"Whroo, Whroo"

Five hundred gentry from all over the isle came last week to the sandstone-walled Shire Hall of Warwick to revive an institution and toast the fox-hunting season. It was England's first Hunt Club Ball since 1939.

Oldtimers could complain that something was missing. Champagne and luxury limousines were war victims; women had to wear their "1938 best"; high taxes had forced the Warwickshire Club to sell admission tickets for the first time in history. But much glitter had survived.

Members of the Hunt in bright-colored coats whose facings identified their clubs (Warwick's black and scarlet, Duke of Beaufort's buff and blue, North Warwick's grey and pink) mingled with Yeomanry regiment officers in white Prussian collars and tailcoated nonhunters. They danced to American rhythms played by hot London nightclub bands, ate specially licensed delicacies, happily screamed "whroo, whroo"--the high-pitched cry given when the fox is sighted.

The return of the Hunt Ball would be a bracer to tradition-loving England, to county social life and most of all to Moss Bros., London renters of clothing. They succored many a desperate ballgoer whose best tailcoat had been sacrificed to bombs or moths or had been cut into women's suits by coupon-short females.

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