NOTES AND NEWS.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 178, 2 September 1914, Page 4

NOTES AND NEWS.

Mrs Burdon arrived in Christchurch from the north yesterday. Mr and Mrs Towhend, "Swannanoa,"' are staying at' thfe Clarendon for a few days. ' Mrs Thomas (Dunedin) and Mrs Cutler (Woodend) are th« guests Of their parents, Mr and Mrs J. Brown, • ;'' Hatberton," Riccarton. The marriage of Mr Donald Morris, of Christchurch, to Miss Eva Wreath - all, also of Chfistehurch, has b«en arranged' to take place at St. -Church on Wednesday next. The Rev. Archdeacon Ensor, Mrs Ensor, and Miss Ensor, who have been spending the last couple of months in Australia, returned to New Zealand by the Ulimaroa, which arrived in Wellington yesterday morning. * • The engagement is announced of Allan Hamilton, M.D., son of the late Francis Hamilton and of Mrs Hamilton, 1 Mayroyd, Nelson, New Zealand, to • Josephine, daughter of Sir Edward and - Lady Rosling, The Grange, Weybridge, England. ' ■ $. Amongst the guests at the last State . ball given by their Majesties the King and Queen was the Countess of Hardwieke, who, before her marriage, was Miss' Nellie Russell, of Auckland. She wore a gown of white satin trimmed with Brussels lace, diamante, and erystals. Latest advices -from Home state that Mrs Stringer,'" wife of his" Honour Mr Justice Stringer, intended Spending August in Somerset. On the return of her son, Dr Bruce Stringer (then doing surgeon's work on the Alfred Holt steamer PedenS in the East) they , planned to go abroad before returning" to the Dominion. The Rev. Mother Xavier, hea^dof the Lewisham Hospital, Little Company of Mary, Sydney (N.S.W.), arrived in London recently from Rome. She left for , Glasgow shortly afterwards, and then for Ireland to visit relatives. She returns to Australia via San Franciseo, breaking the journey at Christchurch, !Kew Zealand, to visit the_new hospital, , "which is in charge of the Nursing Sisters. The Lewisham Hospital enjoys the reputation of being one of the finest and most up-to-date hospitals in Australia. The "British-Australasian "of July 27 states that -a marriage baa been ar ranged, and will take place quietly in the. autumn, between Colonel'G. S. O. Monck, commanding Coldstream Guards, son of the late Lieut.-Colonel the Hon. Richard Monck, and the-Hon. Mrs R. Monck, Chester Square, London, •and cousin to her Excellency Lady Liverpool, and Violet, widow of the late Henry Dawson-Greene, of Whittington Hall, Lancashire, daughter of Mr John Ley, of Tiehill,-Dev#h. The Hon. Gdbrge Fowlds, formerly Minister for Education and Public Health in New Zealand, was entertained at a reception given in his ".honour in London recently. The func- «• iion was given under the »uspices of the United Committee for the Taxation of Land Values, and Mr Chas. P. Price, M.P., presided.- Amongst New ZealSnders and Australians present Drere Mr R. L. Outhwaite, M.P., Mr' and Mrs Loflis Jacobs, Mr and Mrs E. J.- Jacobs -(Melbourne), Mr.and Mrs Dunn (Sydney), Miss Valentine (Melbourne), Mr and Mrs Dixon (Sydney), Mr and Mrs Smeaton (Auckland), and Miss Fowlds. - According to the New York '' Sun,'' , j-l&ere is one.,woman in the world whose pleasant duty* is considered to be the Spending of four thousand a year on 'dress. That woman is Madame Poin- """ care wife of the French President, "who is engaged in the process of decorating "the hitherto comparatively-plain and l bourgeois office of the head of Republican France. M. Ptineare" brings him-,, sell'-an'unusual amount of intellectual ' J decoration'' to that office. He is one of the Forty Immortals who compose the French Academy. He is a brilliant lawyer, as well as a statesman. Added to this, he is a lover, whose ambition it v is to make his" beautiful Italian wife the uncrowned queen of France. If the Presidents in bygone years have not always emulated the ostentations of the peacock, their wives, with good grace , or ill, have had to play the peahen's humble role. But Prosident Poincar6 altered all that, with what an effort those acquainted with the cast-iron : rigours of State ceremonial may judge. When our British royalties visited Paris, Madame Poineare sat beside Queen Mary, took the King's arm at public functions, and shed abroad a grace unknown in France since the stately Empress Eugenie left it forty years ago. And the French like this gracious magnificence, so in harmony with the old court traditions. But Madame Poineare has yet a surer holdover France's heart. She is a trained nurse, and is at the head of the activities now' in progress to help the wounded.

"The ruff which makes such a delightful frame for a pretty face to look out from is steadily reaching Elizabethan proportions, though we are not yet prepared to go about like Queen Elizabeth in magnificent upstanding lace collar.3 or ruffs, threaded with gold, and studded with jewels. Of course, to wear the ruff to advantage one must have the slight oval face associated in paintings with this style of neckwear, and familiar to us through the pictures Of Holbein and Velasquefc;—Sydney ''Telegraph.'" "It may be just chance, but it has to be recorded," says a writer in an English paper, '' that, the lateit sash re- j sembles to an unpleasant extent a mili- J tary cholera belt." Surely there was something prophetic in her own utterance, as things have turned out.

Women who have travelled much and know the restless fascination it entails will fully understand the feelings of Mrs C H. M. Thring (Anne Caverley) on her tour round the world fsays the •"Gentlewoman"). Owing to Mrs Thring's sad and unexpeeted death at Agra, her reminiscences ended abruptly, and it has fallen to her husband to edit and publish them. Mr Thring has fulfilled his task faithfully, and the volume, entitled "The Trials and Pleasures of an Uncomplete Tour," contains a number of extremely interesting descriptions and experiences of a woman's life in the far distant places, of the earth. The authoress intended her journal for publication, and she wrote it in a bright and natural style with a desire to make her pen-pictures vivid to the reader's eye. A large number of interesting photos add considerably to the attractions of the book.

A new-light'on the position .of women under Hindu rule was thrown by Sir Chettur Sankaran Nair in a lecture at the London School of Economics*, whoa he discoursed principally on the matriarchal system of the Nairs in Malabar, and incidentally q£ the position of Hindu women in general. - Many rights and privileges, he declared, were'possessed by the-Hindu woman by the law of his country and recognised by British 'authoj - ity, for which women here' were still agitating, while the wife shared her husband's property and retained her own on marriage,'and much property was vested in her alone. It was (says th 3 "Queen") somewhat of a reversal of our accepted ideas to hear the speaker, who is a inewber of the Madras Hign Court of Justice, say that many of the* systems described, which acted solely to the advantage of woman, were waning as the result of Western influence. So true is it that a great gulf is fixed between the East and the West!