MAINLY FOR WOMEN

Greymouth Evening Star, 3 August 1929, Page 4

MAINLY FOR WOMEN

ITEMS OF INTEREST ‘

(Notes by

Marjorie)

BETROTHAL RING.

“RETAINED” BY CUSTOMS.

. Miss Lillian Poli, daughter of Sylvester Z. Poli, retired theatrical promoter, was to be married in New Haven, on July 11 to Marquis Lipo Gerrini, of Italy, but the New York Customs authorities would not permit her to wear her eleven and a-lialf carat engagement ring unless she paid £l4OO to recover it from bond. Miss Poli informed the Customs that she would not pay this sum under any circumstances.

Officials of the Customs . service said that Miss Poli and her fiancee returned from Italy in May. Miss Poli flashed her large and brilliant betrothal ring before friends who greeted her on the pier," according to the Customs officers.

The Customs officer who was completing Miss Poli’s baggage examination also admired the ring—so much that he called an appraiser. Miss Poli at first indignantly refused to remove the ring from her finger, but after admitting that she had failed to declare the ring she consented to the inspection. She protested that the stone was an heirloom. The Customs authorities granted this was possibly so, and permitted her to amend her declaration to include the ring.

This changed the status of the case, and instead of the ring being seized as a smuggled article of jewellery, it was only technically “retained,” inasmuch as Miss Poli made what is known as a “timely declaration.” The Customs authorities assessed a duty of £lBOO, or 80 per cent of the foreign value of the ring, but this was reduced to £l4OO upon protest from Miss Poli and her family lawyers. She attempted to recover the ring on bond until she sailed for Europe as a bride, but the Customs authorities said there was no ruling under xvhich the stone could be released under* bond.

George Brewer, assistant solicitor of the legal division at the Customs House, said that they h/ad offered two propositions to Miss Poli. She might pay the duty and recover the ring immediately, or wait until she sails on her wedding voyage, when the ring would be delivered to her on the ship. Miss Poli had not agreed to either suggestion. Incidentally, if the ring is more than 100 years old and of “artistic merit” it could, in all probability, be entered free of duty, but Mr. Brewer admitted that this question had not been brought up by Miss Poli or the Marquis Gerrini. Miss Poli’s father recently sold his New England chain of theatres for £5,200,000. Mr Poli said that he had cabled to Italy to learn the exact age of the ring. His daughter sails for Italy in August or September and will live abroad.

The perennially useful lace dress is here expressed in a dull shade of blue, with shaped insertions of georgette in the same colour.

FLAPPER “SCALPERS’” The very latest collecting craze among go-ahead “flappers” in England is that of “ souvenir” handkerchiefs from their boy friends. These are being made up into “jazz” pyjamas for slumber and “bedtime, boudoir-party” wear. To make such garments the more romantic, each section of the gay pyjamas bears in its corner in the tiniest of embroidered letters the name of ithe “boy” and its date. This ' “utility-cum-romantic” craze is spreading, and is extremely popular with London’s “Bright Young Things.” Another use is also being made of the purloined hankies. They are forming the- basis of beach cloaks, the girls thus sporting “date-scalps,” as one bright girl has begun to christen her trophies in public.

PETER PAN DANGER.

CALL FOR NURSERY RHYMES.

The education of young children was discussed by educationalists at the English-American Conference at Essex Hall, Strand, recently, a conference arranged by the Nursery School Association, the New Educa.tion Fellowship, and the Froebel and Montessori Societies.

Dr P. B. Ballard, Divisional Inspector to the London County Council, urged the training of young children along natural and formative lines. “The very greatest mistake the teacher* can make,” he said, “is to treat the child as an adult. He must be allowed to live his own lifq. He does not want to learn to read or do anything like that.” , He went on: “I want to emphasise one of the great mistakes in our educational system to-day. 'We do not attach enough importance to the human voice, and not enough allowance is made for speech training.” He thought that not half enough nursery' rhymes were learnt in the infant schools. Not to know about Tommy Tucker and Little Jack Horner was to lose part of our Western civilisation.

