LETTER FROM LONDON

Manawatu Times, Volume XLIX, Issue 2298, 17 November 1925, Page 9

LETTER FROM LONDON

LONDON, October 1. Marlborough House. The future of Marlborough House has been the subject of rumours lately, the suggestion being made that the Prince of Wales will shortly take up residence there. I am assured there is no foundation for these reports nor is there Hkely to be any change at Marlborough House during the lifetime of Queen Alexandra. The Queen Mother hag not been In residence there for some time, but this does not mean that the House has been unused. Princess Victoria often makes trips to town and uses her apartments while Queen Maud, as guest of Queen Alexandra will reside at Marlborough House when she comes to town shortly. Moreover, the Prince of Wales is not keen on changing his present quarters in SI James’s Palace, while the Duke of York has quarters at Buckingham Palace when he stays In town. The Prince and Ireland. It is not unlikely that the Prince of Wales will visit Ireland —the only pa of the British Empire which he has not officially visited. The fact that he has not paid an official visit to Hm Green Isl e was commented upon W the Prince before he departed on n s 'present tour. It is noteworthy that Princess Mary and Viscount Lascelles have a castle in Ireland, which is at present being, in parts, refurnished for their reception early next year. The Prince’s Hunters. When the Prince of Wales arrives home it Is Ws Intention to seek a few weeks uninterrupted holiday in the country away from the formality and ceremony with which he has been sur. rounded during the long trip abroad. His Royal Highness intends to spend a good deal of time in the hunting field. At the end of last season moat of his hunters were sent to Tor Royal, his home farm In the Duchy of Corn, wall. They will shortly be brought to Melton Mowbray where the Prince has stabling accommodation for half a dozen, near his quarters at the Craven Club. His mounts this winter will in. lude ‘Kinlark’ which was presented to him during his Australian tour two years ago and which will probably figure in one or two of the steeplechases of the year. Unfortunately, one of his favourites will not he available this year for ‘My Pot’ recently died. “Mr. A.” The mountain kingdom of Kashmir will develop more rapidly than over now that Sir Hari Singh has ascended. Sir Hart Singh is best known in this country ,of course, for the part which, as Mr. “A.” h e played in the sensational Mrs. Robinson case when no was duped to the extent of £125,000. Long contact with the West has given him progressive views, and more than ever Kashmir, with its cricket grounds, its golf courses, anq its houseboats, will become the Switzerland of the East. Its progress was retarded under the late Maharajah, who would submit himself to his priests to be cleansed even when he had contaminated himself by merely shaking hands with a European. His fondness for cricket probably explains ttye strong bond of friendship between Sir Har) Singh and our old friend Ranjitslnjhi. When the Robinson case got into the papers Sir Hari paid a special visit to Ranji's palace to consult hi-m on the advisability of sailing to England to “face the music.” What Ranji’s advice was I do not know, but at least Sir Hari did not deem it necessary to undertake the journey. He stood in considerable awe of his stern, unbending old uncle, and Kashmir for a time must have been rather a bed of thorns rather than “The Garden of Roses” it is sometimes called. The country, w'hich is famous for its nightingales, is the background of the "Indian Love Lyrics”. Floating Aerodromes. What is likely to be for some time the last word in aircraft carriers Is to bo lauched at Fore River, U.S.A., on Saturday when the Lexington will take the water. This ship and the Saratoga, launched in April last were begun as battle.cruisers, but had to be scrapped under the Washington agreement, when the U.S. Government was permitted to con. vert them into aeroplane carriers, although their tonnage of 33,000 tons is 6000 tons heavier than the regulation size of such ships. All the same, they will be the fastest vessels of their class afloat, doing 34 J knots, as compared with a maximum of SI knots in the fastest British carrier, the Furious. The engine-power they require to develop this rate is stated to be sufficient to supply light, heat, and power to a town as big as Bos. ton, U.S.A. Each ship will carry 72 aeroplanes. Old Labels —New Clothes.

