THE SOCIAL ROUND

Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 116, 22 June 1914, Page 4

THE SOCIAL ROUND

NOTES AND NEWS.

Mrs Wynvard, who has been visiting the North Island, returned to Glnistchurch on Saturday.

Mrs Colin Campbell, who has' been visiting Dunedin, has returned to Wellington, and is the guest of Mr and Mrs Holmes at Seatoun.

Mrs Crisp, of Asliburton, who has been visiting friends in Sumner and Christcliurch for the past fortnight, left for home on Saturday. Mrs Nalder, of Nova Scotia, whose talks concerning the child widows of India proved so interesting here, has gone on to Wellington, where she will make a short stay. Mr and Mrs H. Barber, of Wellington, have left for a trip to Canada and the United States.

The engagement is announced of Miss F. Shakey, second daughter of the late Mr and.Mrs Shakey, of Tiinaru, to Mr John Turner, second son of Mr and Mrs W. Turner, of Wellington.

A number of the ladies of the Victoria League were amongst those present at the civic reception accorded to Sir Hartmann Just at the City Council Chambers this morning. It had previously been the intention of the league to arrange a reception to give the members an opportunity of meeting him, but owing to the shortness of his stay the idea had to be abandoned.

The first of the seven 11011-party lectures, to be given as a preparation for the General Elections, under the auspices of the Y.W.C.A., will take place to-morrow evening. The speakers will be the Mayor, Mrs J. A. Newell, Miss Candy, Miss Cramp, Miss Macdonald, Dr Lester, and Mr W. H. Triggs. The engagement is announced of Miss JTlorence Stilwell, M.Sc., general secretary of the Y.W.C.A. at Auckland. Miss Stilwell was one of the northern delegates to the" Y.W.C.A. conference held at Diamond Harbour early this year, and was regarded as one of the most interesting women present —and there were a number of women of uncommon attainments there. Miss Stiltrell'will leave for Melbourne as soon as a successor can be appointed, and will be married soon after her return to Australia. A very affectionate, reception -was given to Mile. Dolores when she made her reappearance ffri. at the Town Hall. Mile. VaniUmfj her companion, has ill, though now happily recovered, but the diva looks &8 well and charming as ever. No freakish fashions touch Mile. Dolores, her dark hair is parted Madonna-wise above her. broad brow, and is simply dressed with no other ornament than its own abundant curls. Her gown of •white satin was covered with a film of lace, over which was a sheathlike tunic of pearl and silver embroidery, falling in a sort of Gothic point, and having loops of pearls across the. corsage, and epaulettes of deep silver fringe over the pointed lace sleeves. A necklet of rubies gave the «nly touch of colour,, until the flowers came! And then banks of violets and sweet pink roses made for the singer a lovely frame, whose fragrance floated right across the hall. It was very welcome, too, this breath of violets and roses, for the air was almost stifling with the odour of moth-ball and other insecticides. Every year one suffers from this discomfort when "fhe furs come forth from their hibernation. It ia quite time we adopted the American plan of "freezing out" Brer Moth, by putting our furs every summer into cold storage chambers. A London paper has recently been who is the most beautiful woman, and invited several theatrical stars to give their opinioji. Some of

the actresses named themselves; you may. do those things when you are a success behind the footlights. Others ■whose efforts after publicity were more subtle suggested several names, including Miss Gladys Cooper, Miss Ellaline Terriss, Miss Ellen Terry, Miss Maxine Elliott, and Miss Ethel Levy. Indeed the number of names suggested, even bywomen, indicates how foolish and inconclusive such be;. /If male would dhow still greater variety. TheJ; average man is utterly unfitted to'answer jsuch a question, - because judgment (presuming he has some) is continually put to fault by his personal prejudices. If a vote were taken of the males as to .the most beautiful woman in Auckland probably some 50,000 names would be ' suggested. Hardly a woman, no matter how imperfect her features, but would be the ideal of beauty of some male. No tloubt, a few women have form and

' figure which distinguish them from the Biass, and their beauty, from the teach- • jiical point of view, must be admitted. But what man cares about technical beauty? He prefers the girl wlro has b&en made beautiful by his imagination, whose cheeks to him are roses, though to others they are brick red. That is ■why artists who love their wives constantly reproduce their faces in pictures, anrt wfiy novelists present different woods of the same woman in all their *works. Addressing a large gathering of members of the Alliance of Honour jn London, the Bishop of Lichfield commenced the objects of the Bishop of London's Criminal Law Amendment Bill, remaining that some good women -were driven to frenzy by consideration of the wrongs of their sisters. He was bound to say that, while he deplored tbcir excesses, he did not find it difli-

cult to understand tliem. There were facts in our social system such as the miserable wages paid to an enormous army of women and girls, which were in the highest degree hostile to purity of life. Our cheap clothes, continued the Bishop, may be obtained very dear if they are bought at the price of a woman's honour. Condemning "foul literature published and sold for the sake of dirty gain,'' his Lordship said: "I wish we could have a bonfire of foul literature in Hyde Park. I think it would blaze as high as St. Paul's, but it would be a most holy fire."

