SOCIAL NEWS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 19150, 16 October 1925, Page 16

SOCIAL NEWS.

Miss B. Welch, of Wellington, is visiting Auckland. Mrs. T. Cameron, Lower Hutt, and Sirs. G. Fulton, Wellington, are visiting Auckland. Lady Cooper and Mrs. Magnus .Johnson, of Hamilton, are staying at Glenalvon for a few days. Mrs. L. J. Marsack and child, of Christchurch, have returned from a holiday visit to Auckland. Queen Marie of Rumania has recently been initiated as a member of the Gorsedd of Bards at the Welsh National Eisteddfod. Her aunt, the late Queen, known as Carmen Silva, was initiated at Bangor in IS9O. Hall Place, Bexley Heath, Lady Limerick's historic home, has been bought by her American millionaire son-in-law, and saved from the house-breakers. Hall Place, originally built in 1015, is credited with housing the ghost of the Black Prince, and its yew trees were brought over from the battlefield of Cressy. It was, however, to bo sold and dismantled for the erection of modern houses by a firm of enterprising if iconoclastic estate agents. Now, to Lady Limerick's intense joy, it has been preserved for the use of herself and her grandchildren. It is fnil of treasures and was recently inspected by Mr. Ramsay Mac Donald, whom Sir Joseph Duveen, the art expert, says has a greater knowledge of antiques than many other connoisseurs. The six women who, as British Trade Union delegates, visited Russia last April, have now issued' their report. In a reference to marriage in Russia, they state:—A male may marry at the age of 18; a female at 16. The woman is on an equality with the man and one may take the other's name or each continue under their own names. Divorce is accomplished by husband and wife registering their desire to part. If divorce is requested by one side only the matter goes before the Law Court. According to Soviet law no difference is made between legitimate and illegitimate children. The six women who formed the delegation are:—Miss M. Quaile, Miss A. Loughlin, Sirs. A. Bridge, Mrs. L. A. Aspinall, Mrs. Z. K. Coates and Miss May Purcell. Writing of Mrs. Freyberg, wife of Colonel Freyberg, V.C., who so nearly won in his effort to swim the English Channel, a London correspondent states that she accompanied her husband the whole way in a tug. Mrs. Freyberg was Miss Jekyll, daughter of Sir Herbert and Lady Jekyll Her mother wrote a famous cookery book, which combined literary art with culinary instruction; her father has held many important public appointments. Sirs. Freyberg was married first, to Francis Maclaren, one of Lord Aberconway's sons, who was killed in a flying accident during the war and had two sons by him. She married Colonel Freyberg in 1822, and has another small son. She and her two other boys spent the whole of the 16 hours of her husband's swim looking after his comfort from the tug.