“The child must bo allowed to grow up,” he added. “Peter Pan is all very well for fairy tales, but if we had. a nation of Peter Pans we should have a nation of / neurotics.”

GUARDED BY MONKS.

BABY RULES MILLIONS.

Guarded by monks, given death’s head, rattles to play with, “treated” to devil dances by worshippers dressed as skeletons and monsters, and lulled to sleep by trumpets and gongs, the most remarkable child in the world has just been given his first public presentation as a god. He is the two-year-old Mongolian boy who has been created the “Great immortal White Lama,” the spiritual head of millions of Asiatics, and in whom part of the soul of the god Buddha is supposed, to reside. An amazing story lies behind his elevation to the position of “living Buddha.” When the former holy Lama of Tibet died the priests believed, according to custom, that the spirit of the god living within him had been reincarnated in the soul of a baby born the same day. Search was at once commenced throughout Mongolia and Tibet for a child born with the marks upon its body which the priests held to be proof that it had been chosen by Buddha.

For months the quest went on until the present infant Lama was discovered. From now till the day of his death he will be treated exactly as a god would be. Nothing will be denied him except liberty, for- it is decreed that the holy Lama shall always remain a virtual prisoner. No woman is allowed to attend him. Everything concerning him is directed and organised by the (Grand Abbot, who acts as regent during his infancy, and by lesser priests. All day a watch over him is kept by priests, who believe that at any moment the living Buddha may manifest througn his lips.

Every item of baby prattle is carefully taken down by scribes and analysed by the priests in the hope that it will reveal some hidden message from the god. His rattles are ornamented with skulls and bones in order to scare away evil spirits. Another toy is a huge drum made from human skulls. “The Great Immortal White Lama” of Mongolia is comparable to the Dalai Lama, the most important living Buddha on earth. In him, it is claimed, there has entered a larger portion of the Buddha than any other. Guarded by 10,000 monks, the Dalai Lama lives in utter seclusion in- a monastery towering to the sky. Upon his death the priests cut a hole in the top of his head so that the divine spirit can escape into another body.

ASCOT’S UGLY FROCKS. SHAPELESS AND BEDRAGGLED. A mere man writing for the English Press on the subject of the frocking of Ascot this year is terribly disgruntled about it all, and rends it flounce by flounce, as it were, writes the London correspondent of the “Adelaide Observer.” “The men,” he said, “were perfectly attired,” and, being a man, was competent to judge.** But the man who is a fit judge of women’s frocking is a rarity. The opinion of Worth of Paris would be authoritative, but few others of the trousered sex, are qualified to express an opinion. “The opening day at Ascot was conspicuous for the untidiness of the women's dresses,” pens the writer. “Their modes were shapeless and purposeless, the uneven bedraggled skirts being kicked by the heels and trailed on the grass. “Never since the war, except in 1921 and 1922, years of notoriously bad design, have dresses and coats been*so formless. ‘“lt was a relief to find a dress with a straight hem. Many were short in the front and long at the back, excellent for chorus girls, but not good for outdoor silhouettes.”

Even a leading article has been devoted to this disturbing note in Ascot frocking, in which it says “apparently women, having won their freedom, are about to throw it away and return to the long, full-flounced skirt.” With the last paragraph one certainly agrees:—“Women have evolved a style suitable to practical conditions exceedingly healthy, and becoming. Let them keep it!” This review of Ascot fashions certainly closes the argument: “Do- women dress to please men?” They do not. If they did a well-cut coat and skirt would be universal wear. Believe me, the average man’s ideal'of a well-dressed woman is something neat and trim, slender-limbed, with a short skirt, perfect silk and kid clad legs and feet, short coat which clips the hips closely but has a supple fit above them, a. low-necked blouse, and a small, close-fitting hat. The coming mode for wdmen is “to float, wearing vaporous dresses flaring behind like comets’ tails”! Much too aesthetic for masculine taste!