People and Their Doings.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20363, 21 July 1934, Page 10

People and Their Doings .

The Shearer who Rose to be Prime Minister of Australia : Two Good Stories of Elizabeth Bergner : Is Don Bradman s Name \ Misspelt? : A Youthful Golf Champion.

TWO GOOD STORIES are told about Elisabeth Bergner, the actress from Berlin, who has been appearing in London, and who was recently seen by Christchurch movie patrons in “ Catherine the Great.” In “ Strange Interlude ” in Berlin Bergner was supposed to wail and cry on the announcement of her father’s death. One night she could not. “ He’s dead,” came the gloomy O’Neillian announcement (someone’s always dying in Eugene O’Neill’s plays.) Bergner gasped, but not a tear came. “My father is dead,” she repeated, stalling for time: then, with a flash of inspiration, added, “ And I cannot shed a tear. How awful! Isn’t it true that in life we cry over the most trivial things, while when we lose our dearest there are no tears to tell our grief?” The audience found this far more moving than when she had cried as she was supposed to. In another play in Berlin her leading man wore a false moustache. “I can’t, bear that ridiculous thing,” she cried while the performance was proceeding. “ It’s false, and you know it. and take it right off!” Whereupon she gave one mighty tug. and off it came! To the furious director afterwards she explained blithely that she hated moustaches, and it was the only way to stop the actor wearing one., 12? PEOPLE when working at a task requiring concentration are annoyed by music; others find that music serves as a subconscious relaxation during their work which helps the task along. New tests just reported to “ The Journal of the Acoustical Society” from Tokio Imperial University indicate that at the end of a whitecollared worker's day of adding figures a little soft music as office background noise would increase his efficiency. Juichi Obata, Sakae Morita, Ivinichi Ilirose and Hiroshi Matsumoto, of the Japanese University, tested the efficiency of both children and adults under the following sound conditions: complete silence, monotonous noise of pebbles rattling in a box, a scratching noise and loud and soft photograph records. Before fatigue developed it was found that ordinary noise cut down the efficiency 1 per cent. Music at this time seemed to produce a greater reduction in efficiency. A phonograph -record played softly decreased efficiency by 3 per cent, while one plaj’ed loudly cut down accuracy 6 per cent. The type of music played, whether jazz, symphonic orchestra selections, instrumental solos, children’s songs or marches, seemed to make little difference. The intensity of the sound appeared as a predominating factor.

JT IS THIRTY YEARS since W. M. Hughes, K.C., was admitted to the Bar, along with W. A. Holman and D. K. ■■ : - Hall, the solicitor. It is

be back .again in a few years. “ Nobody has ever studied women’s fashions from the purely scientific point of view,” he says, “ and they ought to be studied as carefully as geology. You can trace the whole social and psychological history of a nation through the vanities of its women, and that is w r hat I have tried to do.” Talking of present-day fashions, he says; 44 We have done with the perpendicular, straight-up-and-down, unfeminine phase that always manifests itself in women’s dress after a great war, and are taking tp kinder, more romantic ways. The fashionable broadening of the shoulders is an unmistakable sign, but, because it gives a top-heavy effect, you will find fashion will soon try to counteract that by a sweeping width at the bottom of the skirt. Then, to give an effect of slenderness between those two broad lines, women will take to tight lacing again.” sS? & JJOW did Australia’s most famous batsman come by his surname of Bradman? That question troubles his greataunt, Mrs Mary Bradnam, whose home is in Wadham Terrace, London. 44 Our family name is Bradnam,” she complains, 44 but Don is always called Bradman. We cannot understand how the difference in the name has arisen. It must have started when Don’s family first went to Australia. People often make mistakes with our name. It is possible that they were called Bradman so often that they gave up trying to correct it.” $F 9 J£ING LEOPOLD’S third child and second son was given the names of Albert Humbert Felix Theodore Christian Eugene Marie and the title of Prince of Liege. He will probably be known as Prince Albert of Liege, and this will be the first time the Royal family has taken the title of this ancient principality. His private baptism took place shortly after the little prince’s birth, in the usual way, but the christening cqremony will be performed by Cardinal van Roev, Archbishop of Malines, probably in the Church of Ste. Gudule. The Chateau of Stuyvenberg. where the baby was baptised, is the villa on the outskirts of Brussels where the King and Queen passed their early married life. They have always loved it for its simple, country setting and live there as much as they can, though State affairs keep them a good deal now at the more formal Chateau of Laeken.

twenty-five years since W. M. Hughes appeared in Court in Sydney, and seventeen years since he was made d K.C., and, as he had made no Court appearances before a Judge since he was first permitted to “ sport silk,” he appeared at the Sj r dney session of the New

... ~~ States Commission in civilian attire. He is grey and withered and extremely deaf, but in all essentials he seems unchanged—the same alert, keenvisioned, resourceful figure, the same fluent and sometimes ironical and vitriolic speaker as in the more spacious days of old. Shearer, umbrella mender, school teacher leader of wharf-lumpers, journalist, M.P.’, Prime Munster of Australia—he has lived through many strange scenes and circumstances, and dominated them all.

& H? '^s M ISS PAMELA BARTON, at the age of seventeen, has this year been runnerup m the British Ladies’ Open Championship and won the French Women’s Championship. Writing in “Golf Illustrated” Miss Wanda Morgan states that the history of Miss Barton s taking up golf is interesting. At the age of thirteen she was in the school cricket eleven, and was admitted to be one of the best wielders of the bat. A^° ut thl . s her father noticed her ittmg a ball round the garden with one ° . |} JS c lubs, and he was so impressed j t L e n ? tural aptitude displayed by the child that he successfully encouraged her to drop the pursuit of other games and to concentrate on golf. Too young to be a memArvi usec * to occasionally at Royal Mid-Surrey, and her prowess so impressed the members that eventually a special rule was introduced permitting girls of sixteen to r become members of the club. But the W r est Middlesex has the right to the honour of fostering Miss Barton’s golf. W T hen the Royal Mid-Surrey would not have her because of her age. it was that club which admitted her to membership.

9 SP 9 J)R C. WILLETT CUNNINGTON, who in six years has made himself one of the greatest experts in England on women’s dress and follies, says that there is not the smallest doubt that real tight lacing will