SOCIAL NEWS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 18941, 12 February 1925, Page 13

SOCIAL NEWS.

Mrs. J- Reid 13 returning to England after a visit to friends in the south. Mrs Coleman and Miss Ruby Coleman, who recently returned from Dunedin, have taken up their residence at CourtvilJe. Mrs Arthur Johnstone, Mangaore, mngitikei, has returned from a holiday spent with relatives at Takapuna, Auckland. Mr and Mrs. A. H. Hodgo left Auckland last week lo take up their residence in Pa tea, Taranaki. Mis:; Doreen Bullock Webster is at present their guest. The new fashion in wedding rings may pome as a shock to old-fashioned people. The plain gold circlet is deposed for a circle of diamonds. A variation la an engraved platinum ring with a milled edge. \ London paper mentions that among incf year's inventions by women were a transparent umbrella, interchangeable scissors blades, a portable bathing tent m which the owner acts as a pole, and a substitute for hatpins. The encasement is announced of Miss ' Olive Marion Simpson, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Duncan McGregor Simpson, Tiro Tai, St. Heliers Bay, Auckland, to Mr. Arthur Gregory Kay 11, eldest son of the Reverend and Mrs. J. h. A. Jlayii, the Vicarage, Stratford. After an absence of 60 years from New Zealand, Mrs. A. J. Douglass, an old-time resident of Hamilton, returned to the Dominion bv the Maheno on Tuesday evening. She "was accompanied by her son, Mr H. P. Douglass, and his wife, who reside in Sydney. During their stay in Auckland the party will be the guests of Mr. and Mrs. F. E. N. Gaudin, of Bayswater. Mr E G Grace, the millionaire prcsident "of the' Bethlehem Steel Corporation and the Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation, recently announced the engagement of his daughter Emmehne to Sir M. W. s. "Bruce. * Sir Michael Bruce, who is thirty years of age and has had an adventurous career, was until recently ranching in Brazil. Be fashion of coloured string gloves has been set by the Prince of Wales. Theso are very popular for riding, driv;n~ an <j any game iu which one has to grip something firmly, such as a golf club, hockey stick or a racket. The ordinary leather glove presents difficulties when it is wet, lience it was often made with heavily raised seams for riding men and women. "The shingled hair fashion, now considered so smart and original by women, is a revival of a mode worn by early Christian women as a penance foi theii naughty habits," said Mi*. Herbert Norns, the costume designer in a lecture in London in " The Costume of Imperial Rome. "It is possible, of course," he added gravely, " that the women and prls of to-day shingle for the same reason. ' Signer Puccini, the composer, left a fortune of twenty million lire (nominally £800,000), in addition to royalties, which now bring in a yearly income of £32,000. Puccini had .planned to build a large opera house at a cost of £160.000, and it is believed that his plan will be carried out by his heirs with the financial co-operation of the Government and municipality, as well as with the proceeds of a national subscription. There was an unusual incident at Miss Morrison-Bell's wedding at St. Margaret s, Westminster. London, recently Some of the ex-officer patients that she and her mother, the late Lady Morrison-Bell, looked after at Bournemouth during the war, were among the guests. One of these " old" patients happens to be a noted bellfounder, and he managed, at the close of the ceremony, to scale the belfry steps in time to tako_ part in the first " bout " of ringing which rang ins bride out of church. The first civil marriage to be conducted by a woman in England was celebrated at the end of December when Miss Dorothy M. the deputy superintendent registrar, officiated in St. Giles' Register Office, Bloomsbury. Miss Haldane was appointed deputy-superintendent, last April. The bridegroom showed some astonishment at a woman officiating. Although the first marriage conducted by a woman in a register office, women have previously officiated at religious ceremonies. Envoy E. Paulino Swartz } of tho Salvation Army, is at present in Dunedin. A graduate of Mount Holyoko College, Miss Swartz spent six years in evangelistic work in Japan, and has mads four trips to tho European Continent for the purpose of studying the Salvation Army methods in use there. Since then she has travelled extensively throughout the world from the Arctic Circle to South America. She has recently returned from a tour of tho world for the purpose of studying the Salvation Army from a world standpoint, visiting Palestine, China, Japan, Korea, and Australia. Out. of 2834 marriages in which suits for dissolution and annulment were commenced in 1923, in England, no fewer than 1166 were childless. This is revealed in the Registrar-General's Statistical Review issued in December, which also states that in 896 cases there was only one child, in 444 cases there were two children, in 31.0 three to six children, but in only thirteen cases were there more than six children. The dangerous years appear to be from five to ten years of married life, when 941 suits were commenced, and from ten to twenty years' duration, when 1112 suits were initiated. There were only sixteen cases under one year, and only 321 after twenty years.