SOCIAL NEWS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 19092, 10 August 1925, Page 14

SOCIAL NEWS.

Mrs. E. T. Wilder, Ot.ane, Hawke's Buy, is visiting Auckland. Miss Mary Fookes, of New Plymouth, is the guest of Mis.'P. B. Fitzheibert. Mrs. Kenderdine is at piesent the guest of iiei daughter, Mrs. Quigley, in W anganui. The Misses Lovering and Ailsa Burns have returned from a visit to Mount Cook. Miss Studholme, North Auckland, is the guest of Mis. Aveiill, Bishopscourt, Pai noil. Mrs. Sidney Thoine George, who has been on a visit to Rotorua, has returned to town. Mrs. Hammond and Miss Hammond left Wanganui on Friday to spend Fleet Week in Auckland. The Misses -Murphy, of Gisborne, are lit present the guests of Mrs. 11. Burns, Remuera Road. Mrs. Claude Williams, of Gisborne, is staying with Mrs. C. W. Egerton, Brighton Road, Parnell. Mrs. W. E. Jones, Miss L. Tile and Miss May Burmester are all visitors fiom new Plymouth for Fleet Week. Mr, and Mrs. Wallace Strachan left Wanganui on Friday on a motor trip to Auckland, where they will stay during Fleet Week. Lady Ward left Wellington last week by tho Maunganui for Sydney, where she will join Mrs. Bernard B. Wood, who is at present thero with her son. Mrs C. Clark, of Whangarei, is staying with Mr. and Mrs. Claude Waller, of Ponsonby, and will remain in Auckland during the visit of the American Fleet. Tho feminine policewoman is a familiar sight in England and America, and some Continental countries. Now, even Turkey, that most laggard of races in tho cause of social refoim, is to have its corps of women police. Tho reform has just been initiated, and the strong arms of the Turkish law will be enforced by tho addition of women compatriots. Among New Zealand singers who have como into prominence in Sydeny, and who are professional pupils of Mr. Roland Foster; are Miss Mary McCormick, daughter of Mr. C. E. McCormick, of Auckland, who has done some notably artistic work and gained high praiso from the critics; Miss Phyllis Massey, who was so successful in the Wellington competitions two or three years ago and also becamo verv popular in Sydney, and is now revisiting New Zealand, under contract with United Pictures; Miss Eva Webb Jones, a Wanganui mezzo soprano; and Madame Eva Clark, the Dunedin contralto, who has become well established on tho Sydney concert platform. Women's prowess in the role of inventor is shown at tho exhibition of tno Institute oi Patentees, opened by Lady Askwith at the Central Hall, Westminster. recently. Naturally, most 0 f the inventions and devices are designed to save housewives labour. A frying-pan that cooks oggs and bacon in separate compartments was exhibited by the woman who last year designed a kettle with a lid which would ■ not drop off. A fountain pen containing a magazine of 40 postage stamps was another of her inventions. Other articles included a combined vanity bag and theatre queue seat, invisible and secure hairpins, frying-pans with glass lids hosebags that do not strain- horses' necks. "I have never had any patience for politics," said the wife of New Zealand s Prime Minister, Mrs. J. G. Coates, in an interview with a Melbourne newspaper reporter recently. "I feel that \v& women ought to be satisfied with running families. I agree that it is impossible for us to keep out of minor public affairs, such as the membership of education and hospital bodies. Much good has already been accomplished in theso spheres through the mere introduction of the women's viewpoint. But national politics is a man's job. However, there are some others who don't think so. as woman candidates have contested the last two elections in the Dominion. But the Nefl Zealand Parliament has yet to boast its first woman member." Mrs. Coates added that the Prime Minister's family life was governed by theso opinions, which both husband and wife shared. A real link with the past has been broken by the death in London of. Lady Constance Leslie. She was born in 1836, the year before Queen Victoria came to the Throne, at Fulham, and remained a most devoted Victorian to the end of her life. Her father was Colonel Damer, son of the first Earl of Portarlington, and her mother the beautiful Minnie Seymour, adopted child of Mrs. Fitzlierbert, and the subject of the "Seymour Case." What the truth of the mystory was probably died with Lady Constance, who always averred that her mother was not Mrs. Fitzherbert's child. Lady Constance had the power of sayin<j quick and often delicious things, which, if they seldom found their way into literature, passed round an amused circle. On the death of one of her sons-in-law she observed, " This i? the first thing he has ever dono fo pain me." Her answer to an intrusive Salvationist, who inquired whether she was saved, savoured of the old regime:—''Sir, I had an excellent mother!" and there was no more to be said. In her old age she became short-sighted, and, once meeting Queen Mary at a gallery, begged her to tell her her name, as she remembered her kind face. Lndv Constance never lost her charm and vivacity, and was the last source of much of the forgotten talk and gossip of Victorian times. She bought and bnrnt. a number of conies of Lady Cardigan's memoirs, of whom and of which she disapproved. nnrl annotated other cooie<= with versions which will one day be the delight of memoir-writers.