FINDING MATES FOR ROYAL BACHELORS

Manawatu Times, Volume XLIX, Issue 3247, 18 January 1926, Page 12

FINDING MATES FOR ROYAL BACHELORS

Vatican's Modest Dress Campaign

SMALL TALK ABOUT BIG PEOPLE

| (.From Our Own Correspondent.) LONDON, December 10. V Nothin# will be heard about pending royal engagements until the due ■ period of Court mourning is over. I But Court talk is quite persistent now I about the matrimonial Intentions of prince Henry, the tallest and most stalwart of all the King’s sons, and the sple cavalryman in the family. His name was recently associated with that of a charming young lady, the ! sporting daughter of a Scottish house ■jpf proud lineage and big estates, but this was promptly and semi-offlcially ■contradicted. Wo may discover later ’whether/this interesting rumour was actually ill-founded, or merely unofI'Hcially premature. Gossip is «-gerly concerned, moreover, about the pres|ent London visit of two really handl! some foreign Princesses, Astid and /Martha of Sweden, the two unmarried mioces of the King and Queen of /Sweden. The eldest is now 24 and -the youngest 20. They are kins/women of our royal family, however, and H.R.H.’s bachelor habit is said, by those who know him well, to ba fixed as the northern star. Where Will It Stop ? Sir Barry Jackson and the Birmingham Repertory Company have set fc new fashion for stage plays. I hear now that Hamlet in plus-fours is to ho followed by faisst in evening dress. {This novel venture in grand opera will be tried at Birmingham. The difficulty is to see where this sort of /{thing is going to stop. And, after all, Ibsen in bathing costumes would be : quite in the best Sartor Resartus /Spirit, Conflicting Evidence. Though the doctors keep telling us h ( ow healthy modern feminine ■fashions are, the chemists rather / counter their assertions. The medical {■theory is that, because they wear /little clothing, and no not wrap themfrselvea up in thick woollens as'men slip, women are growing robust and hardy, whereas men are getting weak i; and'ailing. But the testimony of the { chemists is that nowadays most of | their customers, particularly for fe cough and cold cures, are women. It |i:Jiiay he argued, of course, that the 1 ladies are merely buying these things f for their masculine relations who are

too ill-in-bcd to get out themselves. It certainly is an impressive sight to see a modern man, muffled in a great coat and thick scarf .taking out the modern flapper, dressed in a flimsy kilt with an evening-dress blouse, for a walk in the Park these chilly November mornings. Paris Models From Berlin. '*

Germany has indeed benefited by the ’’intolerance injustice" of the French occupation of the Rhineland, because as the direct result of this occupation Berlin manufacturers of women’s dresses have learnt how to compote with Paris in the' French capital’s most exclusive line. A wellknown business man told mo io-day that there are now three times as many “models" of German manufacture sold In London o«joi: French, and he ran tlM'ough a formidable list of Gorman firms which have opened London establishments during the last two years. At the present time many French houses are discharging mannequins through the falling off in business and the majority of these girls are going to German firms. It is not the cheaper dressss either ■which the Germans sell. Some of the most expensive models come from Berlin.

The Cowboy Earl. I hear that the new Earl of Portsmouth is expected in London very shortly and a decision may then bo expected on tbo moot question whether he shall take his seat in the House of Lords. So long as he remains a naturalised American citizen he cannot, of course, take the oath in the Gilded Chamber, but it is open to the Earl to relinquish his allegiance to the Stars and Stripes. The Earl has been a ranchman in Wyoming for nearly half a century and is a thorough cow-boy in appearance. Tall, muscular and deeply bronzed he can rope a steer with the best of them, and the bunting of grizzles, elks and mountain lions has been his relaxation. His son Viscount Lymington Is already over here and while in England the Earl and his diminutive American wife will reside at their family estate in Devonshire. ' When In Rome.

The ‘‘Modest Dress” Campaign by the Vatiolan in Rome grows more and more insistent. I hear It actually started last summer when a party of gay visitors from Ostia to Basilica and, clad in bathing gowns and wraps, passed through the Holy Door. The pilgrims and monks were shocked and took immediate steps to avoid a repetition of the incident. Every lady who entered the papal halls had her toilette subjected to a careful scrutiny to make sure that it was modest enough for tho occasion, and many were requested to leave. The culmination of the campaign is a sketch which now appears on the back of ladles audience tickets indicating the type of gown that is con-

sidered suitable. It is of monk-like simplicity, with an ankle-length skirt ending in a short train, very high neck and very long sleeves. A girdle, also of monk-like severity encircles tho waist. A lacc veil thrown over the head leaves the face only uncov. cred, and falls gracefully over the shoulders. A gown like this, however becoming, would not be generally useful to a woman of society, so that an “audience” means buying a ioilete .specially for the occasion.

The Poor French. I was talking to n well-known City banker this morning and in commenting on the difficulties of French financial iicuscs remarked that nothing reflected the collapse of the franc more strikingly than the class of hotel now patronised in London by Paris business men. Men of substance, who used to stay and entertain their London friends at one of tho big West End hotels, now conic to Town and never mention where they are staying. This is because they are forced by the depreciated value of the franc to stay at little boarding houses and private hotels of which they did not know the existence a couple of years ago. in France _ a franc is worth about a third of its pre-war value. In London it is only worth a tenth. The boarding houses close to Victoria Station are full of Paris business men. Troublous Southern Europe. Southern Europe, no less than France. Is arousing once more to Monarehial fervours. While the antagonistic claims of Phillips d’Bouorbon and the last of the Bonaparte scions is being debated in Paris, the claims of the child Duke Otto, son of the late ex-Emperor Karl to the dual throne , of the Austro-Hungarian Empire are being pressed home, in Vienna. This is particularly unfortunate when it Is realised that Italy Is clamouring for an interest in the Tyrol while Jugo Slavia is once again covetously inclined toward Oarinthia and tho Hungarians toward the Burgenland. Internecine troubles seem imminent. The tense situation is not eased by the news that Vienna, despite British efforts to stabilise her status and currency, Is once more plunging into financial and governnmental chaos.

.When Caesar Fell. How far the Otto-ites will go in their endeavour to place tho little Hapsburg on tho throne remains to be seen. I hope not to the length they Went with the ex-Hmperor Karl! My most tragic memory is of him—sitting in a roadsldo ditch, looking toward Baja and the scene of his shattered cause, in October, 1921, awaiting the British Navel escort that was to remove him from his father’s Imperial lands. He was very drunk and his eyes were red with crying. Listlessly his staff officers stood

about him and a few Naval officers turned their backs on the group, in sympathy. The Danube gunboat on Which he was eventually incarcerated was already lying off-shore with Buda-Pesth in the distance. The lasi of the ancient dynasty of Hapsburg —drunk, bewildered, sobbing and foi - lorn delegated from an Imperial heritage to the shelter of a ditch: “What a fall was there my countrymen.” “Good Old Fender.”

Mr. Fender, the. skipper of the Surrey Cricket Eleven is such an institution at tho Oval that everyone will hope there is no foundation in the rumour that ho may cease to be captain next year. Like all cricket captains ho makes mistakes on occasions; but he is a very popular figure in the cricket field, his team works with him happily and with enthusiasm and it is a real education to see him

"using his head” to get an obstinate batsman caught off his own bowling. On these occasions he has a pleasing habit of crowding fieldsmen into the pitch until tho ground just behind tho wicket becomes a veritable “congested area.”