre-. Rented recently by Lord Lonsdo'lc to Thompson, the Poplar hearthstone-seller, is entered. The number of competitors is so enormous that itrhas been proposed to hold a Costers' Sfarnthon over a short route to Olymnia in order to assist Ilia judges in their.stupendous task of wooding the donkeys out.