QUESTION OF ETIQUETTE.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 19308, 8 October 1932, Page 11

QUESTION OF ETIQUETTE.

The Countess of Oxford and Asquith figures in a story of Buckingham Palace etiquette in “Further Letters of a Man of No Importance. 1914-1929,” recently published in London (states a correspondent). The author writes of an Incident at the Palace in which, he says, Lady Oxford, then Mrs. Asquith, made a “gross but very effective breach of etiquette." Lady Oxford’s comment when questioned on the subject was a denial that such an incident ever occurred. Under date Bth March. 1923, the author writes: “They all stood after dinner at the Palace on Tuesday, and at 11.48 Mrs. Asquith said to the

King that her husband ought to go to bed. A gross but very effective breach of etiquette.”

When Lady Oxford's notice was drawn to this paragraph she said: "I do not know if it is ever worth contradicting authors who conceal their names. Had I done so either during or after the w r ar I should have had little leisure. A great deal of inaccurate rubbish has been written about me and 10 Downing Street. If you think it worth while to contradict the foolish statement, pray do so. I never told the King at any moment that my husband was tired or wanted

to go to bed. He was a mail who read for two hours before going to bed at whatever hour he retired from dinner.” Lady Oxford adds: “The ‘Man of No Importance’ had better learn that good manners were as popular between the years 1914 and 1929 as they are to-day.” THE KING’S NEW CURTAINS. One of the apartments at Buckingham Palace that has undergone a certain amount of renovation in the absence of the Court is the King’s private office. This room has been thoroughly “spring cleaned” and new curtains hung in the window’s. These are of an attractive and restful shade of olive-green that harmonises with the old mahogany furniture which the place contains. The principal piece of furniture here is the great flat-topped writing table at which the King deals with affairs of State as these are laid before him. Close at hand is a smaller desk for the use of his principal private secretary.