A MAID IN MAYFAIR.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 175, 26 July 1930, Page 4 (Supplement)

A MAID IN MAYFAIR.

PRINCE LEADS FASHIONS.

FANS RETURN TO FAVOUR.

{From Our London Lady Correspondent.)

The Queen is going to collect the old glass pictures which were so popular two hundred years ago. They are quaint little decorative pieces, and some of them are finished in the itlost charming way. Nobody seems to have set any store by them for the last hundred and fifty years, until one or two connoisseurs saw the quaint beauty of them a short time ago and began to ask for them in the antique shops. An enthusiast, who was able to get a good many together, is Sir Arthur du Cros, and it was while the Queen was at Craigwell House with the King last year that she saw Sir Arthur's collection and realised the possibilities of the pictures as a decorative medium. Her Majesty has picked up one or two here and there since, and this week visited one of the best-known of the antique dealers' galleries in London to see an exhibition of them, and made several purchases. WATCHING PRINCESS ELIZABETH. Quite one of the sights of London just now is the crowd which gathers at the bottom of Park Lane trying to catch a glimpse of Princess Elizabeth in the narrow garden running between Park Lane and Hyde Park at the back of the Duke of York's house. There is just one gap through which it is possible to catch a sight of the Princess as she "motors", round the garden in the miniature car given her on her birthday. Just after lunch, which is the most likely time, there are often a hundred people crowded together on the pavement, and frequently more than half of them are men. An even better view of the Princess can be pbtained from the top of an omnibus. LONDON'S FOOT HOSPITAL. Few people, I think, have any idea that London possesses a hospital' which deals only with the minor diseases of the feet. It was established to help working folk, like waiters and waitresses, who must suffer agonies at times from aching ankles and tired soles; shop assistants, who stand a great deal, and men and women in factories who never sit down even for a moment in the course of their day's work. It has no wards or beds for ih-patients, but it deals with a tremendous following of people, who use it regularly to: gain relief for the small troubles which can make life almost unbearable if they are not attended to. The reason the London Foot. Hospital is so little known is because it has never before - asked for help from-the public. Now, however, the Duchess of Portland and Lady Allendale are leading an appeal for funds, so that a\ larger building, into which it was obliged to move because its work had developed to such an extent, jnaay.be paid for. IMPORTANT SILK PLAN. French- experts are in London- to examine an artificial silk factory not far from town, which one of the most important silk manufacturing companies in Lyons is thinking of buying. If the purchase takes place the factory will be used to'manufacture not artificial silk, but the very highest grade xeal silk brocades, hitherto always made in France. The necessary machines will be brought , from France, accompanied by French experts, but all the labour will be British. Manufacturers of reaL silk, ' badly bit by the competition of artificial pillr eight or nine years ago, have been having record sales during the last two years, owing to the public's discovery that artificial silk cannot equal the really high-grade real silks. About 90 per cent of the "quality silk fabrics are sold in England. English buyers are valuable to the silk manufacturer, not only because they purchase largely, but also because they pay promptly, which the French jbuyers do not. PRINCE'S LOVE OF COLOUR. In-his younger days, when he was still tmder the paternal roof and the maternal eye at Buckingham Palace, the Prince of. Wales' love of vivid colours sometimes led to slight domestic squalls. That penchant for. bright hues, rather than sober ones, perhaps expresses the Prince's adventurous temperament. It still persists. It was he who popularised the zebra-striped Fair Isle pullover by wearing a gorgeous, specimen when he drove himself in as Captain of the Royal and Ancient. He habitually wears clothes that in other men would be considered a trifle too sporty, but carries them off by his perfect manners. At the Walker Cup meeting he turned up in a check suit, salmon pink shirt, crimson tie and his favourite black and white shoeß. HONOURING" AN ENGLISHWOMAN. " One hardly expects to find a woman (Commemorated in the name of a street, and when that street is in North Africa and the woman was wholly British it occasions quite a shock of surprise. In Algiers the town authorities place on the , street tablet beneath the name of the person after whom it is called a word or two indicating his claim to distinction. There is one to Lulli, seventeenth century composer of music, one to Voinot, an architect, who built much of Algiers after • the French acquired it in 1830. Among them is the name of one woman. Between little pictures of the English arid French flags stands out ; boldly the legend "Edith Cavell, Martyr and Victim to Duty, 1915." English people watering in Algiers pass through the street as they come down to the town from the "English Quarter." f ■ ■«-, ■.. . ✓ SHE ALSO SERVED. A few nights ago I taxied a friend from the theatre to her residential club off Great Portland Street. As she got out the lady complimented the driver on being the only one she ever knew to stop exactly at the right door. The driver smiled, but said he was first on the scene, during the German air raids, the midnight a bomb blew in one wing of the building. "And you've never forgotten the excitement?" said the lady. "I've never forgotten the little old night charwoman," replied the taximan. "Was she badly hurt ?" asked the lady. "No," said the driver, "but when I asked was she all right, she said, 'Yus, but 'ow do they expect me to get all this mess cleared up by breakfast ?'" I have heard worse epics of the Great War. / FANS OR BOUQUETS? Fans for formal occasions -are becoming fashionable again, and' one of the problems of the debutante.at last week's Court was whether to. carry a fan or a bouquet. A stroll down the Mall, while the cars were waiting for admission to the Palace, showed that in many cases fans had been preferred. The modern fan is elaborate and doubtless expensive. I saw several of the new hand-painted fans which have a formal design painted by a miniaturist on sticks of ivory,-while there was one very beautiful fan which was .niade of antique lace on mother-of-pearl. For. less formal occasions ostrich feather fans are being carried a good deal, feathers of different C olourS | being fitted to the stick to match \ the dress that is being worn. F m