The Romance of Madame Tussaud's

by John Theodore Tussaud

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.

Of the many telling experiences of the last few momentous years, the one that will be retained longest in our memory will most assuredly be the touching sight of the war-stained and weary men who, during the earlier days of the war, literally stumbled through our turnstiles into the building.