PROFESSIONAL BEAUTIES.

Patea Mail, 3 May 1882, Page 4

PROFESSIONAL BEAUTIES.

There is no event, remarks a London contemporary, on which society is more to be felicitated than the decline, and, indeed, the practical termination, of that scheme of professional beautydom under which we have bo long lived. ■The professional beauty, though a very modern institution by name, is really almost as much an anachronism as the grande dame herself. There are so many princesses of society now-a-days that it is almost impossible that there should be any single recognised queen. In the same wuy, England is more prolific of beautiful and pretty women than any other country in the world. The exceptional prestige with which the representative of professional beautydom was invested was resented as in itself an injustice to many other equally qualified candidates, and as a violation of what is pre-eminently the spirit of the time.

The feeling gradually spread itself that the condition on which the diploma of professional beautydom was obtained and was held must be extremely precarious. Matrons and maids were wise enough to see that no inference absolutely satisfactory to their own pretensions could be drawn from the case of Mrs Langtry. Her experiences, it was recognised, were due to a combination of circumstances that was altogether Unique ; for a similar success it was necessary that this combination should be reproduced. It was generally acknowledged to be impossible that this should be done. Herein English ladies showed their good sense, and did so in a manner that has been in the highest degree salutary to the interests of society at large.

In a census paper filled out by King Humbert when the Italian census was taken, he describes,,himself as “Humbert oi Savoy ;” profession, “ King of Italy while Leo XIII. inscribed himself as “ supported : by the alms of the faithful,” ami “ Pope” by profession. General Grant seldom wore a sword during,, the war,, although one that he happened to have on at Shiloh saved:his life, a hall striking it on the scabbard, which it shattered. Ho had none on himself at the. surrender of General Lee. , At the opening of the National Hotel in Norfolk (U.S.), tlio first name on the register .was that of Louis Napolean Bonaparte, who was at that time living by his wits in America and among the autographs of other visitors is that of Massai: Ferretli, an Italian priest, who afterward became Pope Pius IX. A person in the Manchester Theatre, England, a sailor.on board the Russian Imperial yntch the Lividia, and a young gardener at Hatfield House have all been killed by accidentally touching the wires of the machine producing the electric light. The first coloured lawyer admitted to the bar in Philadelphia was Thomas T. Henry, who was : born of slave parents, and was a letter-carrier in Richmond, a school-teacher, and finally a waiter at a hotel in Philadelphia, where a wealthy gentleman helped him to become a lawyer.