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Show ' How the Way He Behaved J fSf.. lj in India Leaves Less Hope ft W Than Ever of Getting Him . xfl ; , 1 Married to the Sort of ,s RlF " Wife His Friends Think f He Should Have 1 ; ,ir"'"v .,JSSr,dil I VERYBODY in a position to know m 1 the facta is saying that the tour ij j I of the Prince of Wales through India was a failure politically. But that is not so surprising in view of the turbu-! turbu-! lent state of the discontented native WL population. X What seems to be giving even more J concern to a great many Englishmen and women is the belief that the prince's tour was a failure romantically, j The matchmakers are about ready to despair of marrying off young Albert I Edward. His engagement to a suitable young woman they regard as the ut-1' ut-1' most importance to him and the nation, t and they are worried as opportunity I after opportunity is passed by and still j the heir to the British crown remains heart free. I The Prince of Wale?, boyish, hand some, full of youthful spirits and the I joy of life, seems to have reflected that one is only young for a few brief years, while one may be married and a king for a long time. A crown and a bride will be along some day. Why hurry? But the matchmakers can't see it that way. They would like to see the line of I succession further established by a son I of the prince's; they would like to see a suitable alliance that would do some-jj some-jj thing to settle the very much unsettled state of the British Empire; they would ; like to see the prince affianced and pre-1 pre-1 paring to settle down to a sedate mar-l mar-l ned life. I And nowhere have eligible young 1 women been offered in greater numbers I and more shamefully neglected by the j j prince than in India. Even the staid old "Manchester Guardian," conservative British sheet, has been moved to com ment upon the matter as follows: I "It was supposed to be a visit of H J-1 pleasure and ceremony, and pleasure the prince has undoubtedly derived from I the sports and gorgeousness of the East, but the ceremony he has met with un-I un-I disguised impatience. "In the Native States it seemed the 1 fitting accompaniment of ancient tradi- I tion and of the willingness of an Eastern j people to prostrate itself before its j ruler. When ceremony takes the form of star-spangled princes, of gorgeously j, caparisoned elephants and marble halls I running with perfumed water, there is I the excuse of picturesqucness and age- I long custom. I "When it takes the form of inviting i an enthusiastic dancer to have as his ,1 partner on every occasion the most I venerable lady present it seemed to the '! prince to have no excuse at all, and he 3 treated the cast-iron rules of precedence J (so much more cast-iron in India than j in Buckingham Palace) with democratic I ruthlessness. The result has been an Ji ever-widening trail of offended great li ladies in his wake." The prince has taken part in the color 's ful pageantry of the great parades and l) welcomes by the British officials and 1 native royalty. He has been most duti- W: ful about it. He has shown bravery in a, the midst of frankly hostile Indian mobs. But when he arrived ar-rived at the great balls of state he failed miserably to meet the expectations expecta-tions of the matchmakers. match-makers. High ranking dowagers and out-of-date debutantes who had confidently confi-dently expected the honor of being among the early partners of the prince, have met d i s a p p ointment. The prince refused re-fused to make his tour a long succession suc-cession of duty dances. With him it was not a question ques-tion of rank or fitness as a wife that determined his partners The point was how well could they toddle? An amusing story is told of a "revolt" by the prince at a ball given by the Gov- sbk. -:i t . WW? ? ' i h ' ? - 2 The Duncan Sisters, the American singers and dancers who became so . chummy with the Prince of Wales on their recent visit to England the important Indian provinces. The Governor's wife handed the prince a list of the ladles with whom she desired de-sired that he dance. The prince took the program and sampled it by dancing with the first three or four on it. He found he had been scheduled to be the partner of a series of "dreadnoughts" and faded debutantes of past seasons. Having confirmed his worst fears, the prince slyly flipped his dance card behind be-hind a chair, where some one found it and gave it to a newspaper to print. The rest of the evening the prince consulted con-sulted his own royal will and danced with all the prettiest belles of the party, regardless of their rank or eligibility as a love mate for England's future king. At another affair the prince decided that the party had no interesting possibilities possi-bilities whatever. It was what American slang would describe as a complete "frost." What he did about it was quietly to invite the six prettiest girls in the room to adjourn with him and his staff to the deck of the battleship Renown Re-nown for a little dance of their own. All accepted at once. The prince mnde his excuses to his hostess, saying that he had had a long, tiring day. The little group slipped away and danced on the battleship until