Lola Montez : $b An adventuress of the 'fortiesD'Auvergne, Edmund B. (Edmund Basil)
History
Lola Montez : $b An adventuress of the 'forties
D'Auvergne, Edmund B. (Edmund Basil)
Montez, Lola, 1818-1861
On 27th August she appeared in _Yelva, or the Orphan of Russia_, "a new
and exciting drama" she had herself translated from the French. On
Wednesday, 6th September, she took a benefit, playing in _The Follies of a
Night_, and two farces. Into one of these she introduced her "Spider
Dance," which seems to have outraged colonial opinion. We need not condemn
it on that account as immodest, for in our own day we have seen a
performance interdicted as offensive to public morals in Manchester, and
pronounced (rightly) to be the quintessence of mobile grace and the truest
poetry of motion in the not less considerable city of London. Immodesty
in the minds of many people definitely connotes that which pleases the
eyes and the senses.
Business continued dull at Sydney, and Lola departed in the second week of
September for Melbourne. A dispute had arisen between her and another
member of her company, Mrs. Fiddes, who issued a writ of attachment
against her. Brown, the sheriff, went aboard the steamer to apprehend
Lola, who retired to her cabin till the vessel was well under weigh. She
then sent word that the officer could arrest her if he would, but she was
obliged to tell him that she was quite naked. The bold expedient was, of
course, successful. "Poor Brown," we are told, "blushed and retired, and
was put on shore at the Heads, about twenty miles from Sydney, and was
greeted on his return to the city with roars of laughter." The sheriff
evidently did not object to repeating a good story, even at his own
expense.
At Melbourne, Lola must have been vividly reminded of California. The gold
fever was at its height. The population of the Port Philip district had
swollen in five years from 76,000 to 364,000, of which number at least
two-thirds were men. Men, too, they were, of every nationality under the
sun, and of every class, though the more criminal and dangerous elements
were in the ascendant. In '55 life and property were, notwithstanding,
somewhat more secure here than in California, thanks to the firmer, less
corrupt administration of British officials. Prices were, it need not be
said, extravagantly high, though the barest necessities of decent life
were hardly obtainable outside Melbourne and Geelong. A goldfield would
seem to be one of the most brutalising environments to which a human
being can adapt himself.
For our knowledge of Lola's doings in the Victorian capital, we are
indebted to the _Era's_ local correspondent. He writes:--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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