LADIES' GOSSIP.

Otago Witness, Issue 2664, 5 April 1905, Page 65

LADIES' GOSSIP.

— The Marchioness of Donegall is in rather frail health, and her physicians think it may be needfn 1 for her to pass some time in a "warmer climate. Her mother, Mrs »St. George Twining, is completely devoted to her and to the baby Marquis, who kept his first birthday in October. Edward St. George Chichester, Marquis of Donegall, Earl of Belfast, and Baron Fishorwick, succeeded his father when only seven months old. The titles are almost all there was to succeed to, for the gross value of the estate has lately been sworn to as £27, "with net personalty nil." Happily, Mrs Twining, who is a Canadian, has the means as well as the will to secure comfort, if not very extravagant luxury, to the, young mother and her child. The next heir is an uncle, Lord Henry Chichester, a pian of seventy years of age. There is .something very pathetic in the position of the baby peei, who is Hereditary Lord High Admiral of Lough Neagh and Governor of G'arrickfergus Castle. Id the old days the Chichesters owned large tracts of land in County Donegal (it is noteworthy that the county is spelt with one "1," the title with two), and almost all the ground on which the flourishing city of Belfast mow stands. Lady . Donegall, who is tall and slender, with soft, wavy, fair hair and deep, pathetic, violet eyes, is only four-and-twenty; but her life has already been crowded with incident. When a mere girl she was betrothed to an officer who met his death in Africa ; when his will came to be opened it was found he had left her his entire fortune. When she married Lord Donegall, her mother's old friend, Lord Strathcona, gave her away; and it is understood he took kindly care of her money affairs, seeing that anything she presessed should be strictly tied up ; so that the old Marquis, then in his eightyfirst year, should not be able to "absorb" it, as he had already absorbed co much.

— Members of the fair sex (says b London paper) have invaded nearly every busikfss and piofession. There are female sanitary inspectors, lady lawyers and stir's eycis; but tho "lasfr^ straw" is the proposal to encourage lady volunteer recruiters. Lord Lathom, the honorary colonel of the St. Helens Engineer Volunteers, is prepared to give a prize to the lady reciuiting the most eligible lot- of young men, and it anay be -that this designing scheme is only paving the way for a new" departure by the War Office. The average man is capable of resisting the advances made by recruiting sergeants, and even held his own when the shilling was a tempting bait ; but who can say what the restilt will be when feminine charms are brought, to bear? The days when press grngs were in vogue will sink into nificance by comparison. Conscription has its hardship, but it would be a generous alternative to employing lady recruits. Ccnipli cations would be sure to arise when the gallant youn^ man, to be thought

"nice," would consent to enlisting daily, if possible.

— Nothing that we eat, drink, or wear, or do cbcapea the blame of the health oxpert. When one man says beer is baneful, m.other replies thrt tea is poison. A mam condemns women's corsets, and a woman retorts with the assertion that the s-illc hat produces baldness. .And now Irom the headmaster of Kingston-on-Thr-mes Grammar School we learn that our physical salvation i-; to be found by leaving on: waistcoats. Mr Marshal], the Kingston headmaster, in a circular letter to the parents of his pupils, condemns the wnistcoat. He was for seven years at Loretto. and atJ the Scottish school that Dr Almond founded! the boys — mostly English, by the way — ■ n ear flannel shuts and flannel collars all the year round, and nover a waistcoat : for Dr Almond discovered, after the boys had s>hed their waistcoats for three months, a notable increaso in chest measurement. And when you come to think of it, the waistcoat gives very little protection to the back — when.- protection is needed, — and if not very well cut it stops free tiade across the chest-

— The Duke of Wellington's kitchen at Apsley House is thirty feet high and contains £500 worth of copper; Lord Derby's kitchen in St. James's Square is remarkable! for its marble decorations, and cost £2300 ; and the Duke of Portland's culinary department boasts of its splendid silver-plated) stevpans, which are worth £25 each.

— Before Ihe routing-fire at Buckingham Palace, half an ox and a hundred birds can be roasted at once on four horizontal spits and the four dangle actions of the smoke-jack.

— The Cour.tess of Cork is the only sister of the Mjrquis of Clanricarde, andt was> widowed last year, soma twelve months after she and the late Earl had celebrated, amid many signs of rejoicing and goodwill, their golden weeding day. The elder of ncr two sons, the present peer, who was known for many years as Lord Dungarvan, is 43, but is still unmarried. His onlyi brother and heir-presumptive has beem married for a good many yeai-s to a lady, of San Francisco family, but they have no children. By one of the curious anomalies of the peerage of these kingdoms, Lord Cork, while enjoying no less thara seven distinct titles in the Irish Peerage, has no connection either territorial or genealogical (that is, in the male line) with Ireland. He is of Herefordshire descent, and! his fine estate of Marston Bigott is in! Somersetshire, of which county liis father was for many years Lord-lieutenant. He sits in the House of Lords as Baron Boyle of Marston, a title now nearly two centuries old. Marston Bigott has been in his family since the reign of Charles I, and the house, which contains a fine gallery of portraits, was greatly enlarged ancß improved by the late Earl. Lord Cork's four sisters, as well as his brother, are all married', and he has numberless nephews and nieces.

— The subject most talked of in Dublin, this week (writes the correspondent of Modem Society on December 31) has beeni Lady Clancdity's wonderful recovery from! her most serious illness Last -winter, after being operated on in Dublin, little or no hope was enteitained by her friend;? of her ever being well again. Now Lord? CLincarty informs the press that, after Dr Dc yen's treatment with his recently-dis-covered serum for cancer, his wife is muchi better, and has no trace of the terrible r alady. In Galway, by rich and poor, this news has beer gladly received. . — Ssalskin, never cheap, is likely, it seems, to be dearer than ever, as being ml special request with motor owners, more especially those who drive, by reason of its lightness and suppleness. It is to be hoped that this will not lead to the cruel massaci'e of seal mothers with unweaned young, who -have often thtvs been starved 1 to death in the most cruel m,inn*>- in ff 1:^1 :^ eagerness for supply.

— A most curious tr?de has spn-ni; v L lately which illustrates quaintly the pet vanity of women. It appears that ladies, when staying at hotels, or the like, do not care to exhibit to the passers along the corridors the exact size of their feet, so they carefully carry with them a couple of pairs of tiny, delicate shoes, which 1 , instead of tha ones they are wearing, they place outside their doors for the servants! to take down and clean. All the bis boot shops of Paris now make a specialty of this tiny footgear, and a pair or two fora*