nearly dawn. Can you imagine how the hostess felt when she heard the true explanation of the prince's sudden departure? In consequence of such a series of incidents in-cidents as this many British officials and Indians of hiph caste have been offended. And the matchmakers haw been thrown into despair. Ability to flirt and to dance gracefully they do not regard as prime qualifications for a future queen of England. In his attitude toward the ladies the prince seems to be rather a fickle chap. His admirations, if not his loves, are many. He goes the proverbial sailor one better by having not a girl, bill girls, in every port. And he never seems able to concentrate on any one of them for long. He has sailed the world over, more buoyed up by good times than we down by the duty of winning a bride. The most charming and beautiful femininity femi-ninity of many lands has appeared before be-fore him, and the prince, while highly appreciative, has not been serious. While his subjects wonder and worry over their future king's prolonged bachelorhood, that young man plays about as if he had no concern about it. The matchmakers, official and otherwise, other-wise, first began with that logical choice of a prince, a princess. The field there, which never was very wide, was greatly limited by the war, which put many Teutonic Teu-tonic ladies cut of the running. That restriction, re-striction, along with those imposed by the prince's religion, narrowed down the royal choice. For the royal marriage act decrees that the prince must marry only a member of royalty, and that he must not marry a Catholic. Therefore as the law now stands, the prince may not take a bride from any of the republics of the world, but must look among the kingdoms, which are fewer than ever. There are no princesses available in Norway and Sweden and the royal daughters of Holland and Belgium Bel-gium are too young. If the prince were to marry among Miss Geraldine n Miller I S Grahnm, one of "! : the 5 :.;vS American I society I . Yra.gmB girls for 1 whom I the 1 i" ; Prince I JF 'Jzf pressed '0 great ad- JIS miration V JmBk the royalty of the 'Sr ' . .'f? ; 'f k ' C o n t i nent the 5S583ftgggjsSi matchmakers felt that almost the only suitable bride for him would be Princess Yolanda, daughter of King Victor Vic-tor Emmanuel III of Italy. The princess is a strikingly pretty brunette, bru-nette, with grace and w it and the adoration adora-tion of her people She was a tireless worker in the war, and it was then that she met the prince, who was serving with the British troops on the Italian front. They saw eacli other frequently behind the battle lines. For a time the matchmakers thought J V The Prince of Walet, I .$ the despair of tilt V'' matchmakers A ' The fun-loving Prince found the companionship com-panionship of the Dolly Sisters so enjoyable en-joyable that he kept Mrs. Vanderbilt and her ether gue:ts waiting until ? ;he dinner was all cold ., If i 1 their problem was to be solved through Yo- landa. It was believed "M u;at the obstacle of V;i Mm -f7 might not prevent a tlb' union, fur it had a p r e c edent, and the Jf political, economic, in- H WKBr lustrial and financial Si interests which would Wffi&riMMW0O benefit by such an i$&pr uhoerwoop alliance were strong considerations. But the prince refused re-fused to show any more serious interest in Italy's royal daughter than he had in countless other beauties. The prince is now twenty-seven years old. High time he married, say the matchmakers. He is of an age when he may wed without the consent of his father, the King, but the law of the realm require? that he must give notice of his intention to the Privy Council twelve months before the date of the ceremony. Even then the marriage would only be mr, in order legally A, u long as both i houses of Parlia- mi nu-nt diil not Mi, dis' of But the i hanged many r things. While it .M did away with .m much royalty, ;W ,t made life le i ceremonious for the rest. TW Wi opinion prevails 1, that in spite of 1 . . Royal Mat- jH riage Act and J all the other re- W strictions that 1 exist, the pnnc j c o u 1 d If ho 1. only would j practically e h o o 3 e any 1 bride, within K eertain reason JL able limits. -1 So the suf-. M gestions of the w'- match makert 9 have ranged 1 from charming ft. girls of the m English nobility, as Lady Mary Cav ,i,sh and I.adv Vict-.rin Mary Cambridge, 4 to some dusky princess of India. T have emphasized the advantages of a u- W ances with lands across the 9ea witli m sumo charming American girl When they found the hopes they heo I bu.lt on rank and social position all mm vain the matchmakers turned their t- -tention to riches They put orw.fi S such candidates as Edwina Ashley, tat richest g,rl in England But a though A the prince seemed charmed with her ano Mis-s Ashlev w.th him, nothing cJ this. The beautiful heiress is said w have been much disturbed by the prmoM , Chummineas with the Duncan S'jAja and also by the way he let hs Ml for the society of the Dolly Sisters Mrs. Vanderbilt's dinner waiting; . J To-dav the only qualities of sure e m traction the M With in finding a mate f or t e P M are pretty faces and r.mblc f e . even those seem only of ' No wonder the matchmakers are in eiH despair. |