For Women A MAID' IN MAYFAIR

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 35, 11 February 1939, Page 4 (Supplement)

For Women A MAID' IN MAYFAIR

LONDON". NOT many peeresses, I imagine, will be affected by the decision of some Bond Street jewellers to discontinue their practice of letting tiaras out on hire for the State opening of Parliament. The practice, if practice it can be called, is almost non-existent, for most of our peeresses possess their own tiaras, which have been in the family for years, and in many instances are heirlooms. It is only the new peeresses who aire affected, and tliey, 'being merely human, take intense pleasure in being the possessor of one of these dainty head-dresses. Even peeresses of older lineage, if they were not bound down by family traditions, would be only too pleased to buy new tiaras in substitution for the heavy ones they have to wear. Their weight would hardly be credited by ■ anyone who has. never bandied them. Added to which they have to lit close to the head to prevent their getting displaced. One actually fell off, and rolled out into the street when peeresses were leaving the House of Lords recently. Royal Museum? The Hon. Mrs. Francis Lascelles, writing of Royal relics, expresses surprise that Great Britain has no permanent and complete exhibition of objects of interest associated with the Royal Family. She questions whether many people know where Queen Victoria's wedding dress can be seen, and

it must be true that few are aware that it is now in tilie London Museum, Stafford House, once the 'home of Millicent Duchess of Sutherland. Visitors to Winchester Cathedral may see the duplicate coronation chair made for Mary 11., but it is doubtful whether the general public will ever 'have an opportunity to examine some of the coronation crowns

of the past wihicfh are now in possession of a peer of the realm. Mrs. Lascelles points out that there are thousands, of rare and valuable objects of Royal and historical interest in Buckingham Palace. Windsor Castle, Holyrood House, Balmoral Castle, Sandringham House and Kensington Palace, and expresses the opinion that the King would certainly

not refuse to lend or give, some of them to a national Royal Museum. That the general public is deeply interested in everything appertaining to Royalty Mae proved after the.oaronation, when Lady Smith Dorrien threw open the Royal School of* Needle work that people from all over the British Isles might have an opportunity to see the coronation robes of the King and Queen and other members of the Royal Family. Baby Farming Miss Florence Horsbrugh, whose luck in the ballot may enable her to get her Baby Fanning Bill through Parliament, is acknowledged to be one of the best, if not the best, of the women speakers in the House of Commons. Incidentally, she was the first woman to be invited to play a part in the formal moving and seconding of the address-in-reply to the King's Speech, when she provoked a round of laughter by declaring that, however badly she might discharge her task, she would he able to say at least that no woman had ever done it better. Miss Horsbrugh was made chairman of the committee which inquired into this baby fanning scandal some three or four years ago. It duly presented its report, which met with the cord'al approval of most social workers. But nothing was ever done about it, and it remains for Miss Horsbrugh to get the reform through in the form of a private member's bill. The evil she is attacking is a shocking one. There is no proper supervision whatever of the people wlho adopt "unwanted" babes, and they are often brought up amidst , terrible slum surroundings. That is not the end of the story. When they grow up it often happens that they are "adopted" for a second time by fosterparents on the Continent. There is no supervision of sucih traffic, and it is only possible to draw a veil over what happens to them afterwards.

Egyptian Romance I have just seen the portrait of a pretty, dark, vivacious-looking girl, with flashing- eyes, white teeth and a charming figure. She is Princess Fawzia, sister of the King of Egypt, and she is to' be married in the spring of next year to the Crown Prince of Iran. The Crown Prince, who was appointed in 192(5, two months before his father, the Shah of Iran, was crowned, had his nineteenth birthday on October 26, so that, other than in the East, this would be another case of youthful romance. Princess Fawzia's seventeenth birthday was celebrated in November in Paris, where t.lie was holiday-making with her mother, Queen Xazli, and her sisters. The Princess has for long been a great friend of the Queen of Egypt who, before her marriage to the King, used often to visit the Palace to play games with young people, being the only girl, apart from the Princesses themselves, allowed there. The bride-to-be was over here with her family for the Coronation last year, and on that occasion the Queen, then a schoolgirl, accompanied the Royal party, her mother being lady-in-waiting to the Queen Mother of Egypt. New Dances The Lambeth Walk was bound to have its imitators. They descend upon us as thick as autumn leaves in Vallombrosa. But it is hardly fair to its originators to speak of each new terpsichorean novelty as its "successor," for the popularity of the Lambeth Walk is very far from being on the wane, as a visit to any ballroom reveals. Dance teaohers up and down the country will be hard put to it, however, to keep abreast of all the new productions.