A HAT PROBLEM.

Greymouth Evening Star, 23 August 1930, Page 3

A HAT PROBLEM.

SINGER’S CHANGED HAIR TINT

PARIS, July 20. A most delicate problem is occupying the attention of the Justice de Paix of the Eighth Arrondissement. The point at issue is whether a hat maker can be held responsible for changes that may take place in the colour of a customer’s hair. The heroine of the affair is no less famous and popular a personage than Mme Marthe Shenal, who sang the ‘Marseillaise’ from the steps of the Opera on the first Armistice night. A year ago she asked her milliner to make her thirty hats for all Parisian occasions, and agreed that the total price should bo £4O. The milliner knew, as all Parisians knew, that Mme. Shenal’s hair was auburn, and she chose the colours of the hats accordingly. In due course the hats were delivered. Mme. Shenal devoted a whole morning to trying them on. One by one she examined them in her looking-glass, but each hat only served to increase her auger. Not one of them suited her. She was furious. She sent them all back and declared that she would not pay a sou. She .had forgotten a fact of the importance—that since ordering the hats she had allowed her hair to assume a. fashionable grey “marquise” tint. Naturally, hats designed for auburn only made her look ridiculous. The magistrate will find it impossible to say that Mme. Shenal is less charming than she has always been; but he may have to admit that the milliner should have been warned.

WOMEN IN WHITEHALL. Women have carried off 17 out of the 67 vacancies offered in open competition at the recent examination for executive posts in the Civil Service, says the “Daily Mail.” These appointments come next in importance to the administrative class, the highest in the Service, and, including bonus, give prospects of advancement to a maximum scale of salary approaching £lOOO a year. The number of candidates was 766, of whom 326 were women. Miss M. H. Mackie obtained fifth place. The next, Miss M. F. Longley, won the eleventh, and Miss M. Wilson secured the seventeenth place. All the principal departments, except the Defence Departments, are open to the women successful at this examination. They are employed in the Estate Duty Office, the offices of the Special Commissioners of Income Tax, the Exchequer and Audit Department, Customs and Excise, to which they were assigned from the previous examination. In the Estate Duty Office in London, a woman chief examiner has a scale of £6O0 —£20 — £750, plus bonus. The bonus on a salary of £7OO at the present time is £lB7. In this office these women will be engaged in charging the several death duties in force, of which the principal is the estate duty. A HAPPY THOUGHT. A few months ago, Signor Lino Domenechini, the president of the Trieste “After-work Association,” had a happy thought. He announced that all the forthcoming brides and bridegrooms of the working classes who chose April 21, the National Festival of Labour and the birthday of Rome, for their wedding day, -would enjoy a free three-days’ trip to Rome, at the expense of the association. The invitation did not fall on deaf ears. Engaged couples in Trieste at once set about making arrangements to be married on April 21, while young men who bad hitherto shown no parficu lar inclination for matrimony became engaged with remarkable rapidity. Seventy couples “on the day” stood before the altar of the cathedral of St. Giusto for the Nuptial Mass. There were carpenters, shoemakers, chauf fours, post office clerks, factory hands and dock labourers. At 6 o’clock in the evening the “train of happiness” conveyed the 70 couples all to Rome, chaperoned by the indefatigable Signor Domenechini. Before returning to Trieste the newlyweds had an interview with II Duce and an audience with the Pope. THE QUEEN’S EMERALDS. Perhaps the chief single impression left on the debutantes at the recent Court was of the Queen’s emeralds (writes a Londoner). When Queen Mary visited Paris on her State visit before the war the French writ ers singled out as her particular quality beyond other queens the way in which she wore her jewellery. They said that she restored the grand jewels to society. The emeralds came into

the possession of the Queen’s grandmother, the Duchess of Cambridge, when she was young, as a prize won in a lottery. The Duchess bequeathed them to her daughter the Duchess of Teck, who left them to the Prince Francis of Teck, who left them to his sister, the Queen. The Queen has added to the emeralds, so that they are now, after the break-up of so many sets of jewellery, one of tho finest sots in the world. The late Duchess of Coburg and Duchess of Edinburgh had magnificent jewels —on the whole a. grander set —but they are now dispersed. Emeralds are not “everyday stones.” and not very many ladies can wear them; in fact they require the splendid carriage and tho imposing dress of Ihe Queen to display them properly. HANDBAG CONTENTS. Handbags carried by women in England are beginning to rival the small boy’s pocket for variety of contents. One bag examined recently contained a handkerchief, bundle of letters diary, mirror, comb, purse, note case, stocking-mending outfit, cigar e tt e case, lighter, powder case, lipstick, keys, patterns of cloth, and a shoe lace.