THE SOCIAL ROUND

Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 143, 23 July 1914, Page 4

THE SOCIAL ROUND

NOTES AND NEWS.

Mrs Hanmer was a passenger for the north last night. . Miss Ellis (Duncdin) is visiting friends in Christchurch. . Mrs W. Reynolds, Wellington, is visiting Christchurch. Miss Elsie is spending a few days iu.Christchureh. Miss Stitt (Ashburton) is in Christclmreh, and is staying at the Clarendon. . M*s W. Scott Sandilands, of '' Ivy Court," Oakleigh, Melbourne, is visiting Christchurch. Mrs Peter and Miss Sealy, who have Veen in town since Monday, returned to Ashburton to-day. Mrs J. Deans returned yesterday to Riecarton House after visit to relatives in Dunedin. Mr and Mrs C. O. T. Rutherford (The Peaks) are in town, and are staying at Warner's. Mr and Mrs R. Friedlander (Ashburton) arrived in. town by the second expres last night. Miss S. E. Jaekson, assistant mistress of the West Eyreton School, and Miss E. Newport, assistant mistress at Killinchy, have resigned. Miss Reading, late of Wellington, but tow of Christchurch, returned to New Zealand by the Manuka, which reached Wellington yesterday. Miss Edmonstone (Wellington) and her friend, Miss Doig, arrived in town yesterday, and are staying at the Clarendon.

Mr and Mrs Oppenheimer, of New York, are staying at Warner's, and purpose remaining in Christchurch for - a week or two. Mr and Mrs Reid, Toronto, Canada, •who have been visiting Christchurch and Ot?tgo, have returned to Wellington, and are at the Empire Hotel. Miss Thurston, lady superintendent of the Christchurch General Hospital, has been granted eight months' leave of absence to enable her to take a trip Home. Mr and Mrs Crawford (Dunedin), vho have been staying at Rock Villa, Sumner, for some months, left a little while ago for the North Island, where they purpose spending the remainder of the winter, making short stays in the different towns. They are at present in Auckland. The visit of Professor Boys-Smith to Christchurch gives an added interest in the news that the- Education Department has offered to make a grant to the Otago University Council of £1450, for the purchase of a Home Science Hostel, provided the council expended a similar amount from their own funds. In view of this, the council have decided to purchase a site which has been under offer to them at £IBOO. No one will be more delighted at this news than the Professor, who is so enthusiastic about her work that she will give a very warm -welcome to the increased facilities which the new step means.

Though from time to time efforts have been made to get rid of the chaperon, she still exists, but her lines are cer-

tainly east in pieasanter places than hitherto. At one time she was a painful necessity, but she suffered for it — and so did her charges. She now works under pieasanter circumstances, for to a certain extent she goes her way and her charges theirs. Dr Montessori is proposing to visit England in October in order to give a series of lectures and, a short course vith practical demonstrations for parents and teachers. This course will be designed to throw further light on.the interesting and important Montessori method, particularly with relation to its employment in England. What is going next on to the list of modern afflictions? The taxi-throat in London is becoming a common complaint, while the kinema dinners at the restaurants are already on the medical mind. Add to these new dangers an assortment of "ankles," "knees," '' eyes," '' arms,'' and '' nerves,'' all due to something excessive somewhere, and in no time we shall have a race of cripples, "brought on" by nobody knows what. \ The fashionable drapery shops of Regent Street and Oxford Street, where lady visitors to London spend much of their time and most of their money, have come to the conclusion that although they lead London in the new fashions, they are behind the times (writes a London correspondent). New York, Paris, and Berlin are ahead of London in the size and number of their departmental stores. Strictly speaking, London has only three of these stores, and one of them is far outside the fashionable shopping area. But this reproach of being behind the times is to be removed. Selfridge's, the departmental store in Oxford Street which was established five years ago by an enterprising American, Mr Gordon Selfridge, is extending itself across the street by the purchase of a long-estab-lished business conducted by a humble rival; and Harrod's, another departmental store which is in Brompton Road, has obtained control of the Regent Street firm of Dickins and Jones, which has been in existence for many years. Most of the fashionable drapery shops in Regent Street and Oxford Street have only one or two floors, but on the site now occupied by Dickins and Jones a departmental store with seven floors will be erected on an area of six acres, at a cost of £1,500,000. Three other fashionable drapery firms have announced their intention of improving their premises by adding new stories. Regent Street and Oxford Street will soon be able to boast of about half a dozen departmental stores, in which restaurants, concert halls, nurseries, rest rooms, and roof gardens will be provided for patrons. It is intended to make these shops "as open as the street" to the public, which means that people wlio go into the shop will not be asked what they want, but will be unable, it is hoped, to resist the appeal of attractive goods attractively displayed. The doom of the shopwalker is foreshadowed in this change, as his attentions are resented by people who

wish to inspect the goods for sale be-1 fore making up their minds to buy. j '' There is 110 room in the up-to-date j store for a shopwalker," says Mr John) Lawrie, the general manager of Whiteley's huge departmental store. "there has been a touch of romance in the life of Mrs L. G. Cheshire. Just over twenty months ago she was Miss Glara Green, a Burnley weaver. There came to the East®Lancashire weaving centre, however, a Russian, whose father was an Englishman and his mother a Russian. He was a gentleman apprentice in one of the town V loom-making establishments, and about three years ago he became acquainted with Miss Green, eventually falling in love with the pretty weaver. The couple had become engaged when Mr Cheshire returned to St. Petersburg to | become weaving master of the Sampson mills, employing 2000 workpeople. After six months' work he returned to I Burnley, married his fiancee, and, fol- j lowing a honeymoon in London, both j went to reside in Russia. Much as she ; liked Burnley, Mrs Cheshire prefers St. Petersburg. She has found only two classes of people in Russia, the rich and the poor, and she speaks with regret of the bad conditions existing- amongst the latter. In the mills there two shifts afe worked of nine hours each, and the workers are mostly married women, and a good number of children of | tender years. i The Duchess of Teek is the Duke of: Westminster's aunt, and her close con- j nection with the throne by marriage is said not to have been without its complications, most of which she has, however, wisely mitigated by living the \ quietest of lives and devoting herself i chiefly to sport and the upbringing of j her quartet of sons and daughters, i But next year at the latest the eldest j of the Teck princesses must "eomej out," and their exact social status as nieces of the Queen, vet daughters of a commoner, will probably prove an interesting social anomaly of the future.