Page:The Coming Colony Mennell 1892.djvu/123

 obeyed as "commands," after a fashion which does not obtain in the other colonies, and which serves to remind one how short a time has elapsed since the nod of the Governor and the smiles of the Governor's lady were the "be-all and end-all" of official and social ambition in Western Australia. The "old order" has changed, but the tradition lingers, and like boys just let out from school the West Australians require a moment's breathing-space before they burst into the full cry of unconstrained liberty. All this is meant to indicate that Sir William Robinson's Birthday Levée was exceedingly well attended, and that the leading members of the Civil Service and of the local haut ton sent formal excuses in cases where they could not come to do homage personally. Even "at home" a levée agitates a certain limited section of West-end London, and it may be imagined what was the excitement in the little more than village of Perth when a procession of swallow-tails and white ties, which are a pestilence even at night-time, walked through the principal streets at noonday. Proud and happy he above his fellows whose official position, or the accident of presentation "at home," permitted to strut forth in the peacock­ like paraphernalia of his privileged caste, his braided or velvet coat, silken hose, and cocked hat reducing to "felt" insignifi­cance the plain cloth apparel, common "stovepipe" or rare opera hat of his less fortunate fellow-citizens. However, the latter enjoyed some slight compensation in the jeers which greeted the gayer-plumaged birds from a gang of unmannerly "larrikins," not educated up to the mysteries of Court attire.

Later on there was the inevitable "Birthday Ball"-the great piece of crush and colour in the colonial year. At these functions the invitations are widened so as to admit into the charmed circle a bevy of aspirants not normally numbered within the "Society pale." Amongst the latter there was great jubilation and an air in which suitable modesty struggled visi­bly with suppressed pride; whilst on the part of the élite, who have the entrée on more select occasions, there was a tendency to speak of the Birthday Ball as "crowded" and "mixed," and to feel a little that it prefigured the "wild rush of democracy" under the new régime.