ITEMS OF SOCIAL NEWS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIII, Issue 10127, 9 May 1896, Page 3 (Supplement)

ITEMS OF SOCIAL NEWS.

[FROM the society papkks.]

Mrs. Charles S. Brown is the lady golf champion of the United States. She spends her summers at Southampton (New York), where she first learned golf two or thre6 seasons ago on the links of the Shinnecock Hills Club, She believes in assiduous practice, and scarcely missed a day's play throughout the summer. "Form" is one of her maxims, and she has acquired air exceedingly graceful style by her attention to the details of position and motion, Her score for the eighteen holes of the Meadowbrook links was 132. This was made, too, after an apparently disastrous beginning,] for she took eleven strokes for the first hole*:

Sir Henry Irving, when studying his role of Corporal Brewster, in the "Story of Waterloo," visited Thanet workhouse to geb his realistic touches from the study of an old soldier, William Sutton, who was an inmate of that institution. In a similar way he prepared for the part of King Lear by visits to the Broadmoor Asylum. Eleonora Duse is said to have made extensive study of the unfortunate girls in a convent kepi by the Sisters of Mercy before undertaking the part of Santuzza. Mary Anderson, before her retirement from the stage, fre* quented Paddiogton Churchyard, and, seated on the tomb of Mrs. Siddons, diligently studied her part. Mrs. Keeley, the celebrated English actress of half a century ago, was equally careful about the details of her characters. She continually visited Newgate to watch the ways of criminals when studying for "Jack Sheppard." And when preparing for the part of Nydia in " The Last Days of Pompeii," she made fre* querit visits to an asylum for the blind.

Sardou has a method. He rises at six and writes till noon. As soon as ho enters bis study he locks the door and is disturbed by nobody except the barber, who comes every day to shave him. He breakfasts at twelve; with his wife and children, and eats like a cormorant. After breakfast a stroll, a cigar, and the daily papers. At three a reception —actors, actressos, managers, directors— everybody by turns and no one long. They come from all points of the compass, chiefly London and New York. Then lie writes his letters, dines at 6.30, smokes another cigar, and goes to bed at ten. Sardou is king in his own world. He "produces" his own pieces and won't alter anything he has written. " Not a line—not a wordnot a syllable!" said Sardou, when it war. suggested to change "Thermidor." Hfl even decides on the colours of the actresses' dresses. "If I did not, I 'he says, " they would all wear red to attract attention to themselves, and this actually happened once at the Odeon."

A. noted American, Dr. Albert Abranw, has been lecturing at the Cooper Medical College, San Francisco, on the bicycle. Hero is one extract:— And now we coino to the absorbing topic of woman and the bicycle. If the new woman comes with a tendency to physical perfection let us ac« cord her a royal welcome. Dr. Roosevelt has disposed of the vexed question in the following sententious manner: ' Bicyclingis good for gome women all times and all women sometimes, but not for all women all the time.'" Dr. Abrams claimed that) women have not only a historic and hygienic but aesthetic right to wear pants. After this there 13 no more to be said.

A correspondent writes: —"An urgent! appeal has been addressed to the Duke of Cambridge, who is now at Rome, requesting him to announce his intention of declining the pension which it has been proposed to confer upon him, and the Queen has beeninformed of the unpopularity of the grant by Lord Salisbury. Mr. Balfour assured the Bouse of Commons in August last thai) no pension would be given to the Duke, and} the grant now proposed for his benefit has! been forced upon the Ministry by the Court. The queer manoeuvres which have taken place in connection with the Duke of Cam-; bridge's retirement, and the squabblinga and tracasserie-i which it has occasioned in, ' exalted quarters' cannot now be revealed.; The member of the Government who has negotiated this pension proposal _is Lord who hasdisappointedhis friends by discovering himself to be a most complacent Minister. It has more than once, seemed possible that the affair will end in Lord Lansdowno's retirement from the Was\ Office, in which case he will no doubt be* appointed Ambassador at Paris. There iff an evident disposition to make him, the? Jonah of the Ministerial crew."

,The Kleine Journal announces that the; Berliner Theater will shortly produce a new play, which has been accepted and rehearsed at the apodal request of, the German Emperor. The Journal intimates mysteriously that for the present it must observe the most absolute secrecy regarding the title of tho piece and the.name of its author. Caw it be possible that the Kaiser is in search of fresh artistio worlds to conquer ?

The little King of Spain, according to a floating paragraph, had for his lesson the other day the mottoes of the different European, countries. He got as far as England and promptly recited," Dim et mon Droit, and then abruptly asked, "What is the motto of America!" Count f—\;!L. I happened to be in tho , room at tho time, Unswer«d,.« Dieu et Moa m I,