THE REAL THING.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 230, 28 September 1929, Page 4 (Supplement)

THE REAL THING.

Compared . Ayitli Paris, even <to-day London's Bohemia. is. '. a smug ■ suburban pretence. Somehow We lack .the true flair for the Latin quarter : touch. On a recent week-enu. visit to Paris I Was tak.en after dinner'to a queer little ret in Montparnasse, where the real Bohemians are much -more in ■ evidence than at - Montmartre, which has shared the artistic eclipse of London's Soho. The place was called the Jungle Bar, and we gat eight at a table big enough for foiir. ; You could only see across the room through the tobacco clouds, and the tiny stage, with its dingy, curtain raised and lowered witli a rope, was lit by a row of coloured bottles. Eccantric artists gave "turns," and took hat collections, bearded painters, in velvet coats or blue smocks, made sketches of sleeping comrades,, and there was jazz dancing on a bit of central floor 6ft by 6ft. ; The band consisted of American art students, who thus earn their keep in Paris.

BRITISH ANKLE SOGKS FOR U.S.A. American girls have adopted the ankle sock fashion with enthusiasm, and, as a result; exports from Leicestershire to the United' States are increasing in a most satisfactory, way. Thousands of dozens of pairs, often with sweaters to match, are being shipped to fill American i orders in readiness*.for the big sales expected in the fall. Jam told that the new season's socks are slightly different from their predecessors* Instead of having a. top which has to be turned over like a golf stocking, the"Mew'ankle sock ■has a "false" ;turh-over, the natural top - of the sock:being made to .'simulate a turn-over by thick ribbing. This is said to make the top v fit better and to prevent, wrinkling. ' . :;?.■:

VETERAN WHO REMAINED YOUNG. Dame Millicent Fawcett's death at 82 is a.grievous loss to feminism. The proof of her intellectual strength is that she was old enough .to be a pioneer of the movement, and "yet young enough to •champion the post-war flapper against more youthful critics. Her husband, the late Henry Fawcett, was Gladstone's Postmaster-General, and it-was largely thanks to her that.his , blindness, due to an accident whilst -shooting, was no obstacle to a Cabinet career. She sat behind the grille of the ladies' gallery in the House of Commons, where Professor John Stuart Mill moved the first woman's suffrage motion,; and G2 years later, though the grille had vanished, Dame Millicent sat in the same seat to see. the Equal Franchise Bill passed. ■ But she was never an indiscriniinating fanatic. She vigorously denounced militancy, and for all her admiration of Miss 1929, she loathed lipstick mouths.

TUBE COMEDIES. The sliding doors of the underground trains, which open and shut automatically, are devised on Mr. Baldwin's "saftey-iirst" principle. I have never put the matter to a, practical test, but I : understand that, even if one were 100 slow in passing through, they would not hurt one in their automatic nip.! Bit they "certainly afford a little heeded comedy in Londonlife., I heard the other day of a gentleman w)jo may have been the admirer of an expensive operatic star, and who .tried too late to get off a train' carrying before him a-beautiful bouquet, of flowers. The robot : doors neatly nipped them off their stalks, leaving the gentleman grasping the latter: And I , myself, saw a portly man, carrying his umbrella under one arm, who was wedged i securely by the coat-tails and umbrella' handle. He explained; his exact sentiments io us all the way to the next station. ...... . .