_By Lady Vi Fitzermine, Leader of Society's Revels._
Are we growing dull? That is a question which in these pip-inducing
times of peace one is frequently constrained to ask; and in the view
of many, I fear, there can be but one answer.
During the late lamented War it was almost impossible for any rightly
constituted woman to experience the pangs of boredom. When one wasn't
making things vibrate in the hospitals of France and Flanders there
was always abundance of excitement on the Home Front--flag-days,
tableaux, theatricals, dances and other junketings in aid of this or
that charity. And when the supply of charities threatened to run dry
it was always a simple matter to invent new ones. All you had to do
was to organise a drawing-room meeting, put the names of the Allied
nations in one hat and of the more or less recognised necessaries of
life in another and draw out one paper from each receptacle. You there
and then registered a new charity out of the result and advertised
some thrillingly expensive form of entertainment in support of the
Society for the Supply of Chewing-gum to the Czecho-Slovakians, or any
other equally pathetic cause.
In those days a charity began at an At Home and usually ended at the
Coliseum or the Albert Hall--or (in a few unfortunate cases) in the
Bankruptcy Court. Nowadays, however, people are deplorably sceptical
on the subject of new appeals to the pocket, and many folk find time
hanging heavy on their hands in consequence. It is for us who are of
what I may call the organising class to break down the walls of this
growing prejudice, which, if not checked in time, threatens to add
seriously to the general volume of unrest. Hence it is necessary
to scrap a good many of our old ideas and to realise that for all
essential purposes the exotic form of charity is played out. To-day
a Society woman who wishes to maintain her position as _arbiter
elegantiarum_ must tap other sources of inspiration and supply.
It is in these circumstances that I confidently fall back upon the
Middle-Class Mother. After all, who was always the chief financial
support of my wartime enterprises? The Middle-Class Mother. It was to
her heart that the cry of the Croat, the moan of the Montenegrin, the
ululation of the Yugo-Slav made its most effective entry. It was she
who lavished her husband's pay or profits on the entrancing vision of
the Countess of Bustover as Britannia or of Lady Aaronson as England's
Girlhood. So I have determined that she shall now have a show to
herself, and we shall see whether she will subscribe to her own
charity as wholeheartedly as she did to those of our suffering Allies.
Without a doubt the Middle-Class Mother is a very deserving
institution and has done extremely good work in the past, which
I regret that the space at my disposal does not permit me to
particularise. I must perforce content myself with announcing that on
her behalf a grand Zoological Fancy Dress Ball will be held next month
at Valhalla, which will be converted for the occasion into a realistic
representation of a Bear Garden. I myself am appearing as Queen of the
Polar Bears, and by way of augmenting the takings I propose to sell
hugs at a guinea per head. The whole of the proceeds, after the
expenses have been deducted, will go to the Middle-Class Mothers'
Mutual Criticism Society, an animated body of which I have the
privilege to be founder and hon. president.
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