The Romance of Madame Tussaud'sTussaud, John Theodore
History
The Romance of Madame Tussaud's
Tussaud, John Theodore
Madame Tussaud and Sons' Exhibition; Tussaud, Marie, 1761-1850; Waxworks
During the autumn of 1914 and far into the following year there
congregated within our walls numerous hapless and pathetic beings,
strangers to us by their foreign tongue, who, having come from nowhere
in particular and having nowhere in particular to go, aimlessly wandered
into the Exhibition.
We can only presume that they came to help pass away many a sad and
anxious hour, or maybe to take measure of the semblance of those who were
at that very moment foremost in striving to stem the tide of the cruel
incursion that had driven them to take refuge in a foreign land.
Then as time wore on there came a touch of relieving colour that showed
itself here and there amid the prevailing khaki; at first a mere fleck
that gradually became more pronounced as the war advanced. This was
the hospital blue of our valiant soldiers who had not passed unscathed
through the ordeal of fire, as cheery a gathering as ever set foot within
the place, a cheeriness readily responded to by their fellow visitors
through the medium of sympathy and admiration.
One sad sight there was, however, which touched the hearts of the
people so deeply that no display of cheerfulness on the part of the
sufferers--and they, too, were invariably light-hearted--could quite
evoke a sense of mirth.
St. Dunstan’s Hostel for Blinded Soldiers and Sailors in Regent’s Park is
not very far from Madame Tussaud’s, and many of its inmates visited the
Exhibition, and, for the matter of that, still find a pleasure in coming
in couples or small parties to spend an hour or so among the models and
the relics.
In spite of the distressing fact that they have been deprived of the
gift of sight, they stand in front of the models and pause while the
biographies are read out to them from the Catalogue by some more
fortunate companion. Then they almost invariably nod to express their
comprehension of the subject before them, and seem to see and understand
through the faculty of their imagination much that would otherwise have
been made manifest to them through the function of their eyes.
During the past few years our attendance has totalled to a figure
reaching several millions; but the number visiting the place hardly
constitutes so remarkable a fact as the many diverse nationalities and
tribes they represented, or their coming from so many far-distant and
remote parts of the world.
The landing of a fresh contingent at any one of our ports, or the arrival
in London of any body of men attached to our Allied Forces, brought
distinct and unfamiliar types of humanity to our doors.
“I had often heard of the place, but never thought I should have had an
opportunity of seeing it,” was a remark that often fell upon the ears of
our attendants; and we know, for many reasons, that most of them had made
up their minds to visit the place long before they had set foot upon our
shores.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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