SOCIAL AND PERSONAL.

Evening Star, Issue 17928, 25 March 1922, Page 11

SOCIAL AND PERSONAL.

Bridge hostesses during the week included Mesdames Morris, Finch, O’Neill, Hilton, etc. Mrs Ernest Le Cron, Timaru, ivas a guest till Thursday of hor daughter, Mrs J. Sim.

Mrs W. D. Campbell, Timaru, is a guest of Mrs Alexander, Musselburgh Else.

At the end of last week Mrs R. Sise gave a bridge evening for Mrs Reading (Wellington) and Mrs Russell Stevenson (Wanganui). Among tho players were Mesdames Mac Master, Finch, Oldham, Scherek, and Miss Salmond (Sydney). On Friday evening last Mrs Charles Rattray entertained a few friends to bridge, Mesdames Edmond, Acton-Adams, Oldham, Scherek, Misses Dora Williams, Denniston, and Salmond (Sydney) being the players. On Monday afternoon Mrs Skinner gave a “Lavender” tea for Miss Jean Glendining, who is marrying this month. The guests brought dainty bags, lavender tilled, for tho guest of honor to pack among her trousseau. A few present were Mesdames Batham, Scott, Gallaway, and the Misses Clapperton, Glendining (2), etc.

Mrs Howard Dodgshtm gavo a delightful bridge afternoon on Wednesday for Mr Dodgshun’s mother, who is her guest at present. The players were Mesdames Rattray, Fenwick, Mac Master, Sydney Dodgshun, Black, Oldham, Scherek, and Miss Salmond.

Tho engagement is announced of Nancy, younger daughter of Mr and Mrs A. W. Beaven, "Te Rue,” Redcliffs, Christchurch, and Dr D. H. Saunders, youngest son of the Rev. and Mrs Win. Saunders, Moray' place, Dunedin. On Saturday evening last Mrs Max Scherek gave a birthday bridge party for her sister, Miss Maisio Salmond. Mesdames Reading (Wellington), Sise, Edmond, Finch, Hilton, Oldham, Scherek, and the Misses Denniston and Salmond wore tho players. Miss Jean Stevenson, who is in Dunedin at present, is tho organising secretary for tho Y.W.C.A. of Australasia. Tho eldest daughter of Mr and Mrs William Stevenson, Cramnore Lodge, Rosiyn, she received her earliest education at the Albany and Kaikorai Schools, passing on to Girtbn College, for a little while under tho late Miss Freeman, but for tho most part of hor later classes and for a considerable time after schooldays had finished found in Miss Frances Ross, now principal of Colurnba College, an ideal teacher and treasured friend. She was dux of Girton College, and matriculated in tho same year, passing on to tho University to take up chemistry as an aid to the work she purposed doing in her father’s factory. It was hero that Miss Stevenson began what was afterwards to become her life work, for she conducted classes in all manner of things from sewing and singing to literature, bringing into the girls’ lives a new interest and a new outlook. Some time later she was appointed delegate to a Y.W.C.A. gathering at Bendigo, this proving tho turning point of hor career, for she linked up with tho association, and her first appointment was in Bendigo. From .this time onward she advanced her sphere of usefulness, and some time afterwards wont to New York and spent some twelve months at the official’ headquarters of tho Y.W.C.A. in that city, her experiences as she outlined in her * two lectures yesterday proving interesting and instructive. On her return to Australia she was offered tho organising industrial secretaryship in connection with tho movement, and she is at present engaged in a six weeks’ tour of the Dominion in connection with this particular branch of the association’s activities, a work for which she is peculiarly fitted, Mr and Mrs H. Salmond (Sydney), who have been in New Zealand for some little time visiting members of their family, return to Australia next Tuesday. At tho Kia Ora Tea Rooms on Saturday morning Airs Salmond gavo a little farowen to her friends prior to leaving for her home in Sydney, Mesdames Parker, W. A. Moore, Matheson, Black-Reading, MTCellar, Oldham, Mac Master, A. A. Finch, Edmond, Hilton, Scherek, and (Miss Salmond being present. At the Otago Women’s Clidy on Wednesday a very largo charity bridge drive was hold, both ladies and gentlemen being present, some 150 players taking part. The funds from tho entertainment are to be devoted to help to build an isolation ward in lie Warrington Rest Home, the institution so ably managed by Mr Dunkley. Mrs and the Misses Bowles return to town on Monday next from Christchurch, whore they have been for tho ’art three months on holiday. A pretty point was made by Miss Jean Stevenson the other evening, when she addressed a meeting of girls under the auspices of the Y.W.C.A. She .said vhen she was young she always had the idea that foreigners were more or loss an ignorant and a stupid people, that it never occurred to her that anyone not British could be otherwise; but as she travelled and got older she found how very wrong she had been and how extremely narrow. For in America sho listened to tho best speech she had ever heard in her life, and that was delivered by a small Chinese girl of tender years, who had come across to study in order to return and teach Christianity to her own people, and that one evening a little Japanese lady of high caste addressed a company of factory girls and Y.W.C.A. students, whose dress was most beautiful, and whoso manners and deportment were quite the most courteous and lovely imaginable, and who asked her listeners in tho sweetest way not to imagine that her people know .nothing. Another Interesting anecdote teferred to a amah Russian girl of fifteen years, who was studying at tho same time as Miss Stevenson, and when asked what she had come across to take up particularly replied “railroad constructionas sfrange a calling for a girl to take up as possible. and when asked why said ** That is what is most needed in my country,” She landed in America with £ls in her pocket to carry her through her academy course on architecture, but gbe won through, earning the necessary fees by teaching languages, of which she had a

perfect knowledge, French, German, and English, besides her own native language, and only fifteen years old 1 By the death of tho Duke of Leicester, which occurred at Edinburgh, a former musical comedy actress—Miss May Etheridge—now becomes a duchess. In 1913 Miss Etheridge, then of the Gaiety Theatre, married Lord Edward Fitz Gerald. Gerald ,the only child of the marriage, was horn in 1914. Lord Edward is a brother of the late duke, who was unmarried. Both Lord and Lady Fitz Gerald wore twenty-one when they were married. They spent their honeymoon in Canada, living in a primitive abode near one of the numerous lakes in the province of Quoboo, whore they spent much of tho time fishing. The now duchess first appeared on tho stage in London at the ago of fourteen. Sho played in ‘The Now Aladdin’ at tho Gaiety and in ‘ JMnccss Caprice ’ at the Shaftesbury Theatre. It was while acting here that sho first met her husband. Lord Edward served in the war as ft lieutenant in tho West Riding Regiment, and was wounded. The late Duke of Leinster, who was born in 1887 and succeeded to tho title at the age of six, was unmarried and an invalid. He was tho premier peer of Ireland. A recent engagement which has a special interest for Australasians is that of Viscount Sandon, eldest son of tho Earl and Countess of Harrowby, to the Hon. Helena Coventry, eldest daughter of Lord and Lady Dcerhurst, and -granddaughter of tho Earl and Countess of Coventry. Lady Harrowby’s wonderful kindness to overseas officers, is still fresh, and- they owe her n debt of gratitude for the extraordinarily efficient organisation which she and her daughter, Lady Frances Ryder, managed. It enabled any officer of the Di minions’ armies who desired it to enjoy the hospitality of some of tho loveliest and most luxurious of the country houses of England and Scotland.