MAINLY FOR WOMEN

Greymouth Evening Star, 25 June 1927, Page 12

MAINLY FOR WOMEN

NEWS AND NOTES. The guest at a kitchen evening given by some of lier friends last evening, Miss Nell McCarthy, who is to be married to Mr D. James on Tuesday next, received a large number of appropriate gifts. Almost every kitchen utensil from Pyrex dishes and an electric iron to egg-beaters and the humble broom was found when the parcels were opened. A competition was held, the winner of which was Mrs E. McDonnell, and musical items were given by Misses McCarthy, Phillips, Larsen, Lamberton and Lawn.

A real-life sheik story comes from Damascus. The Emir Shalan, one of the most powerful and noted of the Bedouin chiefs, met an English Girl Guide and fell in love on the spot. He offered to marry her, making her “Queen of the Desert,” to which she consented. The British Consul, however, thinking that the Emir had kidnapped the girl, secured her return, accompanied by her lover, to Damascus, where she officially declared that she married the Sheik because she loved him. The couple then returned to the desert unmolested.

Incensed because a priest admonished her for wearing scanty clothing at a euchre party at St. Roch, Quebec, Miss Aurore Gosselin, nineteen, struck him on the mouth with her clenched fist. She was arrested and convicted of assault, and sentence was passed later. When Father Bouchard first spoke to the girl about her decollete she left the hall and returned with a light coat thrown over her arms aijd shoulders. The priest admonished her a second time, telling her she would be forced to leave. The girl then struck him on the mouth.

Recent outbursts by the Churches against the Charleston, which has been banned at several church dances, have lost the sympathy of the Bishop of Coventry. “When I saw pleasant girls and discreet youths dancing on the common the other night, I was told they were Charlestoning,” he said. “It looked .very nice. My son urged me to take up the Charleston, but I am afraid I am rathei’ too stout and old.”

The marriage was secretly performed recently of Mr Fred arnes, music hall artist, and Miss Rose Tyson, daughter of Mr James Tyson, pastoralist, of New South Wales. The bride inherited a fortune from her grandfather, the late Mr James Tyson. Mr and Mrs Barnes met aboard a steamer, while travelling from Australia to South Africa.

Fashions change in brides’ cakes as in bridal garments. At a recent display of the newest fashions in wedding cakes a copy of what is believed to have been the “ancestor of the wedding cake” was shown. This,was the gilded barley loaf which was first introduced, so the legend runs, by Romulus, into the Roman marriage ceremony, in which the eating of the cake formed the most important part. Many curious superstitions attach to wedding cakes. In the Highlands of Scotland the bride’s mother, sometimes to this day, breaks “black bun” or currant cake over the head of the bride, to symbolise everlasting plenty. Modern unmarried maidens preserve the old superstitions relating to the w.edding cake and wedding ring. One of these consists of a bride passingsmall pieces of cake through her wedding ring. These she wraps up and seals, and hands to each of her bridesmaids. The idea is that if the girl keeps the cake by her side, love and marriage will be attracted to her.