A grand flee was held on Thursday at 'the Horticultural
Gardens, South Kensington, in support of the School of Female Art. All kinds •of amusements were provided, mostly of the burlesque character, the managers even descending to the employ- ment of the mummers with blackened faces, absurd antics, and grotesque songs, hitherto confined to tenth-rate music-halls. There was, however, a fair of articles much more valuable than the rubbish visitors at such fetes are usually swindled into buying, the Prince and Princess attended, and the money collected must have amounted to a very considerable sum. It had been an- nounced that any lady who collected a purse of five pounds might present it herself to the Princess, an appeal to British flunkeyism which must have been suggested by some one with an acute appreciation of the middle-class sense of dignity. One hundred such purses were presented.
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