WAR DECLARED ON “GATE-CRASHERS”

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 182, 22 October 1927, Page 24 (Supplement)

WAR DECLARED ON “GATE-CRASHERS”

Problem of the Uninvited Guest Vexes London Hostesses. . . .

Tlieft of Jewellery at Fashionable House-Party Precipitates Crisis.

' ORW,'' HEEKY young thrill hunters ot' no social MSSUcSp) standing who have been ■ ftgjßrpljy inviting themselves to Iw?'7X7/4 big society functions in the West End and actually crowding out the regular guests aro going to have rather a difficult time of it for the next year or two. Led by the Duchess of Sutherland, London hostesses have declared war on them and mapped out a plan for their undoing. Admission to the big dances and dinners is to be by invitation card only, until the “gate crashers,” as Americans call them, are put in their places. Whether one be an admiral or an abbot, a diplomat or a duke, one will have to produce credentials for the inspection ot the man at the door. No longer will decent evening clothes and an impeccable accent provide

open sesame to the drawing rooms of Mayfair. That such a drastic step must be taken is very humiliating, of course, but apparently there is no safe way ot conducting the larger social functions without having ticket-takers, just as they do at the cinema palaces and music halls. The “gate crashers” have been making West End hostesses furious for several seasons now, but it was a regrettable incident at the home of Mr. George Hay Whigham, of Oueen’s Hill Park, that led the Duchess of Sutherland to declare open war on them. Mr. Whigham’s house party for friends who had just watched the running of the Ascot God Cup races was ruined by burglars, who got away with thousands of pounds’ worth of jewellery while the merriment was at its height. Servants saw the two burglars running from the house. Startled out ot his customary politeness by the

outrage, Mr. Whigham began to take stock of his guests, and found to his amazement that not mare than onehalf of them had been invited. Of course all he could do was to show them out, but the police say there is not the slightest doubt that some of the gate crashers were criminals, probably scouts for the persons who entered the house by way of the second story and got off with the valuables. “It’s about time to make a stand," said the Duchess of Sutherland. “Maybe other hostesses will join me in my crusade now.” The Duchess said that the pioneer gate crashers were harmless if rather silly young people out for a good time and a thrill. Contact with men and women they read about in the society columns gave them a sense of glamour and romance. For the matter of that, most of the gate crashers to-day are of the same order. But of late, the police say, professional criminals have been taking advantage of the chaotic, state of society to slip into the homes of the wealthy in evening clothes and make diagrams for the future use of secondstory men. Most of the early gate crashers were movie-mad young men and women, in ; the opinion of the Honourable Mrs. Richard Norton, daughter-in-law of ! Lord Grantley. “Hollywood has given people without perspective an absurd idea of society,” she says. “People think of it as a round of elegance and leisure, luxury and mad delights. The pictures set the minds of young persons on fire, and they took risks to get a glimpse of the life, even if they had to travel under false colours. Finding it comparatively easy, they told others. And gate crashing, or the custom of inviting yourself to any function you happen to fancy became a very popular amusement. Now it is so bad that some of these guileless, foolish impostors can’t pass an awning and a strip of red carpet on the steps in front of a West End house without trying their luck at getting inside.” When the Duke of Devonshire was asked what he thought of the war on uninvited guests, he laughted boisterously, and thumped the tbale. “I had the right idea,” he boomed. “When it dawned on me that the British aristocrats were to be starved out, I sold Devonshire House, and they’ve turned it into apartments and a restaurant. Uninvited guests may now dine in the halls of my ancestors, but, by Jove, they have to pay for it.” Whereupon the Duke of Devonshire laughed again, and added that he was

“out of if all,” but that he and the Duchess were against the uninvited guests as a matter of principle. Sybil Thorndike, England’s most famous actress, says that gate crashers do invade her home in Carlyle Square occasionally, but she does not take it amiss, and she won’t join the drive on them. In her case, she feels, their naive attempts to palm themselves off as stage people reflect their admiration for the art, and is a kind of flattery.

It remained for Lady Sybil Grant, daughter of the Earl of Rosebery, to take the original view, as everyone expected. She views the imminent passing of the gate crashers with melancholy. "So sorry to see the social circle narrowing,” she told an interviewer. “I am sure that it will tend to make society affairs even duller .than they have been. The uninvited guest at least assured a mingling of the classes. We met him and his sweetheart and his wife, as we could not do otherwise. Most of the crashers I have spotted

have been romantic young things anxious to see society in its own setting. Gate crashing has a spice of forbidden adventure, deviltry, danger, for them. What an escape from monotony it must be for a girl to dress herself up and spend an evening under the rooftree of an earl, even if she has to masquerade to get in! How I wish I could get that delicious thrill over meeting an earl! How sad it must be for the more discerning crashers to find how stupid many titled persons really are!”