THIS PASSING SHOW

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 7446, 22 May 1911, Page 11

THIS PASSING SHOW

Some little Talk awhile of Vic and Thco Thero was—and then no more of Thee and Me. Rubaiyat. What with our Exhibition, our Coronation gala day, and four statutory holidays in Juno for “ thorn as likes them,” we ought to have a fairly cheerful month before us. For the Exhibition quiot but efficient preparation has been made, and ono hopes that tho inclusion of home industries has not come too late to evoko a full response from country competitors. Thero are treasures of neodlecraft in many an inland homo which would add to the value of the needlework section, to say nothing of carving, photography, and many another hobby. Tho practical exhibition of homo nursing, invalid cookery, and so on, to be given in the extemporised sick room should prove very interesting, while the special amusements will add to the inducements held out by the special excursion fares. In connection with tho Coronation gala, I see that tho Town Hall will bo thrown open for a free picture entertainment for tho children on the afternoon of Coronation Day. In the evening a free concert and picture show will be provided for “grown-ups.” The hall will he decorated, and the City Fathers propose to entertain the citizens with a thoroughly good programme. « » • • * Just after reading “Liber’s ” interesting comments on “ Two Books About the Greatest of All Books” in Saturday’s “Times” , my eye was caught by the heading “ Ignorance of tho Bible,” in tho “ Westminster Gazette.” A number of young Freshmen who entered a Massachusetts col-

When a woman "comes to making her little girl's frocks she likes always to bo sure that they are just the right style and correct in every detail. Design No. <1425, shown in three views on this page, presents an altogether original frock, and one that has many features to recommend it. It is a Gibson dress closed at tho side, and has Dutch round or square neck. The attached five-gored skirt has two styles of back, habit or inverted pleat. The, gimp, with- fulllength or shorter- sleeves in two stylos, may be made without collar. It is easy to make.

lege last year are the material from which to point the moral and adorn the tale. These young men, it would appear, were sot an examination paper of six Bible questions. “ Two of the questions were the easiest that could be thought of, two were exceedingly difficult, so as to test the intimate as well as the average knowledge of the men.*’ The results were certainly curious. Said, Gideon, and Timothy I think a number of modern young men outside America might be rather vague about. But out of the hundred and fifty, seventy-nine knew nothing of that dramatic falling of the walls of Jericho, thirty-seven knew nothing about Cain, and forty knew nothing of Daniel. In connection with this instance, the examining professor says that in visiting certain schools in Now York he found among pupils preparing, and almost at an ago to enter college, whole classes who know nothing of that wonderful story'of Daniel in the lions’ den, with .which every one of those

boys’-parents was surely familiar. The inference is obvious. Clearly there is a large and growing class of parents who leave everything to the State, including religious instruction. News of tho week lias been both interesting and diversified. Cablegrams have informed us of tho appearance ot Miss Eileen Ward, Miss Kubi Seddon, and Mrs Hislop as Maori princesses. A picturesque advertisement for the Dominion, seconded by the artistic successes of Miss Grace Joel and Mrs Hollo Fisher, of Dunedin, who have both had paintings hung in the Salon. Dominion women are well to the front. Then the staid and somewhat limited programme of dress laid down by Queen Mary for her Maids of Honour has afforded comment for feminine conversationalists. Tho prevailing impression seems to be that extremes _of_ fashion must indeed run riot when it is necessary to lay down such rigorous limits. Toques, toujours toques 1 It sounds monotonous. The charming courtesies of the visit of tho Kaiser, Kaiscnn, and Princess Victoria Louise, who arrived for the unveiling of Queen \ 10toria’s statue; the young princesses visit to tho historic sights, including the Tower of London, and tho Kaiser s friendly meeting with the English War Lords, Kitchener of tho steel-blue eyes among them—all these things commiinicated at once bring us into close and •intimate rapport with the Motherland. But what about the Royal command night at Covenfc Garden, with “a surprise scene depicting King George and the Kaiser with the white dove of Peace hovering over them ” ? It must be true, surely, that tho English have no sense of humour 1 ••' • * • Kings and Queens, Courts and Courtiers! Whose pen will trace the merging of their “ divine rights ” and picturesque aloofness of former times into the absolute oommonplaceness of to-

Design No. 4418 will bo joyfully we! corned by mothers as an absolutely and, distinctly new dress for tljeir little) daughters. It is a gored model, with round or square neck, side’ body and sleeve cap in one, worn with or, without a pretty gimp, and the pleated sections at e,ach,side of tho skirt may bp omitted, though this section of pleats is one of its very effective and novel features.

day ? So gradual has been the smoothing down of heights, so unceasing the rising up of depths, that only now and then do we realise hoiv social laws and opinions have 'changed during the last half-century even. Jtfiveu in the face of all the approaching pomp and circumstance of the Coronation, we realise the wonderful note of intimacy and human fellowship which has crept into our ideal relations with Royalty. Side by side with the reports of functions in which the Premiers and politicians from overseas, with their wives, take pride of place in the limelight of public affairs are little intimate details of lloyalty. A mild storyette of the King, an anecdote of the Queen, a vastly amusing example of wit or wisdom from the Royal nurseries, a picture of the Royalties in their domestic or parental aspects, and there you have it. The busy climbing-up of the plain man into the picturesque region of , titles and orders and degrees; and the wise stepping down of the crowned heads to the

broad universal plain of domestic and j parental life. So we reach the happy • medium, and tho Anarchist bids fan to find his occupation gone 1 America is becoming a thought too fastidious (I suppose the Americans would call it “refined”) fo? the ordinary intelligence. The “ Christian World ” assures tho outer world that a wave of protest against nude statuary is sweeping through the country. Already, apparently, the uneasy purists have succeeded in having the statues on tho Pennsylvanian State Capitol draped. What with is not stated—-a yard or two of Liberty muslin would do as well as anything else for such a flagrant vulgarity! In Boston —where tho frilled patalotto for tho indecent piano leg was started years campaign is proceeding for insisting on the draping or destruction of the statues in the Fine Arts Academy. The I ultra-purist Bishop Mallalieu demands that these statues— they are really plaster casts of world-famous works ot Art —should be smashed up and used for street paving 1 A Boston paper suggests that “ the picture presented to the imagination of the Venus or Milo trodden underfoot by women with distorted waists and pinched feet, in hobble skirts, under the shadow of lire decent poster advertisements, is rather a ludicrous one.” The “Venus of Milo” recalls Da Milo,” whose somewhat adventurous career included the personating of Lady Godiva at tho Coventry pageant some years ago. And this, in turn, reminds mo that after much discussion it has been decided that no change shall he made in the traditional costume of Lady Godiva in the Coventry section or tho ‘Pageant of Empire. A drape of chiffon and the glorious tresses which descend almost to her feet are to he the only additions to Lady Godiva’is simple toilette of silk fleshings. —ZEALANDIA.