People and Their Doings.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXIV, Issue 934, 2 December 1933, Page 10

People and Their Doings.

A Biography that Should Interest Christchurch Art Lovers : Oliver Baldwin’s Ideas on Marriage : More Illumination Wanted in Downing Street.

ALTHOUGH ever since No. 10 won fame

b}' being created the official residence of England’s premiers, Downing Street, London, has always been in the “limelight”, it is reported that there is need for a better illumination. It is a short cul-de-sac—per-haps the shortest in England; and were it not for the fact that it houses the Prime Minister, Mr MacDonald, as it has housed his predecessors in the highest office under the Crown for a couple of centuries, it would be regarded as too insignificant for notice in a great city of important thoroughfares and stately buildings. At one time Downing Street’s site was occupied b3 r a brewhouse owned by the Abbey of Abingdon. The name of the brewhouse was 44 The Axe ” —a name which has significance in these days when the heads of the Government have had impressed upon them the imperative necessity of wielding a big 44 axe ” to prune the nation’s accounts.

9 9 9 STREET is named after Sir George Downing, who was born just over three hundred years ago—about the year 1624. Taken by his parents to America, he studied at Harvard College. He went to the West Indies as a ship’s chaplain, and, returning to England, he joined Cromwell’s army as a chaplain. In Scotland he was chief of Cromwell’s intelligence staff. He married a sister of the Earl of Carlisle, and was elected to Cromwell’s Parliament of 1654 as a representative of Edinburgh. When Charles 11. succeeded his father on the throne, George Downing turned his political coat, was knighted, and was given by the King a valuable piece of land adjoining St James’s Park. Part of this land is represented in the Downing Street we know to-day.

9 9 9 BIOGRAPHY has just been written of the artist of one of the best pictures in the Robert McDougall Art Gallery, Solomon J. Solomon. His “ Psyche ” hangs in the central right hand bav going into the gallery. Miss O. S. Phillips says that he inherited his artistic taste from his

mother, but in the days of his youth it was very unusual for a Jew' to be a painter by vocation. During the war he discovered the use of camouflage, and the hitherto unpublished war diary of Lieu-tenant-Colonel Solomon reveals for the first time the uses to which this device was put.

Solomon suffered much mentally during the war, and although he gathered up the threads of his artistic life afresh after the war, and painted the portraits of men like Lord Hare-wood and Earl Haig, by 1925 his strength was visibly declining. Nevertheless he insisted on carrying on his work till ten days before his death on July 27, 1927, at his home in Birmingham. He was one of the most distinguished artists of the post-war decade and a remarkably good teacher.

9 9 9 CTANLEY BALDWIN’S elder son, Oliver, who, among other things, is the 8.8.C-.’s

new film critic, has written a book, 44 Unborn Son,” giving his views on a wide range of subjects in the form of advice to his imaginary son. Although himself unmarried, Mr Baldwin gives much advice to married people. If you want to be happy though married you should:

Live apart for at least four weeks every year.

Have complete liberty of action for both, unless in individual cases it has been decided otherwise by discussion.

Not interfere with what each is to

Have complete independence of thought. Arrange for one party to leave the room at the first sign of temper or nagging from either side.

Forbid jealousy: punishment for its expression being eight w’eeks apart instead of four.

JyING CAROL is going to erect in the centre of Bucharest a gigantic “ palace of culture.” It will bs built with the proceeds of a gambling concession at a cost of about £2,000,000. The “ palace ” will contain a theatre, public library, large concert and lecture hall, studios and exhibition rooms for painters and sculptors and clubs for artists. The King intends that this shall be one of the most imposing buildings in all Rumania and it is to be modelled on the lines of an American skyscraper.

The money for this project has come from the receipts of the great gambling concession in the beautiful Park Carol the First, which is now run so efficiently by the friends and personal advisers of King Carol that large profits are available for the cause of culture and art.

3? 3? © SIXTY YEARS AGO (from the “Star of December 2, 1873) :

Auckland, December 2.—A project is on foot among Waikato Natives of influence to induce Tawhiao and Manuhiri to meet the Governor at Ngaruawahia during the autumn.

New Brighton.—Mr Hopkins is doing all he can to make New Brighton air attractive place of resort. A paddle-steamer is at present being built at Lyttelton to his order, and he expects to get her afloat before Christmas. She is being constructed on the composite principle—wood and iron, and will be large enough to accommodate 70 passengers each trip. She will run between Christchurch and New Brighton, and will have sufficient speed to enable the down and up trip to be accomplished in two hours. When fully loaded her draught will be two feet of water, so that she cannot go aground in the shallowest part of the river; and, being a paddle-steamer, she will assist in keeping the river clear of weed and water-cress. It will be hoped that Mr Hopkins* enterprise will meet with the reward it merits, and that the public will show their appreciation of his exertions by seconding his efforts to reclaim New' Brighton, and assist in making it what it will eventually become—the seaside resort for the metropolis of the province.