NOW IN SYDNEY

Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 61, 12 March 1936, Page 18

NOW IN SYDNEY

VISITORS FROM GENEVA

Mrs. Duncan Hall, .of Geneva, who is at present in Sydney with her husband, who is League of Nations liaison officer for the Dominions Press, and is in Australia on an official visit, is the possessor of a lovely:old home that has a view 'of Mont Blanc from almost every window,' states the "Sydney Morning Herald." Mr. and Mrs. Hall are accompanied by their three daughters.and their son.

, Mrs. Hall, who was Miss Bertha Sneath, of Chatswood, Sydney, before her marriage, has lived iri Geneva for the last eight years. Life there was very delightful, she said, a little lonely, perhaps, for the "foreigners" with no families. Many people lived in flfets right in Geneva, but the majority preferred villas a little ..removed from the centre of activity, for there was a great deal of private entertaining to be done, as V official visitors were, numerous. Some of the villas were quite modern, but* there were some to be obtained like Mrs. Hall's home, that had been an old Swiss dwelling which stood,in a large garden where very old pine trees, and flowering chestnuts grew. - Some of the larger homes in Geneva, were like old chateaux,» and stood in wonderful park lands. One of these was the house that was always occupied by the Secretary-General of the League, and the last occasion that Mr. and Mrs. Hall were there was at a luncheon party where they had the distinction of being the only Australian guests with the Prime-Minister (Mr. J. A. Lyons) and Mrs. Lyons. -Among the most illustrious people she had met at Geneva, Mrs. Hall numbered Mr. Antho:// Eden, for "whom she .has the greatest . admiration. She has heard, him speak ,on several occasions, and said that he combined a spirit of friendliness with a spirit of justice that aimed for world order and peace. Mrs. Hall also heard Sir Samuel Hoare's famous ad- : dress in the Assembly in September. It was most impressive, she said,'and there was not a sound. but the speaker's voice. . There was no organised,sport in tne schools in* Geneva, Mrs. Hall said, but for holidays and weekends she and the family drove up to a chalet in the snow and had plenty of skiing and skating. They could only take their car up a certain distance, and made the rest of the journey on skis. ThS chalets were little farmhouses which were occupied during the summer; when the grass around them was being cut for -winter fodder, and for the rest of the year they were rented to holiday makers. . Mrs. Hall's children are all linguists. They are taught in French and take English as a foreign subject. The school at which Mrs. Hall's eldest daughter, Rosalind, gained her matriculation before she left to come to Australia, was attended by pupils of nine nationalities. Education was of a very high standard in Geneva, but the school system was very hard and included -a great amount of home preparation. „.-Miss Margaret Hall, Mrs. Hall's se*on4"dtt_ghtejc, has just completed a; year's schooling in Vienna, where she lias been living with a private ia__xfo improve her German; this cori^g/.-j-earliis.-'Rosalind Hall will attehd4he'.'U|riversity in Vienna, where sfie wiU study languages and psychology-^ 1 i-, ' > v* ' Two men were recently arrested in Austria on the' chr/ge of destroying a memorial^ Attriang Pucheim to Dr. Dolfuss, the late Chancellor.