ent at a ball.

The members of the leading nobility and gentry of a neighbourhood
invariably lend their names to local charity balls, and head the list of
patrons and patronesses, but beyond lending their names, and in some
cases sending a subscription of money towards the funds of the charity,
or a present of game towards the supper, they have very little to do
with the ball itself, which is practically in the hands of the local
stewards. The exceptions to this rule are the charity balls held in town
during the season, such as the Royal Caledonian Ball, the Yorkshire, the
Wiltshire, and the Somersetshire Societies' Balls. On these occasions
many of the great ladies give vouchers and attend the balls.

When ladies consent to become lady patronesses of a ball, they usually
notify to the committee whether they will or will not undertake the duty
of giving vouchers or tickets, as the case may be. Some ball committees
arrange that vouchers are to be given by lady patronesses, to be
subsequently exchanged for tickets, signed and filled in with the name
of the person to whom the ticket is given. The lady patronesses in this
case receive the money charged for the tickets, and forward it to the
committee after the ball, with any tickets that they may not have
disposed of.

The ladies who exert themselves to sell tickets are generally those who
possess a large acquaintance, whose husbands are members of clubs;
therefore, if any person ought to be tabooed for some good social
reason, the lady patronesses reap the benefit of their husbands'
knowledge, and are thus able to give a polite refusal when tickets are
applied for for persons who are not altogether desirable.

It is no doubt a difficult and delicate task for the lady patronesses of
a large ball to keep it thoroughly select, and if not very particular
respecting those for whom tickets are granted, a ball, though a full
one, is likely to prove a very mixed affair, if not somewhat
objectionable, by reason of the presence of persons to whom tickets
should never have been granted, on moral if not on social grounds; and
though the funds of a charity may gain considerably by the increase of
numbers, through a general willingness on the part of the committee or
the lady patronesses to grant tickets to every one who may apply for
them, yet such policy is very short-sighted, and is seldom practised
by those who possess any practical knowledge in the matter, as it is
fatal to the