A LETTER FROM HOME.

Otago Witness, Issue 3889, 25 September 1928, Page 64

A LETTER FROM HOME.

By

Sheila Scobik Macbonalp.

(Special for the Otago Witness.) v August 1. The London season is at an end, ths schools are breaking up in* their thousands, and all the world seems to be a-holidaymaking. It is a sight during the last week of July to, hang round one of our big London stations and watch the school trains pour in. One after another they come, each laden with its contingent oi boys or girls, all straining, shouting, and eager to pick out, friends and relations on the platform. The girls seem as a’rule to be chaperoned—the boys are very much on their own. The latter, as a rule, look smart and attractive, except when they belong to schools which still cling to the deplorable pre-war “ tails.” Now, tails on an adult arc undeniably smart, but on a schoolboy they verge on the ludicrous, especially " when, as often happens, they are bought from “ the peg ” in the first instance and worn to an unbelievable state of shiny bagginess in the second. But the girls on the whole, look anything but -attractive. Their coats and skirts are neat enough, but the regulation black cashmere stockings, stout lowheeled shoes, and invariably unbecoming hats, beloved of schoolmistresses the world over, look even worse en masse than on the individual. But one day al. home alters all that, and the average modern schoolgirl on holiday—here m England, anyway—is chic from her head to her heels. “ I just claw Evelyn’s terrible clothes from off her back the moment I see her,’’ was a speech made to me yesterday by the said Evelyn’s mother. The damsel goes to an exclusive school, whose headmistress has a leaning towards art, and carries her ideas out as regards the school uniform with an ardour as deplorable in result as it is admirable in intention.

Motoring past, Stowe School one Sunday recently, I noticed how simple and nice the boys looked in flannel suits, soft collars, and Trilby hats, as compared with Harrow’s “ tails,” gorgeous waistcoats, and truly awful glittering bell-toppers. But, to get back to holidays and the end of the season: Americans and visitors from the Continent still flood London, but they are mostly of the sightseeing type, the fashionable folk being on the wing to Goodwood, to Cowes, to Deauville and the Lido, or contemplating Scotland and a “ shoot.” We are told that it has been a record season, that never has money been so freely spent, that the opera at Covent Garden came near to being a financial success—that in fact about £20,000,000 has been spent in. London by Americans alone. Just think of it —twenty millions! The . Russian ballet has had such a splendid season that for the first time it is doing a provincial tour. The last night was wonderful. No tickets were to be had, but with three others I stood for two hours in a queue and got reallv wonderful seats in the pit for 4s each. Quite apart from the ballet itself, the music is marvellous. Sir Thomas Beecham himself conducted “ The Gods Go a-Begging,” which gives some idea of the type of music to which those sinuous, strangely attractive, semi Oriental dancers moved their lovely bodies. Vie had to leave before it was over, as the last train home left Victoria at 12.10, but even before we left the stage was piled high with floral offerings of the most magnificent description—baskets of orchids costing, well, I’m afraid to make a statement, but certainly well over £lOO, roses so marvellous that it seemed impossible that they should be real, and carnations almost as large as the roses. So, if money means anything, this season of 1928 must be regarded as a huge success. From a social point of view I don’t know, for every day the papers are full- of the laments of hostesses who have entertained blase guests expansively, plus the views of the said blase guests about ’the said entertainment. Lady Eleanor Smith, Lord Birkenhead’s daughter, who edits a society page in the Weekly Despatch, indulged in wholesale scathing criticism of both givers of balls and the balls themselves. This, of course, provoked numerous retorts, courteous and otherwise, but quite the most intriguing side of. the question was the “gate crashing” episode at Lady Ellesmere’s. Peeps behind, the sbenes were offered us all a ’ lib, and those impecunious society ladies who for financial reasons offer chaperonage to the daughters of aspiring outsiders, must be feeling pretty miserable. For it is they who are the most persistent “crashers,” and the unhappy girl is in most cases absolutely ignorant of ''the fact that she is an unwanted guest, until the general whispering of the fact enlightens her. Sometimes it doesn’t; and she continues to “ crash,” happily quite unconscious of the fact that her hostess is taking her to houses where she is neither welcome nor invited.

“ Duped by Chaperones ” was one entertaining heading to a small scandal recently, and how the principal of the story must have writhed over it! And now to finish my holiday reference by the grim announcement that the heat wave is over—gone x as if it had never been. And just what a tragedy that is only those who have sampled the 'simple life in a caravan in the soaking countryside, or a wind-swept, overcrowded beach, anywhere on the English coast, can realise. I am going to Scotland, but I

think I would do better to sit cosily by my fire and watch the rain beating against the window panes from the blessed sanctuary of my own home.

There is a lot of interest taken in the retirement of the Archbishop of Canterbury and the appointment of Dr Lang, Archbishop of York, in his place. I was amused when in a tube the other day to hear one old woman say to another — I can t understand how Dr Lang has been allowed to act on the stage” and him so high up in the Church’and all.” The explanation is, of course, that Matheson Lang’s relationship to the archbishop has been almost as much advertised in the press as his stage success, hence the confusion. Dr Lang is a bachelor, with a “ pawky ” sense of humour, which, it is said, he even indulged in once with Queen Victoria. He was vicar of Portsea at the time, a town with such a huge population that he had to engage several curates to assist him. He was bemoaning this to the Queen one day, and she, pausing for thought, suggested a solution. “Why don’t you marry, Mr Lang?” she inquired, “ and then you could manage with one curate the" less.” “ Well, ma’am, I have thought of that,” was the reply, “ but, you see, there’s one drawback—l can dismiss a curate, but I couldn’t dismiss a wife! ” One can’t help feeling sorry for the retiring archbishop, whose disappointment over the second rejection of the revised Prayer Book has been a most bitter one. As it is, the Church generally seems to be at sixes and sevens, and Dr Lang’s task will be anything but an easy one. The Bishop of Durham, for instance, quite openly advocates Disestablishment rather than that the Church should be in subjection to the State. It is difficult for people out of England, or even those here on a short visit, to realise what a burning question that of the revision of the Praver Book has proved to be, a question that I can’t see will ever be settled to the satisfaction of everybody. It seems so simple to me—let ‘the ’ Anglo-Catholics go over to Rome, and the others go on as before. Why attempt to conciliate those who it is obvious never will be conciliated? I heard one tub-thumper in Hyde Park put it fairly straight the other day. “Them as* wants to be Papists let ’em be Papists, and them as wants to be Nonconformists be Nonconformists, and them as wants to be Churchmen be Churchmen, and let all the rest go to the devil, so long as they don’t try to take us with ’em.” Which, come to think of it, is pretty good sense, though scarcely orthodox. The speakers in Hyde Park on a Sunday afternoon always interest me enormously, and I can‘wander from one small circle to another for hours on end. The Reds are perhaps the most entertaining, more forceful than logical certainly, but overflowing with a bitter and ardent sincerity that makes one thoughtful. They really believe that they can put this muddled old world to rights with the utmost case. The women speakers are the most cocksure, too, and the most revolutionary in ideas into the bargain. Last Sunday one, holding forth on the subject of the recent royal garden party, would, I feel sure, have delighted the*Prince of Wales had he only heard it. The description of the things he didn’t do and the things he didn’t say was one of the most earnest, ludicrous things I have ever listened to.