A MAID IN MAYFAIR.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 185, 6 August 1932, Page 4 (Supplement)

A MAID IN MAYFAIR.

IN THE CROWD. During the run of "The Miracle" at the Lyceum Theatre, with that sumptuous society beauty Lady Diana in the star role, the bar. is a real side-show. All sorts of illustrious and well-known people are going to see the performance, and, like humbler folks, they are apt to feel thirsty. So you may see almost daily or nightly some celebrity or other jostling in the crowd, besieging the bar for either a hard or a soft drink. Usually" the celebrities seem to favour the soft variety. Prince George, who paid a second visit to the show last week, took a soda water plain. He had to wait his turn, and nobody seemed to identify the good-looking young fellow in smart evening dress with a peculiarly cut white vest. Society people are very keen on "The Miracle," and Lady Diana is perpetually under opera-glass I scrutiny. RAILWAY COMEDY. A grim little comedy of cross purposes is being enacted on many suburban London railway lines just now, particularly at those hours when few people are travelling and most carriages are empty. Aware of the ancient blackmail tricks, fdw men .care to travel alone with a strange female. It is quite simple, as a precaution, to let the lady get in first, and then take another compartment. But how many men are rendered dreadfully suspicious by discovering that lonely women wait for them to choose a compartment, and promptly follow them into it. This happens frequently, and leads sometimes to a sort of hide and seek game. The explanation is almost pathetic. The lone females, who read cases of women being hit on the head and their bags stolen by train thugs, are carefully selecting a "nice man" to travel with - aa_a_pr e caution»

WONDERFUL AMERICAN. ENGLISH BEAUTY. (From Our London Lady Correspondent.) It seems incredible that a woman who was born deaf and dumb, and lost her sight as an infant, should be a distinguished poet and novelist. That is, however, the remarkable record of Miss Helen Keller, the American lady on whom Glasgow University is conferring its honorary degree. Miss Keller can converse in three languages, use a typewriter, enjoy music and swim. She travels with a devoted woman companion, who makes life tolerable for her in many ways. Only the wealth of her parents, and the genius of Professor Bell, of telephone fame, enabled Miss Keller to surmount her tragic handicap. She can converse with anyone merely by "reading" their words with her highly sensitive fingers placed on their lips and throat. FASHION ON THE LINKS. The Prince of Wales, I notice, still shows a fondness for the beret when he goes for a round on the links. He acquired the taste when golfing at Le Touquet and Biarritz, but, curiously enough, he has not succeeded in popularising the cap among. < the English golfers. Followers of the- Royal and Ancient game are a very conservative class, and even the introduction of white flannels on a hot summer day has been frowned upon by many clubs. The daring ones who wear white linen jackets would not dream of going in to luncheon afterwards without . changing into sober tweeds. The Prince, however, sets fashions for himself. He goes serenely round in a beret hat, tight-fitting blue suede jacket, and plus fours of flamboyant pattern. SUBURBAN GOLD MINE.

Most serious playgoers, -which by 110 means connotes playgoers who desire all their 1 theatrical entertainment to be Sombre and highbrow, regret Sir Nigel Playfair's break with the Lyric Theatre at Hammersmith. What a joyous series of first-rate shows Sir Nigel and his helpers have put on in that out-of-the-way suburban backwater, but the brightest memory of all remains "The Beggar's Opera," which ran for an incredible number of nights so brilliantly. It was hard work, when Sir Nigel and the late Arnold Bennett started trying to launch this suburban stage movement, getting people to subscribe funds. Amongst others who did so, tinder Arnold B enne tt's persuasion, were two well-known newspaper magnates. They gave their money as a gesture of selfsacrifice to the arts. It has brought them in what to other mortals would be a fortune. —CAMOUFLAGE. TOe craze of the moment, judging from the West End shop windows, is social and domestic camouflage. Things are made specially to be not what they seem. This is, of course, no new foible Our Victorian grandparents had it very badly, and built whole libraries that looked- like genuine books on shelves, but were actually nothing of the sort. Tho Neo-Georgian camouflage makes a manicure set into what appears to be a tin soldier, or a Persian cat that conceals a powder-puff and lipstick, or a gramophone that opens out into a washbasin with toilet set complete. There are china dogs that are tobacco jars, bookcases that metamorphose themselves into camp beds, and cameras that can disguise themselves as anything from a haystack to a cow or a tree. Nowadays things most certainly are not what they seem. Somebody ought to invent a bank messenger who looks like a Scotland Yard man, and give tho car bandits a bad quarter of an hour! SOLDIER ARTIST. A good many well-known artists, who took part in the Great War, did so in comfortable staff uniforms, and equipped with a sketch book. This was not the case with Mr. Lancelot M. Glasson, the painter, whose "Young Rower" has been acclaimed by many critics as the picture of the year at the Royal Academy. He was in the fighting line with the King's commission and a Sam Browne belt. He was badly wounded in the leg during the Somme fighting, and landed up at the Duchess of Westminster's hospital at Lo Touquet. Oddly enough, as I was taking another look at the delightfully English flapper Mr. Glasson immortalises as the "Young Rower," a lady was admiring the picture. I discovered, however, that her adoration was not entirely unprejudiced. She was a nurse during • tho war, and Mr. Glasson was one of the 1 officer patients who were under her • charge at Le Touquet.