MAINLEY FOR WOMEN

Greymouth Evening Star, 8 November 1929, Page 8

MAINLEY FOR WOMEN

ITEMS OF INTEREST

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A FEUDAL ISLE.

THE DAME OF SARK.

-■ Mrs Dudley Beaumont, the Dame of Sark, and one of the last surviving examples of an absolute. ruler in Western Europe, recently visited London' to see her grand-children. For two years she has reigned as Dame of this little Channel Island, eight miles north-west ’of 'Guernsey, succeeding the late Seigneur, her father, Mr William Collings. She discussed her island dominion eagerly with a “Daily Mail” reporter. . Mrs -Beaumont’s burdens are not light, and she-has but a small staff to assist her. Schemes of sanitation, school examinations, road repairs, harbour construction., fishery laws, tithes and taxes are all features which she has to master in detail and attend to personally. She 'derives her income from ancient 'scigneurial dues; consisting chiefly of .tukation fn -kind. Recent experience has shown that refusal to accept money in lieu, a practice that had been allowed to creep in, has resulted In an increase in the area of land under cultivation. Therei s a tax which must be paid in fowls by each house according to the number'of its chimneys. None but the Dame herself may keep a female dog, or pigeons. No property may be bought or sold without her consent, and she receives a tax on every sale to the value of l-13th part of the purchase price. Sark, nevertheless, claims to be-up to date. “We were the first to adopt compulsory education,” said Mrs Beaumont proudly, “before Queen Victoria’s reign began; and to-day the minimum wage for women is £1 a week. . . ' “Thbre is no crime in the island, and the small prison is perpetually idle.” 'The Dame has also to solve ecclesiastical problems. The church building is her property, erected by her ancestors, and the incumbent is paid out-of her family estate. Most of the people can speak English, but their native language is ' a pure descendant of the ok] Norman French. “I can read old Norman French as easily as English,” commented the Dame. Despite the deaths of more than -10 per cent, of the men who fought in the. war, Sark still has more men than .women. These meh, 40 in all, were bound to serve their King and country according to the terms of Queen Elizabeth’s charter, from which Mrs Beaumont’s seignuerial rights are held. , Lobster- fishing is a flourishing industry, and the latest problem of the island is its harbour, for the improvement of which £lO,OOO has been voted-

... CHAPLAIN’S WEDDING. • . / v . ’ JAZZ BAND IN CHURCH. . -Stage stars, chorus, girls, clowns, midgets, and other artists formed .part of a crowd of s\ooo which gathered for a wedding at St. Stephen’s Church on the cliffs at Blackpool. •Miks Barbara Cuthbertson of Blackpool was married -to the vicar, the'Rfev. F*. B. 'Freshwater, who is a Chaplain of the Actors’. Church Union. ' Mr W. McAllister, who is “Clown ‘©bodies’’ of tire Tower Circus, Blackpool, was groomshian, and a troupe of ■eight pretty Tiller dancing girls, in silver-green satin attd beige net, were maids bi’ hohour. ’•'The 'bride, who is : .hhlf th,e age of -th6 bridegroom, was given away by ; fier. friend, Miss E. E. Reid. She was .dressed in a Tudor gown of ivory panne velvet and carried a sheaf of ,S’even lilies, her luck-y number. !;•. The befit man ’ was the vicar of Witeutwbod, the Rev. j; W. Marsh., Mr Herman Darewski’s 'jazz band from &ite. Winter Gardens ’ ballroom took part in- the service and joined with the prgan.ih playing Mendelssohn’s “Wedding’ March.”, : crowd . packed mil the approaches to the church, rand when the ceremony was over they rushed the 'barriers and .made" a solid Avail of people, scores deep, ball found the ‘Jjuilding. . . ; -'7 iphe'-bride and -bridegroom found it impossible to get put of the church/; Only, tlie combined nffprts ' iof ithei police and tli'e stirpliced choir forced a passage for them to their motor-car.

