THE YPRES LEAGUE BALL
162
The Ypres Times.
Brilliant Scene at Albert Hall.
We feel that where the activities of the League are concerned, outside observers are the most
impartial recorders we therefore print the following extract fromlthe Daily Telegraph,"
of December lsfi
It is not so much the brush of a Dulac as of a Doré that is required to fill the Albert
Hall with colour. Yet there were some recognisable Dulac costumes in the great cauldron
of colour (as it became about midnight) at the Ypres League ball last night. Mr. Dulac
had himself designed the costumes for the Arabian Nights set in the Pageant of Eastern
Queens. But on such an occasion it is not so much individual touches of poetic fantasy
like these that arrest the eye and live in the memory of the onlooker, as the unstudied,
changing, broad effects of colour that follow when four or five thousand people flock to
the vast Victorian rotunda out. Kensington way on the double mission of enjoyment
and helping along at the same time such splendid work on behalf of disabled war veterans
as that of the organisation of which the King and the Prince of Wales are patrons and
the Earl of Ypres the president. If temptation there was to forget that work and the
primary purpose of the ball, the presence of some 300 wounded soldiers who are still in
hospital served to recall it swiftly to mind. Many cf these men were wearing hospital
blue. They were seated in the gallery, and there was not a jollier lot of people in the
place.
There below, too, in one of the boxes, was the general whom some of them actually
served with in the Ypres salient, the Earl of Ypres himself. The presence of the dis
tinguished soldier, who came to the ball in company with General Sir William and Lady
Pulteney, Viscount and Viscountess Burnham, Earl Farquhar, the Marquis and Marchioness
of Linlithgow, and General Sir John and Lady Du Cane, showed his appreciation of the
fine work that the Ypres League is doinga work that is essentially English in its wholly
voluntary character, and needs to be helped along.
The dancing and merriment went on with untiring zest until the early hours of the
morning. Society was represented by many familiar faces in the boxes' and theatre-
land sent some well-known figures among its contingents. Miss José Collins and some
of the company from the Gaiety, and Miss Fay Compton and the cast of Secrets were
among the folk whom everyone looks out to see on such an occasion. From the box
booked by G.H.Q., London," was suspended, we were told, the actual Union Jack
flown at Ypres, and the massed bands of the Grenadier Guards and Scots Guards reminded
us before the night was out of the illustrious patronage under which the ball was held.
Two items on the programme call for special mention. In the course of the evening
some well-known people took part in a quadrille set arranged by Lady Newnes, wearing
exact replicas of costumes worn at a famous Victorian dance in 1842. The dancers
included Colonel Lord William Cecil, Lord Ossulston, the Hon. Pamela Boscawen, Viscount
and Viscountess Falkland, and Sir Frank and Lady Newnes. The Pageant of Eastern
Queens," and attendants, came in for boundless admiration. There was Miss Mary
Merrall as Helen of Troy Princess Astafieva as the Queen of Sheba the Baroness
Royce-Garrett as Sapho Madame Thea Jeltes as Cleopatra, Miss Catherine Calvert as
Maya, mother of Buddha Valia," the Anglo-Russian actress as Jezebeland Miss
Paul Peters as a Chinese queen, whose name even the most serious ex-subaltern on the
floor did not attempt to pronounce with terminological exactitude. The decorative
scheme was of cornflower blue, and was highly effective.
