DIVERSIONS OF FASHIONABLE LIFE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10042, 12 May 1910, Page 4

DIVERSIONS OF FASHIONABLE LIFE.

The announcement that the late King Edward put his royal ban on two volumes of memoirs containing stories of incidents in the lives of some of the leaders of English society is bound to pique the curiosity of everybody, says a New York exchange. What c?n they have done that the King must use his influence to protect them? And how have they managed to maintain their positions in spite of their indiscretions or unconventionalities? Can it be that English society is more charitable in judgment or that its whole trend is sportier and gayer than our own? Americans are apt to think of English society as staid and proper, forgetting the thunders of Father Vauirhau a few years ago, when he likened London to a modern Babjlon. But the anecdotes related in the prescr'bed memoirs—as well as in some that have escaped the royal censorship—reveal gaieties and customs that make the monkey dinners of Newport and the divorces of New York seem monoton-

ous and 1 ordinary. It is scarcely necessary to say that there is a vast difference between London and New York society. In the first place, the majority of London's fashionable sec are absolutely assured of their positions, and feel that whatever they do is right, since they make it right by doing it. In the second place, the number of actors, actresses, j musicians, artists and writers re-! ceived in the most aristocratic draw-ing-rooms is many times greater than in this country. "vVe are so tired of each other," said a famous English duchess in explanation, "'and they '

are the brightest and most amusing people in the world." Let us take a little survey of London society and compare some of its pastimes with J our own. In London smoking is a j matter of course with women. In New York no first-class restaurant or hotel dining-room would permit even the most desirable of its women patrons to light a cigarette within its sacred precincts, but in London the flight of women smoking causes no [ more comment than does that of men. > All cafes have their smoking-rooms for women, and tha Army and Navy Ladies' Club has one of the biggest smoking-iooms in London. Society on both sides of the Atlantic still remembers the famous contest for making the most perfect rings, at which Mrs Samuel Sloan Chauncey won the cigarette holder offered by the Grand Duke Michael of Russia.