SOCIAL NEWS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 19125, 17 September 1925, Page 13

SOCIAL NEWS.

Miss Fergusson and Miss Orr-Ewing were the guests of Mrs. Guy Williams, Te Parae, Masterton, for the week-end. Mrs. W. Edlin, of Auckland, accompanied by her son, is at present visiting her father, Mr. John Sims, sen., Ashburton. A long-service record which is probably unique in the history of the British Post Office .lias been completed by the resignation of Mrs. Hawkes, sub-postmistress of Kirt'lington, Oxfordshire. Heir husband held the office from 1856 up till his death in 1907, and was succeeded by his widow. Mrs. Hawkes is now only resigning because of ill-health. Mme. Sarah Grand, author of "The Heavenly Twins," who is Mayoress of Bath, has a blistered hand as the result of greeting 2500 people at the British Medical Association Conference. So blistered was her hand that the removal of her glove afterwards caused great pain. Mme. Grand has now suggested that at receptions the more stately courtesy of the eighteenth century should take the place of handshakes and that guests should bow over tho hostess' hand or just touch the back of her hand with the fingers. An interesting scientific visitor to Dunedin at the present .time is Miss M. C. Neal, who. for the past five years has ,been on the staff of the Bishop Museum at Honolulu. She has come to New Zealand to study the native flora and to make collections for the Bishop Museum. At the request of Dr. Holloway, the Chancellor of Otago University has offered Miss Neal the facilities of the botany laboratory. She expects to be in the Dominion nil about the end of the year. A string of 47 pearls, valued at £IOOO, which Lady Violet Beaumont lost in the West End, was restored to her in London a few weeks ago. Sydney Harrison, a roadman, was sweeping up, when he saw the jewels in a gutter. Harrison showed the pearls to his mates, who thought they were beads, and he put them in his pocket, saying that they would do for his children. On the following morning, seeing in the newspapers a report of the loss of the pearls, he took them to the residence of Lady Beaumont. She recognised them, and he was paid the offered reward of £SO. One pearl only was missing. The lucky man .is a naval engineer who, unable. to get a job, accepted casual work from the Chelsea Borough Council rather than go on the dole. Mrs. Guinevere Gould, widow of the late Mr. George J. Gould, and heiress to part of the Gould fortune, was married at Montreal recently to Viscount Dunsford, son of the Earl of Midleton. Mrs. Guinevere Sinclair Gould was formerly a chorus girl at the Gaiety and Daly's Theatre. On the death of Mr. Gould, in 1923, ten months after their marriage, she was left the income from a trust fund of £BOO,OOO. A reversion to Mrs, Gould's children on her death was contested in the United States Courts by the children of Mr. Gould's former marriage, but Mrs. Gould won her case. Viscount Dunsford married in 1917 Miss Peggy Rush, the actress, but the marriage was dissolved on the Viscountess' suit last year. The Viscount, who is- the heir of the Earl of Midleton, is 37 years of age. During the war he was mentioned in despatches and gained the Legion of Honour and the Military Cross. 11 Bad writing is on the increase, declared Mr. W. E. Whitehouse, of Aberystwyth University, examiner 'or several university boards, in a lecture in< then.GSity of London Vacation Course. "The , bad writer," he declared, "is a selfish > individual who only studies his own interests, and if he cannot trouble to make his thoughts legible, then you may be pretty sure that they are not Worth getting down—at least, in the majority of cases. If we get a script like the trail of an intoxicated spider across the page We read the bits here and there and give credit on them. In university examinations we send such a script to be typed and charge the cost to the, studeht. : The system has always -worked until this year, when we refused a script which even the typist could not decipher. The student had to be locked in a room and had to read his papers out word by word to an examiner. I could only identify one ward in six pages—and I' got that wrong." 1