The engagement of Lord Clancarty's only daughter, Lady Beryl le Poer Trench, to Mr Richard Stanhope, brother of Lord Stanhope, is just announced. I.ady Beryl is very handsome, with clear cut, regular features and a: fine figure. Mr Stanhope has political ambitions j and will probably put up for Parliament in days to come. He is heir presumptive to his brother, who is, as yet, a bachelor. The young people are | to be married in June, and will live chiefly at the bridegroom-elect's charming place in Lincolnshire. Both are fond of country life and country pur- ! suits generally. Xa*ly Beryl, who has several brothers, will be 21 this year. The warning given by the coroner at a recent inquest in Wandsworth against the practice among motor cyclists of riding with a girl perched behind on the carrier is endorsed by the Autocy&le Union (said the Loudon "Daily Mail" of May 9). Observation shows that this practice is steadily increasing, though there is abundance of evidence to prove its danger. The motor cycle is not a stable machine, and its equilibrium is only maintained with some effort. The youth with his Phyllis behind has an unsteady balance and an insufficient control over his cycle. He is thus a danger not only to her and to himself, but also to the public. Nearly half the accidents which are privately reported to the Autocycle Union are, it appears, due to the presence of a second rider behind, and a heavy addition is made to the insurance rate on motor cycles used for the conveyance of more than one person. the police should not interfere and forbid the practice is a serious question. In Germany, it may be noted, such riding is strictly forbidden in the towns, as are also the conveyance of children on ordinary cycles, and the very dangerous trick of holding on to motor cars by cyclists, whieh is all too common in this country.

Whenever I see an impertinent, disrespectful daughter, who has outgrown her parents, and doesn't care how emphatically she makes known the hiatus between them (writes Barbara Lee), I yearn for ducking stools and other expressions of certain and summary punishment. . . . The daughter that has in some mysterious way gone beyond the family control, is, in her own mind, a wonderful thing. . . . She knows

everything. She is not exactly as! imed of her mother and dad for their backnumbered, rough ideas about life; she is simply superior to them, and'on every occasion stoops down from her lofty perch to administer a filial rebuke in a polished, finishing-school manner. Baroness Orczy ami her husband, Mr Montagu Barstow, have a habit, when writing a play, of rehearsing the scenes and speaking the dialogue as if on the stage. In the days before they found fame they were living in a small flat at Paddington, London. One afternoon they started trying a scene in which strong words were used. Presently there was a tremendous knock at the hall door, and Mr Barstow opened it to find a burly policeman. "Now, then, what's all this 'ere about?" said the officer. Mr Barstow r was puzzled, and called to the baroness. Then it was the constable's turn to.be mystified. Explanation followed. It was a warm i day. The windows had been left open. Passers-by had caught the sound of, apparently, a violent quarrel, and a crowd had assembled, thinking that murder, or something equally tragic and dra--1 matic, was going to be done. The King of Spain has been acting as amateur guide to his English friends, in Seville. Lord?and Lady Wiiiiborne and several other travellers found him much more romantic and amusing than Baedeker; but every now and then it was King Alfonso who enjoyed himself most of all. In. the famous enchanted garden, while drawing their attention tc the trellis-work, his Majesty pressed a button with his foot and released a shower of water which drenched everybody. The device is an old one. Near Genoa there is a similar arrangement, and in old days even professional guides used to indulge their sense of humour ' by sprinkling their unsuspecting clients. iThe habit died out, because Anglo-Saxon [ tourists never saw the fun of it..

A number of half-time cookery scholarships are to be awarded shortly by examination by the London County Council. Applicants must be between the ages of 17 and 35, and must have been employed in some branch of domestic service for at least one year. Successful candidates obtain a maintenance grant of £5 and free instruction in cooking under a, qualified chef. It is stated that most of the holders of such scholarships in the past have been able to obtain situations at higher wages than those they received previously. !