GOSSIP FROM LONDON TOWN.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 78, 2 April 1927, Page 24

GOSSIP FROM LONDON TOWN.

THE ONLY WAY. iFrom Our Lady Correspondent.) LONDON, February 3. "You've got to sack em—or trust em," cava a genial character in one of Stacy \umonier-s novels, apropos of an excellent housekeeper who kept the domestic machinery in perfect working order, but helped herself (and family) somewhat liberally to supplies from her masters table. This would seem to be the philosophy of a certain Mayfair ladv who makes U practice of running regularly through her household bills. In°one month one item was "771b best Wiltshire bacon." As neither she nor her liege-lord ever touches this succulent breakfast dish, and as they had been away from home for three weeks out of the four, she made certain investigations. But with negative results? "What can I do?" she wailed. "I'd never replace cook, and she'd be sure to give notice if I made a fuss!" Locks and Literature. It you want to know all about the fons "et origo of shingling you should hear M. Emile talk. This famous Mayfair hairdresser sprinkles his epigrammatic conversation with gems from Chateaubriand, Madame de Sevigne, George Sand, and the illustrious Homer. He d"ates back the short-hair fashion to Egyptian times, when the women used to° cut their tresses short as a sign of mourning; a sign similarly manifested during the French Revolution, when feminine victims of the guillotine—and sympathetic friends —adopted the same mode ere they mounted the tumbril. Then came the Great War, when cropped hair signified, as in the Jeanne d'Arc epoch, a call to action. And there is a certain rock on the coast of France adorned with the shorn tresses of sailors' wives and mothers uud sweethearts —a propitiatory offering to ensure their seamen's safe return. Up-to-date Infants. The infant welfare movement, under •which children below school age are cared for, and taken for walks while their mothers are at work, is growing rapidly, and is becoming of keen interest to society girls. Perhaps a dozen will ehare the work of one centre, each putting in an appearance twice a week. One of these girls tells me that these ■working class infants are thoroughly up-to-date, and not only have a command of expressive argot that staggers but have modern ideas in song. They love to sing in unison, but have very little use for old-fashioned nursery rhymes. If Miss Joan, aged two, sings, ehe prefers the very latest thing in jazz tunes. People are already getting accustomed to seejng a smartly dressed girl walking out with a small troupe of infants. But at first there 'were some amusing incidents. One society girl a short time ago was pushing a pram in Kensington Gardens containing three infants, while six others walked beside her. She was stopped—very politely— by a working man who explained that he and his pal were curious to know if all the nine were her offspring! She laughingly assured him they were not. "Ah," said the man, "My pal was right. "E said 'It's a bit 'ard on the lass if they are.'" Topsy-Turvy. How tht face of London is changing! While visitors to Bloomsbury gaze incredulously at gaily-painted frontages where once a dismal array of boardinghouses offended the artistic eye, a pilgrimage through those exclusive squares once habited by the creme de la creme of high society reveals a mushroom growth of shops. Bloomsbury's new glory is indeed one of the most arresting features of our topographical postwar metamorphosis. It positively bristles with great names, and is keeping contemporary historians every whit as busy as did Chelsea in the days when it monopolised the "big guns" of literatnre and the arts. One of Bloomsbiiry's show places, by the way, is the house of Mr. and Mrs. Francis Meyn.-11, painteil a deep purple.

A Great Artist. I went to hear Lydia Lipkowska at the Albert Hall last Sunday, and marvelled to see how little she had changed since the opulent days of Russian grand opera, before the war. As her golden notes filled the huge building, I recalled our last meeting, in a little house, in < Shanghai, where she was the guest of a young English couple she had known in St. Petersburg, before their migration to the Far East. I was a fellowguest at the luncheon given in Lydia's honour, and I "rmember how she passed from room to room, which her hostess had decked with great masses of blossoms, exclaiming rapturously: "My dear, my dear, this is the palace o spring!" And, later, wjen our host, with Russian ceremonial, broke his glass in which he led the toast "To Lydia, and our unhappy Russia," she laid her lovely golden head on the table and wept like a child. Then sang like an angel, after be gging everyone's pardon for her los.' of self-control. A Family Affair. Lady Cynthia Asquith long since established her claim to a place amon" the child-literature classics. Quite a new development, however, is the presumably contagious effect of her inspired children s books on her husband. Mr. Herbert Asquith has now revealed himself as a charming writer of verse for the nursery-iolk. lam personally persuaded that there is, in fact, nothing so infectious as the peculiar joy attendant en re-discovermg the child mind. I know of more than one clever writer who has "turned down" adult journalism for the lure of the "Children's Page"; while in Mr. A. A. Milne, of course, we have the shining example of an epigrammatic playwright whose child-verses will assuredly be remembered long after his clever little plays are forgotten. Another Feminine Triumpn. A friend just returned from Paris brings we an amusing account of the newest triumph of feminism theie. After hundreds of yeare of male supremacy, the pit at the State theatres—the Comedie Francaise, the Opera, the Opera Comique, and the Odeon—is now to bt opened to women. The marvel is that the old inhibition has lasted so long. Over here the critics are never ceasing to point out that in stage affairs women increasingly pay the piper and call the tune. But in Paris the rnlo which kept the pit as the sole preserve for the burehera the local residents, the business men-taxpayers, and ratepayers who kept the theatre going—has held firm right up to the present moment but mere man has been unable to hold his last citadc. any longer. It is now Ie ■dernier cri, my friend tells me, for women to make up parties, which pay a visit to the pit en masse. Doubtless * craze that will be dead in a moment