THREE MINUTES TOO LATE.

DEATH-BED CALL TO WEDDING.

A call to a clergyman to perform a death-bed marriage ceremony m the Royal Infirmary at Edinburgh was answered just .three minutes too late. The call was a sequel to an accident at Prestonlinks Colliery. One man injured was John Morton (26), of Prestonpans. About a fortnight previously he was present with his fiancee, Miss Jessie Anderson, aged 22, at a party, and the young folk then went through the Scots form of marriage by standing up and proclaiming themselves man and wife. They had, however, arranged to be married according to Scottish Church rites, and after the accident Morton was anxious that the arrangements should continue.

. The banns were proclaimed, but, probably realising that his end was near, Morton expressed a wish that the wedding should take place without delay, and the clergyman was sent for. . He hastened to the. infirmary, but when he arrived Morton had just died. WHERE DRAKE JCOURTED. The cottage at Saltash, where Sir Francis Drake courted and won Mary Newman, the fisherman’s daughter, who became ffls Tirst Wife, is in such a decaying state that steps must be taken forthwith if it is to be preserved, states- an English exchange. There are not many Drake relics in .existence, either at Plymouth or Tavistock, the great Admiral’s birthplace,* for the royal borough of Salt.ash to .neglect this‘link with the Elizabethan hbro. Drake paid many visits to Saltash, apart from going i-thei’e to court his Mary, for it was a yiaval port in those days, and it was there in 1587 that he brought his rich prize, the Spanish carrack San Filipe. He moored the vessel in the Taniaf, just off the town quay of SaTtash, but it caught fire and' sank. When 'the Admiralty was carrying orit dredging operations in the river a. few years ago in order to provide an anchorage for naval vessels, the .remains of the San Filipe were disr covered.

TRAGIC ROMANCE. Mlle. Eve Lavallierc. one of the most striking and tragic figures of k the French stage, has died, at the age of. 61, at Vittel, in the department of Vosges. Mlle. Lavalliere, who enjoyed great popularity in France before the war and had played before King Edward VIL, came to England in 1915, and appeared at several London theatres, writes the Paris correspondent of the “Daily Mail.” Princes, counts, statesmen, and millionaires are said to have proposed marriage, to her. A famous French air squadron honoured her by naming 'itself the Lavalliere Corps. In 1919 she sold up all her jewels and property, distribut- . ed the greater portion to the poor, and retired to live a life of seclusion and tranquility in the shadow of a convent at Thuillieres. It is generally believed that the cause of her retirement was grief at the tragic fate of her fiance, the Anglo-French comedian, Harry Fragson. Fragson was murdered by his own father when he returned home one night from a performance at. a Paris theatre.

FEWER GIRL SMOKERS. Smoking is not so popular among London girls as it was five years ago. This information, surprising in the light of the recent revelation that the country’s cigarette consumption had touched 38,000,000,000 last year, was given by thei proprietor of a busy retail tobacconist’s shop near Kingswdy (says a “Daily News” writer). Although his cigarette turnover has increased considerably, he finds that the number of his women clientele has dropped nearly to one-half. “I notice that the biggest falling-off among my customers are the girls whom I should take to be in their twenties,” he remarked. “The number of younger girls, too, is decreasing, although I have many regular customers among junior typists and clerks for a daily twenty.

“Personally, I think that the changed habit is due to more games, such as tennis and swimming. The girls, like their brothers, won’t smoke because they are frightehed of overdoing it and hurting their game.” Although 'fewer London girls are buying cigarettes, he was careful to impress on me that those who do buy them consume larger quantities. “You’d be surprised how many women customers I have who come in every day for a box of twenty-five,” he said. “I have several regular orders on my books to deliver a box of KW twice a week. “These are the women whom you ■see smoking on buses, in cinemas, in restaurants, giving you the impression that London is full of woman smokers. They can’t go half an hour without a cigarette.”