MAINLY FOR WOMEN

Greymouth Evening Star, 11 June 1927, Page 9

MAINLY FOR WOMEN

NEWS AND NOTES. Russian boots of an entirely new shape and form are to be fashionable this winter, so the “Highland spattee” : s not going to have things all its own way, says a writer in an English exchange. The loose, sagging type of >oot, which was popular last winter, has been so improved that a woman will be able to protect her silk stockings from winter splashes and at the same time preserve the shapeliness s of her ankles. Among the baggage of a woman traveller from Vienna, Custom officials at Nice found two trunks with false bottoms. These were filled with rouleaux of beautifully made imitations of the 100-franc counters used at Monte Carlo Casino. The counterfeiting included even the secret marks supposed to be known only to the higher officials of the gaming establishment. A belt worn by the visitor was also filled with false counters. Altogether 475 counters were seized (47,500 francs, or nearly £400). Elsie Diot, aged twelve, fell into the River Isere, and was carried on by the. current, telegraphs the Paris correspondent of the “Daily Mail.” Her father plunged in to her rescue, but was seized with cramp. He regained the bank, however, and rushed home and released a retriever dog, which was on the point of leaping in to the rescue when it was detained by a dogcatcher on the ground that it was not properly muzzled. While the father was frantically pleading with the official the child disappeared. Her body has not been recovered.

Lenient divorce laws and the low rate of exchange have evidently proved potent load-stones drawing large numbers of foreigners to take up residence on French soil. In the Department of the Seine, which takes in all of Paris, the foreign proportion runs as high as ten per cent. Economists, worried over the influx, insist that immigration should be limited, and the artificial condition of the monetary exchange corrected without delay. In the future all applicants for naturalisation in the Department of the Seine will have to submit to a medical examination, according to a new regulation.

Blue, instead of the traditional black evening dress for men has been approved bj r French official circles, although attempts to popularise it in Britain in the last few seasons have failed. M. Jacques Laroche wore one at his marriage to Mlle. Lydie Sarraut, daughter of the Minister for the Interior. Among the guests who, by their presence, condoned M. Laroche’s choice of garments, were M. Poincare, Premier of France; MM. Briand, Painleve, Herriot, and Tardieu, members of the French Cabinet; and more than a score of statesmen and society leaders. The bride favoured the oldfashioned. She wore a simple gown of silver lame, the skirt amplified with tulle, and a long silk train. On April 2, Mr John Taylor, of Hillside House, Green Street. Green, near Orpington, Kent, was 103, and his wife, Sophy Taylor, will attain the same age in August. They are said '.o be the oldest married couple in Bri tain. Mr Taylor enjoys his daily glass of beer and a smoke, while Mrs Taylor is able to read and . knit without glasses. Mr Taylor is a native of London. When the Great Exhibition buildings of 1851 were being erected in Hyde Park, he was employed as a carpenter, and laid planks for Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort to walk on when they paid a surprise visit to the site.

The recent International Fancy Fair held at The Hague, for the benefit, of the International Council of Women, under the patronage of the Queen of Netherlands and the Queen-Mother, bus proved a great success (says an English exchange). Consignments of goods representing the industries, handicrafts, and artistic work of twenty-nine different countries, were .under the charge of the ladies of the Legations accredited to the Court of .he Netherlands. Countess Granzill.e, wife of the British Minister, with Mrs William Cadbury and others from the British National Council, took much active interest in the British section, which comprised a fine collection of British Empire goods from England, Scotland, Canada?* ail( l South Africa; the South African National Council sent, a big consignment of ostrich feathers, skins and fruit, and other food products, and a diamond in the matrix from the De Beers mines.

In these days when women have successfully invaded every field of sports and athletics it was with something of a shock that, one read in a newspaper that women had been excluded from the membership of a bowling chib on the strange grounds that the game was an immodest one for the fair sex (says a writer in “The Queen”). It is difficult to believe that this was put forward as a serious reason for excluding women members when one reflects what an extremely dignified and leisurely game bowls is. Can any game of sport be said to be unsuitable for the gentler sex in these days when ladies unhesitatingly don male breeches and engage in polo, not to mention rowing, jumping, swimming, motor-cycling, steeplechasing. and other hitherto exclusively masculine pursuits? There are even successful women pilots, such as Lady Bailey, and women motorists every bit as intrepid as their male competitors. There have always been women rifle shots. Golf and tennis are probably played more by women than by men.

The dreariness of doctors’ waiting and consulting rooms has become almost proverbial, but recently there have been signs of change, says an exchange. An increasing number of doctors of to-day aim at having their waiting-rooms decorated in the gay modern manner, so as to help the patient. to forget his gloom and illhealth. ’ Quite a number of well-known specialists have lately had their’ consulting rooms re-decorated after the new idea, of which perhaps the best example is shown in London in a big house just off Grosvenor Square, where sixteen specialists work together as a sort of clinic after the American plan. On entering, one is shown into a big room, with panelled walls of bright yellow, furnished like a comfortable drawing room. Going up in a roomy lift to see the particular doctor upon whom one is calling, one walks along a white passage, hung with gaily-coloured prints, to the consulting room. Each of the sixteen consulting rooms is differently furnished. but all of them arc extremely cheerful looking with nothing to suggest an ordinary doctor's room. One of the most attractive has green and silver walls, with painted bookshelves to match.