DOWN PETTICOAT LANE,

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 73, Issue 81, 5 April 1930, Page 3

DOWN PETTICOAT LANE,

A Race Ball The “trots” are to be celebrated in fit and proper style next week, for on the Saturday night a race ball will be held at the Elrick Cabaret, and the fun should be ‘‘fast and furious.” This is one of the first big dances of the season, so let’s hope there is just enough frost in the air to make dancing as delightful as it ought to be. Previous balls have all been most successful—last race night’s celebration, though held in summertime, was a very gay affair, with novelty dances and pretty frocks galore. As the next dance should introduce us to one another’s best new evening gowns, quite a fashion event may be predicted The Pioneer’s “Warden” Lady Bledisloe’s position carries with it a prodigious number of responsibilities, small and large, and not the least is the many connections with clubs and societies, which have been fostered by Governor-Generals’ wives in the past, and are now handed on, as a matter of course, to the next heiress. The wardenship of the Pioneer Club has already been accepted by Lady Bledisloe. This club, one of the oldest in New Zealand to provide women with social intercourse, has had many distinguished ladies occupying the position which Lady Bledisloe is to fill. Lady Alice Fergusson, Lady Jellicoe and Lady Islington were all “wardens” during their terms in New Zealand. Colour-Names The names of colours are baffling things, aren’t they? I saw in an Auckland paper the other day that somebody at a ball wore “paon blue velvet,” and spent five minutes wondering what paon blue might be, until it suddenly dawned on me that, after all, “paon’’ is merely our old friend “peacock,” a trifle Frenchified. The latest shades of green are mint and seaweed, and the curious thing about them is that they’re almost precisely the same —a deep, shadowy sort of green, darker than jade or leaf, but a good deal lighter than bottle green. And an Auckland bride the other day was married in a gown of what was described as “rose-mist georgette.” It does sound rather adorable, doesn’t ft? The beautiful thing is that if you make up a shade of your gown, all by yourself, nobody dares to stop the christening. There are so many colours that one more or less hardly matters. Retarded Classes

There’s rather a fuss going on in a North Island school just now about the ‘‘retarded” classes. One small boy, it appears, was transferred thither without his mother’s knowledge, and was afraid to tell her about it. In a letter to the Board, she alleged that the class was known to the other children as “the fools’ class,” and that normal infants were rather apt to point the finger of scorn at those forced to at-

tend it. She also queried whether her boy’s time w r as suitably occupied in learning to make beaded serviette rings. The Board, although pointing out that such jobs came in the handwork section, were rather dubious as to whether boys are the right people for such work. In the ordinary course of events, a mother is always consulted before her child is transferred to the retarded class, and there is no doubt that such classes are absolutely necessary for the general progress of schools. But any slighting reference from normal children to the unfortunate little “backwards” is sufficient to undo all the good produced by the classes, for once a retarded child is imbued with the idea that there is something contemptible or disgraceful rtout his status in the school, the teacher’s grip is lost at once. Nothing should be more stringently impressed on the normal classes than a sense of chivalry towards backward pupils.