3-028-276 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Mall, St. James's Park, on a drawingroom day, 1870. 'One of the notable sights of London in the season...is the stately line of sumptuous equipages conveying the rank and beauty of the kingdom to Buckingham Palace when the Queen holds a Drawingroom...we cannot fail to be edified by this moving spectacle of British aristocracy and gentility solemnly approaching the shrine of social adoration. These ladies, immersed in waves of satin, lace, and tulle, with feathers, flowers, and diamonds...are manifestly on their way to perform the most serious duty of life...the only persons who seem inattentive are the boys, and the bare-footed beggar-girl with her violets for sale...Observe the majestic joviality of the coachman, handling his...whip like a grand master of the art, and sitting like a president in his place of office, from which hangs the hammercloth, decorated with heraldic insignia, the swan and the issuant lion, denoting the noble family he serves!...See the amazing bouquets worn by all these superb retainers in their manly bosoms, to refresh their jaded nerves on the journey with bright hues of hot-house floral vegetation, borne high aloft as they pass beneath the leafless trees of the Mall!'. From "Illustrated London News", 1870.