Society Gossip.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 999, 24 April 1891, Page 12

Society Gossip.

(FROM THE SOCIETY PAPEBS ) Mrs Agnes Annie Page, the lady who alleges that she has been defrauded of £167000 odd by Mr Cleote, the Persian Consul General, is by no means a woman inexperienced in the ways cf the world. On the contrary, she is a very clever woman, and is known as a big speculator on the Stock Exchange, and has been seen at Monte Carlo. She is said to have an income of £12.000 a year. Her late husband was in the wholesale tet business. Mrs Page is nearer forty than thirty, and is rather horsey in her Attird, affecting check patterns and tailor made costnmes. She hrs a beautiful residence at Ascot, as well as her house in Cadogau Place. While in Paris Albert Edward has notoriously amused himself according to the laws which regulate the monde ou lon s'amuse in the capital of pleasure, and his gay doings have been duly set forth and chronicled in the French newspapers, and from thence been copied into and commented on by the papers of this virfcuou3 country, so that nobody can possibly be under the irn. pression that during hiß stay in the French oapital the Prince of Wales spends all his time at the office of the Bible Society or at the Mission Home.

The Duchess of Marlborough is determined to tempt fickle fortune once more in the Law Courts of her native land. Naturally dissatisfied with the reduction of income by something like £IO,OOO a year, she has instituted a suit in the appeal court, seeking for a reversal of the decision which set aside the will of her first husband. If the suit is successful, the Duchess will inherit about a million sterling, of which three fifths is personal property. The Duke, of course is delighted at the prospsot of getting more * brass. 1 It is stated in ‘Society’ circles that the Prince of Wales has come to an arrangement with his Royal Mamma, by which he will not be required to attend any more funerals of Royalties to represent her Majesty. It ia, indeed astonishing that this adaurdity should have been allowed for so long. A mere equerry, whose life and health are of little importance, can represent Her Majesty oE Great Britain quite as well a 3 the Heir Apparent, and to make the Prince dash about Europe like a Queen’s Messenger, whenever a leading Royalty dies, is too bad. The latest aberration of the Emperor William has been a quarrel with the Chief of the General Staff at Berlin, who is universally regarded as one of the very best officers in Europe, and has also enjoyed the unbounded confidence and esteem of the Army. The resignation of this distinguished officer has caused great and universal dis satisfaction and alarm throughout North Germany, and people are anxiously asking at Berlin what will be the Raiser s next betise. From a return recently obtained in the House of Commons by Mr H. Fowler, it appears that the sites of the London School Board have Co3t two million eight hundred and forty pounds five shillings and eevenpenee. Scusate se t poco ! This magnificent sum, however; does not represent the amount paid to the vendors ; f their pocketing 3 only reached two million live hundred and twenty five thouand seven hundred and ninety three pounds five shillings and tenpenee. Wkat then nas become of the balance or difference, a mere bagatelle of some three hundred and seventy thousand ? This has merely stuck by the way to the fingers and pocket linings of a whole army of solTeitors, surveyors, and similar light fingered gentry.

Numbers of hard working tradeswomen are being ousted out of their employment by the hordes ot broken down Society ladies who are flocking into every department of the fancy trades. The hard part of it is, that these women obtain puffs from all quarters gratis, and the genuine trades woman has to pay for her advertisements, and if she fails ia business gets no mercy or pity from her creditors; while the Society shopkeeper can have her try at business, and if she is unable, through unfcusiness like methods, to keep afhst, she has no trouble in passing the court, and leaving her confiding houses and tradeswomen to do the best they can with her trifling assets. The following is a copy of a card sent out by one of these women lately : -«yrjLDASiE Perbita •* 3lh Smoothly Fall ‘At Home, Wednesday, February —, 1891, 101‘ Great Scott street. ‘New Bonnets.’ G to 7. A successful attempt has been recently made in the City to revive one of its ancient guilds— the Worshipful Company of Gardeners. The Lord Mayor has been unanimously elected master of the resuscitated guild, and has accepted the position ; and the court and livery will consist of many of the leading horticulturists. Archdeacon Farrar has been appointed honorary chaplain of the company, and Mr James Curtis, to whom, in conjunction with Colonel Sewell, much of the credit of reviving the guild belongs, will be the clerk. The Company intends to attec.pt great things in the promotion of gardening and floriculture. It has been decided to preserve the memory of the late Archbishop of York by a monumental effigy in York Minster. What money remains when this is done is to be given to a fund for the relief of the poorer clergy of the diocese of York. This latter object is a most deserving charity, but aurely it Is rather a pity to waste money on the effigy. The Archbishop has left behind bim a fortune of nearly £50,000, all the result of bis savings from his ecclesiastical income. His relations would therefore naturally desiro to defray the coat of bis monument.