CHIT CHAT.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1250, 13 February 1896, Page 15

CHIT CHAT.

Feilding was quite gay on Wednesday last week, when a fashionable and pretty wedding took place at St. John’s Anglican Church. The happy pair were Mr Walter B. Giesen, fourth son of Mr Edward Giesen, of Feilding, and Miss Emma Constance Knosvles, of Makino. The church, which had been very prettily decorated with ferns, evergreens and clematis, was crowded with relatives and friends. The Rev AT. A. Innes officiated. The bride, who was given away by her father, looked charming in a very handsome dress of surah silk, with orange blossom and veil, carrying a shower bouq jet of myrtle and roses. The bridesmxids, the Misses Knowles, Ethel Knowles, Nina Knowles, Giesen, M. Lockett and Macarthur, wore dresses of French crepon trimmed with gold coloured silk and carried shower bouquets of Marguerite daisies. The page, Master Leonard Leary, was dressed in old English court dress of black velvet, while Miss Ida Carey wore a blue crepon representing “ little maid in blue/' and each of these children carried a basket of flowers which, as before stated, were strewed in the bride’s pathway as she left the church. The bridesmaids all wore gold brooches, the gift of the bridegroom. Mr P. Giesen, the bridegroom’s brother, acted as best man. After the ceremony the members of the wedding party proceeded to Birnam, near Mount Stuart, the future home of Mr and Mrs W. B. Giesen, where Mr and Mrs Knowles and Mr and Mrs E. Giesen entertained their guests, numbering about one hundred and fifty ladies and gentlemen, at an “ At Home." Shortly before five o’clock the newlymarried pair left fcr Palmerston, the bride’s travelling dress being a stylish costume of fawn-coloured serge trimmed with shot silk and hat to match. The presents were numerous and valuable.

A quiet and pretty wedding took place yesterday afternoon, says las£ Thursday’s Marlborough Times, when Mr Thomas Arthur Ballantyne, of the Wellington telegraph staff, and Miss Edith Knight, second daughter of Mr A. Knight, were united in the bonds of matrimony. The ceremony was celebrated by the Rev W. O. Robb, Presbyterian minister, at the residence of the bride's parents in Maxwell road. The bride was given away by her father ; the bridesm lids were Miss M. Knighc and Miss A. Maddock, and Mr 11. Blyth acted as best man. At the conclusion of the rites a number of guests were entertained by Mr and Mrs Knight, and in the evening the happy couple departed by the Waihi for Wellington, whence they will travel to Wanganui to spend the honeymoon. A number of friends congregated on the wharf and gave them a hearty send-off. Mr Ballantyne was for some years a member of the local telegraph staff’; he was popularly liked during his residence in Blenheim, and he and his wife have the best wishes of all for future happiness and prosperity, ,

An English lady doctor. Dr Emily 13. Ryder, who is at present on a visit to Auckland, gave an address at the City Hall last week at which over a thousand people were present. The subject dealt with was “The Child Wives of India." Dr llyder, who said she had been five years practising her profession in India, gave an interesting account of the marriago customs of India, and of the child wives, who were obliged to be married before eight years of age. Some of. the Indian girls, who could not find suitable huebands in their own caste, were sold, she said, to men of 40 and up to 80 years of age, and even to lepers, and sent to 'lie huinss of their husbands. Many child wives died of brutal marital treatment or committed uicide. An agitation was now going on in India to give the Indian girl the same protection as the English girl, as they lived under the same Government. The agitation would be carried on parallel with the missionary lines, but on strictly legal and medical lines, for that would be the policy if the agitation were to succeed. In every city there would be established a “ Little Wives of India Circle," in touch with the Colonial Association and the head Association in India, were the funds would go to carry on the propaganda. At the close of the meeting a circle was formed to carry out the objects indicated.