New York, Friday
New York's most fashionable speak-easy was raided by Prohibition agents last night. The speak-easy was recently opened with a great flourish by Miss Belle Livingstone, a popular actress in London and New York of former days. Its furnishings are said to have cost £50,000.
A well-groomed company of four hundred men and women, drawn from the best known families in Manhattan, were surprised out of their mild revelries by the arrival of six Prohibition agents. They were engaged in dining, dancing, playing ping-pong and miniature golf when the fun started. The leader of the "dry" agents jumped on the orchestra's platform, and, speaking in Oxonian accents, requested everybody to leave, which they did hurriedly. They then arrested Miss Belle Livingstone and six waiters.
The raid was conducted with the utmost decorum by the agents, who were described by a prominent New York society woman present as being as "gallant as old-fashioned stage coach robbers."
(Note - According to her book of memoirs published in 1927 under the title of "Belle of Bohemia," Belle was found a castaway baby deserted under a sunflower at Empoira, Kansas. Two of her former husbands were a count and a millionaire. She was described in her book as "the great bohemian and reigning toast, a favourite of the gay world, a sparkling wit, the friend of kings, sometimes described as the most dangerous woman in the world.")
The Irish Times, December 5th, 1930.