SOCIAL NEWS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19344, 3 June 1926, Page 5

SOCIAL NEWS.

Mrs. Gillman has returned to Wellington from a visit to Auckland. Professor and Mrs. Burbidge are staying at the Hotel Hon Desir, Takapuna. Mrs. M. Fisher, Cambridge, and Miss Comeroy, Wellington, are included in the guests at Stonehnrst. Mrs. B. Buttle, who has been spending a lengthy holiday in Wellington and Taumarunui, has returned to Auckland, Commissioner Hoggard and Mrs. Hog- i gard, of the Salvation Army, have re- : turned to Wellington from a visit to i Auckland. ~ ' ; Mrs. Nerval Speedy, Burnview, i Hawke's Bay. is paying a visit to Auck- : land and is the guest of her sister, Miss Stevenson, Mount Eden. Mrs. William Harrison, of ' -Beatonholme, Mount Albert, accompanied by her two boys, Bernard and Bruce, have arrived at 'the first stage of their extended tour of the Homeland. Included in tho guests staying at_ the Grand Hotel are Sirs. W. Harrison, Hastings,- Miss B. Rutherford. North Canterbury, Miss Ncwbiggen, Hastings, Miss Cameron, Wanganui, Miss J l . Carter, Wellington. The Navy League Special Service Decoration, which was conferred on Monday in Wellington on Mrs, Harding, hon. secretary of the women's auxiliary of the Wellington branch, for her work especially in organising and carrying on the making and sending of warm clothing for sailors' widows, orphans or necessitous dependants overseas, is granted by the head office of the league hi London, on the recommendation of u branch. Men in different classes wear different kinds of socks, but women, peeress and hop-picker alike, wear the aristocratic silk stocking. This fact was revealed recently in England at the Board of Trade inquiry, under the Safeguarding of Industries Act, concerning tho hosiery trade. Tho alarming prospect was hinted at that, should cheap foreign hosiery be excluded, workmen might be seen going about - without socks. A trade expert said that, a duty of 33 1-3 per cent, would probably raise the price of men's cotton socks imported to sell retail at 6J,d to 10jd. The only direction in Which English hosiery trade had increased since the war was in women's silk stockings. A Sydney paper devotes a column to Miss Willis, of Wellington, assistant inspector of hospitals and midwives, under the Health Department of New Zealand. Miss Willis has given a clean* and concise, statement of the work done by the women of the department, and the statement is made that the trainees : in the nursing profession in New Zealand are in a favourable position compared with those of New South Wales. Miss Willis pays a tribute to the work of the Women's National Reserve in the work done by the Residential Nursery, and the Mothers' Help Division (the latter having lately ceased to be part of the reserve). Miss Willis is the guest of her sister, Mrs. Edwin Geach, at Cremorne, Sydney. " It will come to a pretty pass if wc have to display notices in our churches: 'Ladies are requested not to powder during the prayers.' " This caustic comment appears in the parish magazine of one of the leading churches in. Hull, in which the vicar draws attention to "what appears to be a new form of nuisance in church." "People keep telling me," he writes, "that the most solemn moments in our worship are often spoiled for them by some—shall we call them .shamefaced ones I since they are. apparently ashamed of their ordinary faces—who powder in a most ostentatious way . ... One can sympathise with many people wishing to disguise themselves (he. adds), and one has grown almost used to seeing Pimpo; the clown complexions, but these people afe asking too much of us when they j choose such inappropriate times and places for their renovation." It seems to have become quite a tradition that the British Prime Minister's personal private secretary must ,be a woman. Both Mr. Lloyd George and Mr. Ramsay Mac Donald had energetic young women to attend to their correspondence in Downing Street, and at the House, Mr. Baldwin has also followed the rule, and his Miss Watson is by now quite a familiar figure in the lobby. Unlike the last two premiers' secretaries, however, Miss Watson has not claimed her right to a seat under the gallery among,the male officials. Instead, whenever it is necessary for h<jr to listen to a debate, she is to be found high up in the little ladies' gallery, which was once the only place from which women could listen to debates. Now, although the railing which once veiled it from the rest of the chamber ha 3 been removed, it is still reserved for women.