CURRENT NOTES

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25580, 23 August 1948, Page 2

CURRENT NOTES

Dr. Sophonisba Preston Breckinridge, who was the first woman delegate from the United States to attend any international conference, died this month in Chicago at the age of 82 years. She was a pioneer in social welfare legislation. She was a co-founder of the University of Chicago’s famous school of Social Service Administration, where she taught for many years.

On August 5 Miss Isabella Shepherd, of North Wales, was not certain whether that day was her 114th, 115th, or 116th birthday. She was born in London during the reign of William IV, and therefore she is between 111 and 118. But it is 112 years since birth registration became compulsory, and, since Miss Shepherd was not registered, she is more than 112. She remembers that, when she was about four. Queen Victoria acceded to the Throne in 1837, which makes her at least 115. It also makes her, she claims, Britain’s oldest inhabitant. Only deafness mars her health. Most of the Old Vic actors could not be trusted to wear their stage costumes properly, the company’s wardrobe mistress, Mrs Emma SelbyWalker, said recently. She was speaking to members of the American Women’s Club in Sydney. An old theatre tradition is that actors should drag their costumes around and get them as shabby as possible, she said. “We definitely don’t allow that. If they are not watched our players are quite likely to go on stage wearing their clothes back to front.” Mrs SelbyWalker said that when she worked with Sir Laurence Olivier as costume designer for the filming of “Hamlet” expense was no object. In contrast, most of the Old Vic productions in London had to be made “on a shoestring.” “We usually make new costumes by cutting down old ones and collecting odd bits here' and there,” she remarked.

A description of a visit she had paid to a White Sisters’ Leper Mission Station in East Africa was given recently in a letter by Mrs A. G. Palmer, a Dunedin woman, who is living eight degrees south of the equator in Tanganyika. East Africa, where her husband, a graduate of the University of Otago, is employed as Inspector of Mines fpr the Colonial Service. Mrs Palmer said four nuns did everything at the leper station for 300 leper children. She wrote: “We were shown all over the station, which is most beautifully run and kept, and the inmates were so fat and healthy looking and so clean and happy, it was hard to realise that they were lepers. I had always imagined them repulsive, but when they are cared for and given correct treatment they are not so. All the little children and bigger boys and girls paraded in different groups on the playing fields, and we were escorted by the Sisters up and down the lines. Believe me, Royalty could get no greater welcome than we did from those dear little smiling black faces. They went down on their knees and recited a little welcome, but it was in Luganda language, so I did not understand it. The nuns get very few visitors, so they took us indoors and gave us a lovely afternoon tea, all home made, even to the bread and butter, and they just beamed with delight when we ate it all.”

Eight members of the draft of members of J Force, who arrived in Auckland by the Westralia, were W.A.A.C.’s. There were also four Army nursing sisters from the Kiwa Hospital and four V.A.’s. All the women were single. Those who had married members of the force in Japan all returned with the first draft earlier. Two of the V.A.’s intend to go on to Australia in the Westralia and spend their leave there.

The lady editor of “The Press” gratefully acknowledges magazines from anonymous donors for children in the Fresh Air Home and patients at the Sanatorium.

Give the children -'‘HOLLY” Oatmeal. The new pre-cooked process gives a nutty flavoured breakfast. Cooks In two minutes—easier and quicker to prepare. Ask for Buchanan’s “HOLLY” Oatmeal. Advt.