VICTORIA LEAGUE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 276, 21 November 1931, Page 15

VICTORIA LEAGUE.

The rooms of the Victoria ,League were piled high yesterday afternoon when the gifts intended for the backblocks were displayed for the inspection of members and friends. Inside the door rose a pyramid of brown paper- parcels nearly 10ft high and sft wide. These neat bundles mean; much pleasure for roany a lonely soul away from the cities, without the means to buy a book, and what a book can mean in the. loneliness of the country when nights are long only those who have experienced it can understand. It is to fill this want that the Victoria League book committee works so'hard, .under its convener,; Miss Fenton. During the year 375 parcels of books and magazines have been - sent to settlers and school teachers and about 350 are now ready as a Christmas gift. Over 1200 books and 1500 magazines with 450 scrap books haye been gathered together and made presentable, and this mieant much work. On a small table lay the articles made by the girls of the league, under. Mrs. Rickerby, and these comprised 200 scrap books for little children, gay and pretty with interesting pictures; 80 dressed dolls, 86 animals, many of them very admirably made from scraps of 100 calendars for the older children, and 350 sweet boxes, which will be filled with sweets before being sent. Over COO garments have been sent to Sister Pat for local distribution. In the doll section prizes were given and won by the following:—Character doll, Miss Bernice Ogilvie; doll baby, Miss Win Kent 1, Miss Mary Cruickshank 2; doll, boy, Miss Evelyn Mahoney; woolly doll, Miss Rika Paterson; best dressed doll, Esmo Fox; Kewpie, Miss Roose; special for kewpie, Miss Dorothy McFarland; boy in f character, Miss Ida Lockwood; special prize, scrap books, Miss Rita Hill 1, Miss Beatrice McCoskrie 2; special prizes, Miss Lulu Ballantyne and Miss Phyllis Aickin. ,

The table devoted to the children's garments made by the girls had little frocks, nightgowns, pants and other garments made from clothing that could not be . used in any other way. The animal table contained dozens of large, grey elephants, rabbits, and big. penguins with their white shirt fronts and bright yellow beaks. The ever ready committee had a charming display, in which Victorian posies were made to look like the real thing, but the centre of each flower contained a sweet. These, with little buttonholes, are to be taken to the Knox Home for Christmas. The sewing committee, under Mrs. J. B. Macfarlane, had, as usual, made a splendid display. " There were children's garments of all kinds, all pretty to look at, made of odd pieces of material and left-over skeins of wool. One, a jumper for a big boy or girl, was most ingeniously put together, and no one /who was not told could have imagined that it all came from a handful of strips of jersey-cloth left over from a manufacturing room. Baby frocks had been made from old silk stockings and . a child's cot cover had been knitted from silk stockings, cut thin and on the spiral. It was impossible to see how it had been evolved from waste. Another, a large cover for a child's bed, was made frdm°squares of material which gave the impression of a fur rug coverlet. . The whole display served to exhibit admirably what can be done by thoughtful minds and unselfish fingers.