MAYFAIR JOTTINGS.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20274, 7 April 1934, Page 32 (Supplement)

MAYFAIR JOTTINGS.

Modern Make-up Has Lost Its Magic. MANOR AS AERODROME. (From Our London Lady Correspondent.) The ayt critics are so busy writing Aighbrow critiques about the British Art Exhibition that they completely miss the human document phase of these old pictures. I wonder it has not occurred to any Fleet Street journalist to write the show up from that point of view. One outstanding fact impresses me about the portraits of eighteenth and nineteenth century ladies by the old painters. These women, besides being so utterly divorced frchn present-day fashions in their attire, coiffure, make-up, and even looks, never wear the well-known aura of the old family album. I doubt whether our modern feminine dress would stand the test of paint a century or two hence. Gainsborough’s women are the most beautiful of all. He had the most delicate brush. Besides his beauties a modern hockey or golf girl would look like a creature of a different sex. Madame 1934 has a vote, but her make-up has lost its magic. PRINCESS ARTHUR. Princess Arthur, the latest member of the Royal Family to undergo an operation, usually enjoys the best of health. It is true that she has undergone one or two operations during the last two or three years, but in each case they were slight in character, and in no way occasioned by the state of her general health. She was, however, taken suddenly ill at the theatre rather more than 12 months ago, and it is quite possible that that incident was the beginning of the present trouble. The Princess will feel the tedium of a nursing home rather badly, for she has always been very energetic, plays golf a good deal, and dances indefatigably. Incidentally, she is herself a fully qualified hospital nurse, for she was trained at ofie of the London hospitals, and did a good deal of nursing during the war. GREAT NOBLE. It is disconcerting to those who recall his illustrious father-in-law by liis second marriage, Lord Rosebery, to realise that the Marquis of Crewe is 76. Lord Crewe, who was one of Margot’s youthful circle, remains still the repository of the almost extinct grand manner. But he was once Lord-in-Waiting to Queen Victoria. He has been Minister af War and a most tactful Ambassador to France. The study and the library have attracted his tastes more than the hunting field or the covert, and hial speeches used to have a literary flavour* They read better than they soundedj perhaps because their delivery was dullj md rather halting. One felt that tho orator was choosing his words. Lordj 3rewe is tall and spare, and in his offi4 dal robes. makes a truly imposing But he can enjoy a joke. NEW WINE IN OLD BOTTLES. The paying guest is not, after all, the eery last resource of the owner of OldCountry manners, though the Americans, in particular, will find it difficult to resist the lure of staying in a duke's castle. Apparently the earne idea underlies one of the latest of our country house clubs. For a grand old manorial house has been secured as its headquarters all complete with avenues of trees, glorious lawns, delightful lakes and sufficient accommodation for an up-to-date aerodrome. Nor is this all. Not only has the house itself been taken over but many old family pictures have been secured as well. Club members, during the intervals of bagatelle or a game of will be able to study the masterpieres of Romney and Reynolds. AUTOMATIC ICES. Aa automatic slot machine for ice creams is the latest idea. One which has a storage capacity for 120 ices has been on view at Olympia. It faithfully and promptly delivers an icy bonne bouche in return fpr twopence. in the slot. This is the first machine of the kind shown in this country, though the device has already been tried in America. If we get another sizzling summer this year I shall be astonished if the automatic ice cream machine does not become a familiar scenic feature of London’s outdoor suburbs; in which, case, I presume we shall miss the recurrent cadence of the ice cream nian’s call down our London streets. He is the lineal descendant of the old muffin man, now almost an extinct figure in London and, where still existent, sadly reduced to the sale of crumpets. If the ice cream robot kills its human counterpart. one more tragic instance will be furnished of machine-made unemployment. CHECK. At last somebody has called a halt to the building of bathing pools in and around London. It will be remembered that these co-called Lidos, municipal and private, became a veritable epidemic during the hot months of last summer, when nearly everyone went swimming or sun bathing. Various London municipal bodies have constructed palatial establishments, where anyone so inclined may swim, dive, or acquire a mellow sunburn at the expense of the ratepayers. But I now hear that, in one borough, a proposal to build a £30,000 swimming pool and sun-bathing arena has been received with an indignant chorus of protest by the inhabitants, so much so that there is every probability of the scheme being dropped. Medical and other opinion ie strongly divided on the point whether these public bathing pools are healthy or distinctly otherwise. NOT SO NOVEL. A tremendous fuss is made nowadays about women going in for games and sport. Lady cricketers are still treated as a novelty and duly photographed as such. Yet, delving back in old records, I find that so long ago as 1747 there was a cricket match played on the Artillery Ground, now the headquarters of the H.A.C., between two teams of ladies. It was between the cricketing ladies of West Dean and Chilgrove, both localities in the same county. According to the old records, the match attracted •‘the greatest number of spectators of both sexes ever seen at any public diversion.” As for rowing girls, West Country annals reveal that, at regattas along the South Devon coast, such as that held every summer at Dawlisli on the Dart, women competed regularly, pulling heavy boats with the usual cumbersome oars, and acquitting themselves well enough to please even old professional watermen.