ITEMS OF SOCIAL NEWS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIV, Issue 16567, 16 June 1917, Page 4 (Supplement)

ITEMS OF SOCIAL NEWS.

Lady Mabel Smith, of Baines Hall, near Sheffield, sister of Earl FitzWilliam, who offered her services as a road labourer, and subsequently acted as a dairymaid on a, Yorkshire farm, is 4 now organising' a body of women to cultivate a plot of land she has acquired'. Potatoes, cabbages, peas, beans, and lettuce will be grown.

Mrs. Humphry Ward was lately a distinguished visitor at the House of Commons to hear her son, Lieutenant Arnold Ward, speak on woman's suffrage. Beforo the war she was one of the keenest antagonists of the militant suffragists. Lieutenant Ward, who was called 'to the Bar in 1903, is well known as a cricketer, and has travelled widely in the East as a special war correspondent.

The Marquis of Tikhfield, who is the son and heir of the Duke of Portland, is just 24. A lieutenant in the Royal Horse Guards, ho is an A.D.C. with the forces in France. He married in 1915 the Hon. Ivy Gordon Lennox, Maid of Honour to Queen Alexandra, who was present at the wedding at Welbeck. Lady Titchfield is the daughter of Lord and Lady Algernon Gordon Lennox, and a niece of the Duke of Richmond. The Royal Stuart blood runs in her veins. Her daughter, born last year, has Queen Alexandra as godmother, and is named after her. ;'

Her Royal Highness Princess Maud recently celebrated her 24th . birthday. Grand-daughter of Queen Alexandra and the late King Edward, and daughter of the Princess Royal and the late Duke of Fife, Princess Maud is the»younger sister of Princess Arthur of Connaugnt, from whom she was rarely separated until the latter married.' The two sisters see a good deal of each other. Princess Maud has simple tastes, delights in a country life, and is expert with the rod. She is a great theatre-goer, and is often in Queen Alexandra's box at war charity entertainments.

There , are few lady member of noble families who can speak with greater ease and effectiveness that Lady Stradbroke. She is never awkward on the platform, even though she confesses that the most embarrassing time is when you sit facing an audience as a voto of tlianks is pro posed in your favour. ■ Her travels and experience have supplied her with apt illustrations, which illuminate her speeches and give point to her remarks. She usually has some notes in readiness, but rarely troubles to use them, because she. never misses the pegs marked out for herself. Her charm or manner sets off this readiness, and speaker and speech are both welcomed.

In being made an honorary freeman of the City of London, the Prime Minister received an honour which was conferred on the late Lord Kitchener long ago. But perhaps he can hardly hope to rival his illustrious predecessor at the War Office in the number of "freedoms" bestowod upon him. The city's long roll of burgesses contains no . more remarkable incident than that which occurred when Garibaldi,. on his visit to. London over 50 years ago, was presented with the freedom in a gold box. An immense crowd assembled, and Menolti, the son of the Italian patriot, was unable to gain admission. Menotti was to have .received the gold box on behalf of his father, who- had previously aaid that, as he had always refused gifts, he could not make an exception.; ; ,' :{;

Lady Mackworth, '..; who has been ' appointed Commissioner for Wales Tinder the women's service scheme, is ; the ■ daughter of Lord Rhondda ( .and wife of Sir Humphrey Mackworth,'of:Caerleon,fMon.'! She as a great reputation as a woman of business, ig a s^ director of many companies (chiefly connected with. 1 coal and shipping), and quite recently was elected chairman of an important company formed by Lord Bhondda to take over the assets of a concern formerly in enemy hands. From her childhood, when she practically assumed control of her own education, Lady Mackworth has. held decided views on the ability of women to manage their own affairs.and their, high value as wage-earners.' With Lord Bhondda, she was one of the passengers on the Lusitania, and was rescued in an unconscious state after being two hours in the water. . „

Lord Leconfield steps very naturally into the lieutenancy of Sussex, left vacant by the Duke of Norfolk. Petworth and its owner both rank as important county institutions—to say nothing df Lady Leconfield, the tall daughter of Colonel and Lady Beatrice Rawson. On her devolve many of the duties of the great Sussex acreage,' including the overseeing of the gardens, upon which Lord Leconfield looks with an eye of admiration, but at the same time of ignorance. "I hardly know the difference between a rose and a geranium," he once told 'a, flower show audience statement which put him very much on a par with the village elder who could boast a knowledge. of the Latin names of only two. flowers—the Aurora horealis and the delirium tremens. \

Personal' popularity has, fortunately, the attribute of non-dependence upon political partisanship, and it is pleasant to reflect that, amidst all the difference of opinion to be found in Ireland, no one has ever questioned the , personal esteem in which the Lord-Lieutenant and his wife, Lady Wimborne are held. Lady Wimborne (who is, of course, the centre and prime mover in the hospitalities and social side of life at the vice-regal lodge, and takes a keen personal interest in all that concerns the social life of Ireland in general, and Dublin in particular) was the Hon. Alice Katherino SibelrGrdsvenor, younger daughter of the second Baron Ebury, and waa married to Lord Wimborne in 1902. Her son, the Hon. Ivor Grosvenor Quest, born in 1903, and her two daughters, the Hon. Rosemary and the' Hon. Cynthia Guest, born in 1906 and 1908, are very popular members •of the'; home circle at Phoenix Lodtre. ( Lord-.Wimborne served in South Africa with-the'lmperial Yeomanry, and wits awarded, the Queen's Medal, with! three clasps. I

No more interesting appointment to the personal staff has been made recently than that of Prince Antoine Gaston Philippe of Orleans and Braganza to be an aide-de-camp. The third and youngest son of the Comte d'Ku, Prince Antoine is a grandson of the last Emperor of Brazil, through his mother, and a distant rolative of King George, his paternal grandmother being a first cousin of Queen Victoria. He is a bachelor, in his thirty-sixth year. Before the war broke out Prince Antoine held a commission in an Austrian cavalry regiment, but he promptly cut this.connection, and for some time has been a captain in the Royal Canadian Dragoons. He is a cousin of the Due de Vendomo, King Albert's hrothcr-in-law, whose eldest daughter, Princess Marie Louise of Orleans, was early in the war betrothed to Prince Philip of'Bourbon-Sicile. one of the 11 children of the Count of .Caserta, the head of the Bourbons of the Two Sicilieis and a claimant.to the throne of Naples and Sicily.

Lady Howard de Walden, who recently sang for charity at a concert she gave, has studied singing for years, but has rarely been heard out of her own house, and then only by her friends. Her marriage to one of the wealthiest peers in the kingdom was a surprise in 1912, iand-; took place at the big parish church of St. Marylebone with the utmost secrecy. The daugHter of the late Mr. Charles: van Raalte, Miss Margherita van Raalte a' very popular girl, and tho couple had known each other intimately for years. : Lord Howard de Walden's family is an "ancient one, and is of the same root as the Dukes of Norfolk, one Lord Thomas Howard beine raised to the peerage in 1597, and subsequently created Earl of Suffolk- Starting as s Howard, the family name has gone .through several changes, and is now Ellis. Ladv. Howard de Walden is graceful and attractive, devoted to • music, and almost as mediaeval in her tastes .as her husband, who is famed as an expert with the foils, and has a fancy for acquiring medieval strongholds foi residential purposes. '■••... "' .., '•■> ~ I?