The comparatively small number of people who try to smuggle silks through the Customs are making travelling very uncomfortable for every one else. The days when a woman on arrival at Folkestone or Dover was asked a few formal questions and was passed through the customs are gone, for every box is now ruthlessly searched and even handbags are opened and examined. A friend who came back from Paris yesterday bringing with her a single silk scarf which she had bought at a sale was made to pay 6s. 4d. on it, although she had been wearing It on the journey. The result of this ruth, lessness is that women of unimpeachable morals are adopting subterfuges in order to dodge the tax on clothes which they have bought on their way through Paris, and a method, in. vented when it was so difficult to bring anything out of Germany, has been adapted to deceive our own Customs’ officials. This is the use on French clothes of labels from Eng-lish-made frocks. A woman going to Paris will first go through her ward, robe, cutting off all the labels of Bond Street and Albemarle Street shops. Before coming back to England she removes ail the French labels from her new clothes and sews on the London labels she has brought with her. Blow to Bowler. King Feisul of Iraq, whose convalescence, after specialist treament' la London is announced courteously acceded to a request that h© would allow himself to be photographed when he paid a

visit to Wembly. But, before sub. mltting himself to the camera's fiendish ordeal, the King carfully removed the ordinary how'or hat he was wearing, and assumed his mauve-coloured oriental headgear, which is a cocked hat affair rather reminiscent of a naval quarter-deck. This deliberate slight to the British bowler, lately rather under a cloud m face of the soft.hat invasion, may prove a coup de grace. Bowlers are almost certainly doomed to the same limbo as the top hat —unless our shingled flappers suddenly discover unexpected artistic possibilities in it. I/ady J.P. at Hanging', A journlist who has seen several hangings, in this country and abroad, as well as a few-up-against.the-wan shootings, tells me the fuss about Mrs. Bell, the Glasgow lady J.P. at. tending an execution has been overdone. There is nothing really gruesome about an execution under mod. ern conditions in a British gaol. The Chaplain’s recital of the funeral service, and the purely psychological poignancy of the moment, constitute the only real thrills. The actual hanging —slipping a cap over a pin. ioncd man’s head, pressing a bolt, and then nothing but a slightly agitated rope—is all over in three seconds. What may be much more trying to feminine nerves —and just as mucn a part of the lady J.P.’s official duties — is to have to witness a prison flogging. The application of the “cat” is not at all a pretty spectacle—not even nice to hear. Hall Caino at Home.

Sir Hall Caino, who has returned to his Isle of Man home, is now engaged completing his life of Christ. Very susceptible to his surroundings, whether in Palestine, at his charming old house on the top of Hampstead Heath, in the Isle of Man, or loooking on at the maddening crowd in the French restaurant of a famous hotel, he has a wonderful gold.walled room, with an Oriental divan at one end. But his favourite working place is his bedroom. Here, reclining on a high couch.llke bed, surrounded by books and wearing a white fleecy dressing gown, his white hair and dark eyes make him look something like a picture. “Tho Story of Jesus” may be the title of the life when it is completed. Bunkum. Are women quite such brainless nonentities as London fashion writers make them out to, be- At the mo. ment, we are asked to believe that all tho fair Parlsiennes, including oven the busy little typists and workers, are seduously avoiding all forms of physical exercise, and spending their time stuffing themselves with cream buns in cafes. This because the latest Paris fashion deserts tho slim silhouette and enthrones one of voluptuously curved outline, like the terrible ladies Raphael liked, to paint. In particular must the hips be well rounded, and accentuated by lowhung girdles. And we are asked to believe that, in tho year 1925 A.D., women shape themselves to their clothes, and not their clothes to fit them! The complete change in feminine fashions—the very short skirt and shingled hair —may ■ bring about the expulsion of antique Ame. rican films from British cinemas a great deal more quickly than vocal protests could do. Anyone who secs tho average American film must be struck by the absurdity of the heroines, who all wear dresses by their ankles, and have heads of luxuriant hair. Not even the patron s of the cheapest seats will long tolerate such obvious' out.of-dateness, and outspoken criticism can be heard in any Cinema theatre any night. The Bad Old Times.

Two interesting theatrical events serve to remind us how rapidly the world has been growing up during and since the War epoch. One is the staging at long last of Mr. Shaw's forbidden “unpleasant” play, “Mrs. Warren’s Profession”. Exactly how the mind of the official censorship in condemning that really fine Shavian play, the grim morality ot which seems to bo almost too conspicuous for a night's light entertainment, it is difficult to conjecture. But its banning belonged to the curiously perverted judgment that deemed Baudot’s “Sapho", expressly written, with dedication, for his son’s edition, tion, as “Immoral". The other sympton of Time’s swift passage l s the vigorous protest, by all the actresses engaged in playing Mr. Shaw’s “The Philanderer”, against being compelled, in order to dress the play according to the period, to wear corsets. Our emancipated stage ladles declare these monstrosities of Victorian days make it impossible to laugh—a possible explanation’ot Victorian-gloom-!